earticle

영어

According to Johan Huizinga (1949), as a Homo Ludens, man developed play (game) element in our culture during evolution. Roger Caillois (1961) categorized play into four groups: Agon (competition), Alea (probability), Mimicry (roleplaying), and Ilinx (altered perception). Current video/computer games are comprised of one or more of them combined. As these sociologists of game assert, game is one of the most basic and fundamental elements of our culture. However, some gamers become highly immersed in playing games, even to the degree of addiction. In 2013, National Assembly of Korea proposed a bill that would help alcoholics, drug addicts, gambling addicts and video game addicts. This caused huge social debates among experts and lay people. While some experts say that gaming addiction is not a truly existing phenomenon, some people say that we need law to regulate gaming in order to help prevent the addicts. These issues have become a problem of technological governance. This article analyzes 80 researches or so that may help us to learn about the problems and answers of the internet addiction, gaming addiction, and internet game (online game) addiction, or computer games for the youth in general. In order to maintain a well performed technological governance, first we need to know the characteristics of the issue. The author hopes that this article may be a ground study to start the scholastic discussion about the gaming governance in Korea.