Approximately 6 years ago, my home country introduced Ragnarok Online (often referred to as RO) to students in all of Malaysia. It was an effort by the Government to keep boh sia kids (students who play truant and loiter in shopping malls, dangerous and quiet alleys etc.) home. I guess it worked for awhile because my sister Ying and brother were hooked on it.RO is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game. What it means is that hundreds of players will be able to play the game simultaneously online so everything happens in real time. These days, there are many of such games. There is Maple Story (which is the one I'm addicted too), World of Warcraft and many more...
My question is, whilst the Government is able to keep students off the streets, how are they able to control the amount of time these students spend playing games? I play these games almost every night after I come back from work and some of the players I meet are as young as 9! I see them online on weekends too. So introducing these games, are they more harm than cure? Think about it...
