What's the best way to deal with game addiction?

Asian countries are often out in front of the rest of the world when it comes to open discussions of video game addiction, possibly because there are so many extreme cases in the news here. And countries like Korea and China are also at the forefront of making regulatory efforts to deal with game addiction.

But as Korea discusses its own Game Addiction Law, the country is also discussing an even more important question: are laws and regulations really the best way to deal with game addiction? And if so, what laws and regulations actually work?

For example, is the best way to approach the problem to restrict how much time people, especially children, can game for? Is it to strengthen mental health infrastructure to help treat addicts, or to increase the punishments for those parents who neglect their children over games? Is it to increase the availability of educational resources for parents, or to keep a closer regulatory watch over the games themsevles?

We’ll be taking a closer look at several aspects of game addiction in a feature series here on Games in Asia over the next few weeks. But first, we’d like to hear your opinions: what can society do about video game addiction? How can we approach this problem in a way that doesn’t hurt the games industry or the people who are addicted and need help?