Hidden photos of e-sports hotels
ChinaIt was late at night when 16-year-old Tingting was staying with a stranger at the E-Sports Hotel, only to leave after a call to the police.
A narrow bed, two large computers with curved screens, the smell of burning smoke still lingers in a room less than 10 square meters. This is the statement. China Youth Daily About China’s famous e-sports hotel with basic “configuration”.
This model hails from Japan at a time when internet coffee chains were not attractive in China. Each room in this hotel is usually designed for 2-5 people. Guests come here not to stay, but to use offline computers to play games with friends. E-sports hotels respond enthusiastically to young people, but it comes with many risks.
At E-Sports Hotel, Jiangxi Province, China. See: Excursion
A few days ago, TingTing asked to book a room in an esports hotel to play games. A few hours after signing up, she invited more friends to play with her, including Xiaohu, a 16-year-old boy. In the evening, the roommate left TingTing and Xiaohu one by one. Xiaohu rushed to hug and kiss Tongtin. The young girl struggled desperately. After calling the police, she was finally able to leave.
This particular case is being handled by Guo Chenchen, deputy director of the Wubin District People’s Procuratorate in Changzhou, Jiangsu Province. The fact that both Xiaohu and TingTing are minors makes things more complicated than usual.
Soon after, Jiangsu police arrested six other teenagers at the E-Sports Hotel for theft. This group stayed in the hotel for several days because they had no money to pay, they went stealing.
Another little boy, Xiaohao from Xiu Tian, Jiangsu, was “stuck” in the E-Sports Hotel for several days. The hotel offered everything from eating, playing, sleeping, so I didn’t go home, I didn’t go to school. Xiaohao’s parents are often on business trips and were unaware of their son’s condition until the school notified him of his absence for several days.
The dangers of the e-sports hotel model are worrying parents and Chinese regulators. “I went to these e-sports hotels, in my opinion it’s a high-end internet cafe, but it looks like a hotel. The borders are not very clear, so this model creates big problems in monitoring. Supervisors and manager units,” said Guo Chenchen.
The Jiangsu People’s Procuratorate and law enforcement agencies held three symposia to gather the opinions of experts and scholars to determine which side should be governed by the e-sports hotel model. They also conducted over 20,000 polls to get people’s opinions. Eventually, officials discovered that e-Sports Hotel is an Internet service business model. And one of the important provisions of the law is prohibiting businesses from providing internet access to minors. Hoteliers need to implement a program that verifies the identity of customers using some popular games like League of Legends.
However, that doesn’t stop students from looking for eSports hotels. In the reporter’s investigation China Youth Daily, Most hoteliers offer a “Digital ID Rental” service for 3 yuan (10 VND) for 2 hours.
Professor Chen Aiyu of Nanjing Normal University Law School said, “China’s legal system for protecting minors is constantly improving, but there are still many big gaps. It’s the emergence of a pattern. New ventures like e-sports hotels will lead to more. Blind scrutiny and law enforcement failures that pose many dangers to the public.
In the traditional internet cafe model, he said, young children could still cheat the identity verification system to “play the game,” but they couldn’t stay in one place forever because the convenience of an internet cafe wouldn’t allow it. However, the eSports hotel model can lead to overruns, closures, overcrowding of rooms and negative chain reactions in society.
“Hotel rooms are filled with the smell of drugs, and other rooms are filled with the noise of players’ screams and arguments. At the end of the corridor, in dimly lit corners, a man and woman are holding hands. Old Lin Xiao visited the “e-sports” hotel, it seems to be a good place for a romantic relationship.
Professor Chen Aiyu worries that the poorly managed e-sports hotel model could easily expose minors to online games, provocative and obscene videos for a long time. It severely impairs cognition, promotes violence and antisocial tendencies.
Kung Nha (Consequences China Youth Daily)