The Country That Shut Down Xbox Live for Kids

By TheySayImTheOne
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Updated: January 9, 2012

Every night across the globe, kids log into Xbox Live and game online. They should be studying or sleeping, but they’re gaming. Except in South Korea.

Last year, South Korea enacted a “Shutdown Law” designed to block online gaming for a nightly six-hour block. It was apparently created with PC gaming in mind, hoping to ensure Korean youth get six hours of sleep each night by banning online gaming between midnight and 6am.

Youth under sixteen years old are banned from gaming online during this nightly block.

While online PC gaming, which is huge in South Korea, might have been the initial target, the Shutdown Law impacted console gaming, too. In fall 2011, Sony banned players under the age of sixteen from making new PSN accounts as well as prohibited them from logging into the PSN.

At that time Sony said it was difficult to implement age-specific measures in such a short window of time.

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