 Want to play Minecraft in South Korea? You must be over 19! In many parts of the world, Mojang's blocky building game is used as a teaching aid, thanks to its popularity with younger gamers. Microsoft has even created dedicated educational tools for use by teachers within Minecraft. In South Korea, though, Microsoft has instead elected to restrict the game so that only players over 19 can access the popular Java edition. Why? Because in South Korea, it's illegal for children to play online games after midnight. Special thanks to our Patreon supporter Yoon Park for requesting this video topic, as it's a fascinating opportunity to explore what can happen when games companies and governments take the path of least resistance when approaching video game regulation. Gaming has a bad reputation in South Korea. Moral panic around video game addiction has been fueled by local reports of young gamers spending hours playing games to the point of physical exhaustion. In an effort to appease parent groups, in 2011 the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family introduced the Youth Protection Prevention Act, which was designed to force children to put down their computer games and get some sleep. The act is often referred to as the Cinderella Law, as it prevents underage children from playing games after midnight and before 6am. The law immediately began causing problems. In 2012, then 15-year-old esports star Lee Life Se-yong Hyun had to abruptly end an online StarCraft match when he realised that it was nearly midnight and that his access to the game was about to be cut off, leaving Western viewers and commentators baffled as to what had happened. Of course, a law that restricts access to online games was never going to be practical. There are plenty of loopholes. For example, the Cinderella Law does not restrict access to mobile games, which is increasingly the largest sphere of online gaming in South Korea. What's more, video game companies have faced tough challenges in actually implementing the law. Most servers are not designed to differentiate between players based on age and appropriately filter out the youngest players at a certain time. For many companies, the easier, cheaper solution is to simply ban anyone underage from accessing a game, even if the game in question is completely age-appropriate. Such is the case with Microsoft. Players in South Korea under the age of 19 are simply not allowed to play online games, regardless of the time of day. Until recently, Minecraft was an exception to this restriction. Access to servers was granted through players Mojang accounts, which are set up to appropriately filter by age, allowing younger players to enjoy the game up until midnight. However, in December, the company began requiring all players to use Microsoft accounts to access Minecraft. Recently, a grace period for this transition ended, and Microsoft added a note to Minecraft's website which reads, For players in South Korea, you must be 19 years of age or older to purchase and play the Java edition of Minecraft. This has, yet again, stirred up a lot of debate around the law and its efficacy. The Ministry of Gender, Equality and Family argues that Microsoft has a duty to provide access to the game to children, with a spokesperson saying, Any responsible game company should make adjustments to different systems of different countries when it makes a policy change and make investments to protect its users. Meanwhile, there are debates around scrapping the Cinderella law entirely and replacing it with something more fitting for an increasingly digital age. This is the path preferred by Jun Ba Young-hun, Chairperson of the International Esports Federation. In 2017, he said, Older people think games poison the youth and take time from their studies, but this is wrong. It is like stopping the flow of a river. The support policy should be to help the water not to flood and lead them to the right paths. By doing so, we can maximise the effectiveness of the regulations. The Cinderella law is anachronistic. I've been vigorously campaigning to eradicate it. Games should be established as a leisure culture within family. Trying to restrict them creates bigger side effects. It's unclear at this stage what will happen next with the Cinderella law and access to Minecraft and other online games. The moral of the story, though, is clear. Taking the easy way out with regards to gaming legislation only creates more problems.