The Ministries of Culture and Information and of Public Security unveiled Thursday an ordinance on online game management which is expected to come into effect late this month.

Accordingly, the quota scheme imposes penalties on players who spend more than three hours a day playing a game by halving the gained points of their virtual character in the following two hours.

Beyond these five hours gamers’ characters can no longer gain points or levels.

Besides, online game shops have to locate at least 200 meters from the nearest school, and can only open from 6am to 11pm, the ordinance says.

Children under 14 years old playing at the online game shops must be accompanied by adults, it also says.

Online game providers have to “implement technical measures to control playing time,” the regulation adds.

Besides, the providers have to be responsible for “service quality, safety, information security, service rates” and ensure “legitimate rights” of service users.

The ordinance also forbids these businesses from “creating valuable [virtual] assets designed for speculation or profitable trade.”

However, the ordinance did not involve the much-debated issue of users’ ownership of their virtual assets because it was “too complicated,” Do Quy Doan, Deputy Minister of Culture and Information, admitted.

The ordinance included some provisions on players’ rights which demanded service providers to ensure “legitimate rights” at a certain level of players on their virtual property, Doan said.

However, since virtual assets are different from real assets, “it is impossible to establish the same rights for virtual asset owners [as for real asset owners],” he stressed.

The Vietnam Software Association (VINASA) in April calculated that a Vietnamese gamer spends an average of $50 a year.

The Vietnamese online game market with now estimated 2 million gamers has very high potentials and was expected to earn revenues of up to US$100 million in the coming years, VINASA said.

Reported by Hoang Ly – Translated by The Vinh