In South Korea, the addiction to online games is a major problem. The government has released advertisements to raise awareness. However, they went too far. In them, an elderly woman was hit to highlight the reality detachment of gamers.
As Kotaku reports, the South Korean Ministry of Health and Welfare launched an advertising campaign two weeks ago. The videos targeted video game addiction. Through them, players lose all connection to reality.
Some questions arise in the ad: “Do you hear video game music even when you’re not playing?”, “Can you tell the difference between the real world and the video game world?”, “Do some things look like characters from a video game to you?”
The criticism of the ads was primarily focused on one scene where a delirious video game junkie assaulted a nice grandma because he mistook her for a dark villain. This received so much backlash that they decided to create a toned-down version of the ad without this scene.
Here is the original ad (unfortunately without sound):
And here is the now toned-down ad (with sound):
Cover image: Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images
