Nighttime gaming banned in Vietnam

PC gaming parlors are big business across Asia, even in communist countries like Vietnam. However, the Southeast Asian nation will soon be flexing its governmental muscles to crack down on all online gaming during nighttime hours, according to a Vietnam News report.

According to the English-language government daily, the Ministry of Information and Communication is moving to stop nighttime online gaming on the grounds that it will "mitigate the side effects of online games." The paper did not elaborate on what those side effects were, but it did say that it would ask Internet service providers to block all online gaming daily from 10 p.m. to 8 a.m. by March 3.

The daily was clear that that ISPs and PC gaming parlors that did not cooperate would suffer the consequences. "Provincial departments of information and communication will inspect online games activities nationwide and deal with organizations that violate regulations by cancelling their services," said ministry deputy minister Le Nam Thang in a statement.

The move comes after numerous tough actions taken by the Ministry of Information and Communication, including cutting Internet access to PC gaming parlors at night starting last fall. The current decree will only be temporary, though, with a revised measure that will allow for more normal Internet access at night to be reinstated in the "near future." Currently around 26 percent of the Vietnamese population, or 23 million people, use the Internet.