Chinese Government to Require MMO Players to Register Their Real Names
China announced a radical new measure to keep citizens’ MMO addictions in check: mandatory real-name registration with the government for all newly-created accounts.
Plans for the system have existed since at least 2006, and according to the state-run newspaper People’s Daily, four online game companies have so far had their operations “suspended” for not linking their products to the government database.
Adult gamers at the time expressed objections to being lumped in with younger gamers, who tend to display a higher potential for addictive behavior. Concerned were also raised regarding similarities to the real-name accountability systems that govern Chinese citizens’ blogs, online music, and mobile-phone systems – however, as noted in Ars Technica, it appears that these critics had little choice in the matter as the real-name system was turned into law essentially unchanged.
