SA gears for online gaming risks

As the online gaming market continues to expand, SA is not ready to overcome the risk posed by the industry to cyber safety of children.

This is according to Film and Publication Board (FPB), which says the country will have to act fast to gear its self to protect children against the risks posed by this development.

The CEO of FPB, Yoliswa Makhasi, says at the moment SA does not have the capabilities to monitor online gaming. “We need to act fast to overcome this challenge that awaits us ahead. We need the technology to monitor online gaming so that it does not pose risks to the children.”

FPB promises that it is currently in the process of preparing systems, to ensure online child safety.

“At the moment we only do physical compliance monitoring we want to now include online monitoring as well. We need the expertise as well as the platforms to do this, we are also working on securing funds to deliver this,” Makhasi says.

For now, she says, we can only to call parents to familiarise themselves with the Internet and what it can offer especially when it comes to gaming.

“They should monitor their children to prevent exposure to violence as well as pornography which are the themes of some of the online games,” she says. She also pleads with the government to ensure that it integrates cyber child protection in the curriculum.

Vicki Myburgh, entertainment and media industry leader for PWC Southern Africa says the online gaming industry poses a risk to the cyber safety of children all over the world and SA is definitely no different.

“In developing countries, such as SA, although the level of broadband penetration is still relatively low, there is an even greater risk to children due to the lack of awareness and available resources, for example time that parents are available to provide adequate supervision,” she says.

Myburgh believes the challenges will certainly grow once children are on the Internet (regardless of the purpose), the risk is present that they will be exposed to inappropriate content through, such as advertisements and pop up windows. “There is also the risk that the game they choose to play contains excessive violence or otherwise age-inappropriate content,” she points out.

Although tools exist to mitigate the risk to some extent, like using pop up blockers, site blockers without fulltime supervision, the risk of improper access will always remain present.

In addition, according to her, many parents or supervisors often do not realise the extent of the risk that children face once they are online, “and do not therefore react on a timely basis by ensuring the necessary safeguards are in place and that their children are properly educated about these risks”.

According to the first edition of the PWC's South African Entertainment and Media Outlook, a key driver of online gaming will be the growth in the broadband universe because most games require a broadband connection to be played effectively.

The report revealed that the broadband universe in SA grew by 50% over the past two years, but penetration remains low at only 600 000 households. “Over the same period, the number of online video game subscribers almost tripled to 65 000 from 25 000 in 2007.”

PWC anticipates the number of broadband subscribers to increase almost five-fold during the next five years to 2.9 million in 2014, a 36.6% compound annual increase from 2009, says Myburgh.

“We expect the penetration of online players to decrease from 10.8% in 2009 to 8.8% in 2014, due to the huge increase in broadband households.”

Despite the decrease in penetration levels, we expect the number of online players to quadruple from 65 000 in 2009 to 250 000 in 2014, she adds.

Online and mobile games will be the fastest-growing end-user categories with compound annual increases of 21.3% and 12.3%, respectively. Online games will total $30.6 billion in 2014 and mobile games $13.1 billion, says PWC report.

The console game market will continue to be driven over the next few years by new games being marketed for the current generation of consoles; the Nintendo Wii, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

The latest handheld devices, the Nintendo DS, the PlayStation PSP and the PSP Go also continue to support the market.

Experts assures that, Internet gaming can be a safe and enjoyable online activity if people educate themselves and practice the basic principles of good computer security.

Online gaming has many positive aspects and it has become a major source of entertainment, developed new industries and sources of revenue, and introduced new uses of the human imagination to millions of people, it adds.

However, it is important to know and guard against the risks associated with the Internet gaming world to keep it safe and enjoyable for all, PWC advises.