Minecraft Classified as an Adult Game in South Korea

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The highly-popular Minecraft game is known for being a number of things. Among them it's kid-friendly graphics. But according to an article written by PC Gamer's Mollie Taylor, it's been labeled as an adults-only game in South Korea. 

Why designate the child-friendly game as for those 18 and over only? The Republic of Korea has a law banning minors 16 and under from playing games between Midnight and 6AM local time. Instead of going through the expense and hassle of developing an installing a method to keep those gamers in the country from playing their games those hours, Microsoft opted to just limit playing the game there to adults 19 years and older. 

At first the law didn't affect gameplay as Mojang accounts don't need age verification. But that changed in December 2020 as gamers there would need an Xbox Live account to access the game, and in March came a warning that anyone in the country wishing to get the game would need to be 18 or older. The result has been the game having a split age-rating in the country, officially labeled as 12 and up but thanks to Xbox is de-facto limited to those 18 and over. Naturally, the situation has gotten many in South Korea upset, "Korea will become [the only game market] where even Minecraft is reduced to an adult game."

When contacted by PC Gamer, Microsoft responded, "We’re working on a longer term solution for existing and new players under the age of 19 in South Korea and will have more to share on this later this year."

Source: PC Gamer
 

Announcement: Furry Fashion Changing Sim Rating to Adult

To Our Valued Patrons,

We have big changes coming to Furry Fashion and we want to make sure everyone is in the loop so things go smoothly!

2018 is bringing in a new Furry Fashion, we will be converting from a mature sim to an adult sim. So what does this mean for you?

It means more merchants, new themes, and new attractions!

Of course, it also means new rules. We want to be clear that we do not plan to be a "Yiff" sim, there are enough of them as there is. We will be welcoming adult attachments with some restrictions, and we will be having (private) adult attractions.

This also means we will be disallowing child avatars and products on sim as well. But fear not! We will have a separate FF branch for our merchants and patrons that enjoy these!

Thank you for taking time to read this, we hope 2018 will be a killer year for us and we look forward to working with you!

FF Management

Editors Note: Talking to owner Amethyst Crystal, she explained that the final decision was made only after lengthy discussion with the staff, including listening to the concerns of those with reservations about changing the sim rating. Certain behaviors are still not allowed, and the security personnel will still be enforcing those rules.

ZZ Studios Officially Becomes Age-Verified

Second Life Newser was recently in contact with one of the managers of ZZ Studios, an exotic adult-themed media company and social hangout, whose owner we interviewed in April. As of Monday June 20th, “the studio is going Age Verified officially.” The parcel the place is on will be for all effective purposes Adult-ranked.

ZZ Studios was moved to Falcon Valley before Second Life had an Adult rating for it’s sims. Even though the nature of the media sold was clearly adult, the company and club were never asked to move when the new rating was established. When Linden Lab merged the Teen Grid with the Main Grid, that did create some worries about minors possibly slipping in. Officially, the decision is because of the “very adult” subject matter of the studio, but worries about the teens were another reason.

The Falcon Valley sim is still ranked as “Mature.” What has changed is ZZ Studio's parcel itself will require those wanting in to be age-verified. Any group members who didn’t bother to get verified or refused to for privacy reasons will be blocked from entering.

Bixyl Shuftan