▲ Lee Eunkyung (eunklee94@korea.ac.kr), Senior Reporter, The Granite Tower (GT)

Already way past midnight, a teenage boy is still awake. His fingers freely roam around a square keyboard, clicking several buttons rhythmically. His eyes are glued to a screen with various hues flashing. Once in a while, triumph soaks into his facial expression. Otherwise, he sometimes looks puzzled. The teenager is playing an online game in the middle of the night and this has long been a common scene in Korea.

Online game addiction is not something new to confront. It has long been dealt with and many people think that playing internet games exceedingly can be problematic. Violent games can deteriorate healthy minds so far as to cause wild shootings. Not just the mentality, but the physicality is largely influenced. Overindulgence leads to headaches, insomnia, and indigestion.

As a countermeasure, the Online Shutdown Policy was put to practice on November 20, 2011. The policy forces the limitation on online game access for adolescences under 16 years old. Often called the “Cinderella Law,” the subjects of the law cannot play games for six hours after midnight. If violated, the providers are to be sent to jail up to two years or pay a fine up to 10,000,000 won.

The introduction of the policy provoked keen interests from various classes within society. The main advocates of the shut-down are the members of the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family. They assert that the regulation is needed to protect teenagers’ health. However, the Online Shutdown Policy became questionable in terms of violating teenagers’ rights of playing games, parents’ rights of education, and rights to equality. Eventually, several organizations, including the Korea Association of Game Industry and some individuals, filed petitions claiming that the policy is against the Constitution.

After three years, the Constitutional Court ruled that the Online Game Shutdown Policy is constitutional on April 24. The result went against many people’s expectations. Nine judges handed down their opinions. Out of them, only two claimed the policy to be unconstitutional. The other judges asserted the opposite.

But frankly speaking, there are doubts toward the court ruling. The intimidation toward rights has not been solved yet. Families keep different rules about playing games, depending on the surroundings. The law discards such diverse sets of selections away from parents. In the case of the game industries, the law might seem appropriate as it is applied to both foreign and domestic industries. However, minor game industries’ economic rights may be infringed since they have to spend large sums in setting a system to follow the legislation. This would be a burden as they have limited assets for developing new games, unlike major industries.

In modern society, one of the biggest jackpots is culture. Cultural contents dominate many areas such as economics and politics. Online gaming has been one of the main consisting cultural factors of Korea. In this sense, the compulsory means may result in violating its cultural autonomy. Excessive interruption toward cultural diversity and autonomy may lead to violating the principle of a cultured nation, which is one of the basic principles of the Constitution.

The verdict goes against the principle of legality in terms of its clarity. According to the principle, all laws should be clear in terms of their contents and the applied targets. However, the policy is not clear in that it confirms the subjects of the law to be “online games which are seemingly highly addictive.” Sure, online games are pretty easy to sort out. But the requirement of the games being “seemingly highly addictive” adds only an indefiniteness to the law.

The Online Game Shutdown Policy has been controversial since its legislation and its approved constitutionality appears to be even more disputable. One thing certain in this moment is that the opposition is still rising even right now