Two online game firms have been caught violating the "shutdown system," which limits teenagers under 16 from logging onto game sites from midnight to 6 a.m. the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family said Monday.
After checking whether providers of 314 Internet games here were abiding by the online game curfew over the past five months, the ministry found that two online game companies were allowing minors to play games after midnight.
It also asked the firms to prevent teenagers from accessing 24 cyber games promptly from midnight as under-aged users were still able to play for up to 10 more minutes past the deadline.
"We have referred the two Internet game providers to police for violating the Juvenile Protection Law. We also demanded they strictly follow the shutdown system to keep minors from playing games past midnight," a ministry official said. "We found 287 online games, or 91.4 percent of the total 314, implementing the online curfew. We will inspect 1,000 more Internet games by the year's end."
Under the shutdown system, which went into effect last November as part of government efforts to combat adolescents' addiction to online computer games, gamers aged 16 or under are banned from playing between midnight and 6 a.m. Their connection to games on the Internet is automatically severed during that time.
Game providers who violate the rules are subject to up to two years in prison or a fine of 10 million won. Mobile games have been excluded from the restriction, but will be considered in 2014.
The ministry also said it discovered 161 illegal online game sites and asked the Game Rating Board to block access to these sites.
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