How Can Ho Chi Minh City Stop Its Porn Game Problem?

Adult video games are flooding Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh City. Time to fight the good fight. Or the not-so-good fight. Whichever!

Touch screen games asking players to discern the differences between sexy girls have been popping up in Vietnamese arcades — often in plan view of others. This has alarmed some. “How can kids play this game?” asked one mother, reports website VietNamNet Bridge.

These games are being written off “too simple” and “for kids” by some Vietnamese gamers, who prefer to play online PC adult games. “We play many games of ‘higher class’ on the Internet,” says college student Thanh Hoang, who provided URLS for porn games with seemingly harmless names like “kungfu”, “snake hunting”, “chess”, and “piling bricks”. According to VietNamNet Bridge:

For instance, “snake hunting” features a girl wearing showing her décolleté and wearing a Santa Claus hat. The more gamers win points, the more her clothes are taken off until she is entirely nude. Other games featuring sexy girls have more direct names: “shoot to remove clothes”, “XXX chess”, “XXX action game”, and “penis hammer”. Many of these free games are very graphic and full of sexual pictures. Gamers control characters to make love and in the game forums, players make “open” comments about sex.

This paragraph can be summarized into two words: penis hammer! Games like these are widely available…everywhere. The issue for Ho Chi Minh city is that underage kids are accessing these titles not just in arcades, but in internet cafes. And since there is an audience for these titles, the operators of these venues are supplying their customers with what they want. Screw parental controls.

In the street and shops, game discs with images of scantily clad or nude girls are apparently sold for 20,000 dong (US$1.07). To combat the issue, the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Information and Communications has fined operators for offering games without a license. “We know about the porn games at shopping malls,” says Le Manh Ha, director of the HCM City Department of Information and Communications, “but the responsibility lies with other departments.”

Part of the issue is that the way these games are licensed and defined is unclear. “We asked for definition of violence and gambling to license such games,” adds Manh Ha, “but these definitions are still absent. We also requested to end the licensing of new games while these definitions are being drafted.”

Manh Ha added that the cooperation of players and families is necessary. “To restrict these harmful games, we need cooperation from three sides,” explains the director. “Players have to be aware of the uselessness and dangers of the games. Families have to educate their children about the harmfulness of these games. The state has to strengthen management over games.”

It sounds like Ho Chi Minh City Department of Information and Communications has its hands tied, but is this even realistic?

Porn games spread in HCM City [VietNamNet Bridge via GamePolitics]