South Korea Says StarCraft Like Gambling

Controversy has emerged in South Korea over a bill designed to combat addiction to computer games like StarCraft, the Associated Press reported.

The bill, which is backed by 14 ruling party members, includes provisions to limit advertising. A separate bill would take 1 percent of the gaming industry’s revenue to create a fund to curb addiction. These might seem insignificant, but it has the gaming industry there in a dizzy.

Game makers reportedly have said that the bill is a death sentence for their industry.

The AP pointed out that “a law passed in 2011 that bans gaming between midnight and dawn for anyone under age 16 is being appealed at South Korea’s Constitutional Court…[as] the government started studying Internet game addiction in 2011. Its latest annual study found that two percent of South Koreans aged 10-19, or about 125,000 people, needed treatment for excessive online gaming or were at risk of addiction.”

StarCraft has a poker connection. Some of the world’s top online poker players have experience playing the game, which helps develop the ability to multi-table. The most famous poker pro with a StarCraft background is Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier, who used to compete in Korea.

It’s unclear if the government will be allowed to do what it’s intending.

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