Here's another sound sequence that can cause gamers to stop playing:

Parent: "Save it and turn that game off".

(May not work if parent doesn't have the spine to discipline their child)

Soundwave superior. Game addicts inferior.

@Shoehorn: Good idea except that in Korea, the parents ARE the addicts!

Has anyone seen the movie "They Live"? Ya well I think this technology might end up controlling everone. Soon the sound will order kids to go to college, get cubicle jobs and have 2.5 kids.

Hey, come on, these people dying off from gaming addiction is darwinism at work! For the good of the gene pool, I hope this sound doesn't work.

A note. That might sound rather crass, but honestly, these people are ignoring the needs of their own bodies. That's just insane. Hungry? Eat. It's not that hard.

This doesn't sound very safe...

I wonder if you could use it to get someone to do whatever you wanted??

...I could become Prime Minister in no time!

mwahahahahaha....

One would think the shitty games Korea is into would be enough to make them want to stop playing.

"... transmitted 10,000 to 20,000 times a second ..."

If only there was a unit of measure to represent this. ;)

Wow, to me that is just incredibly sad that a company has to send subliminal messages to get people to stop gaming so essentially don't die.

I've been known to do some non-stop 8 hour sessions, but then my stomach physically throws down the controller and tells me to take a break and eat. I oblige.

what a great picture. :D

...so start playing against the Koreans because you never know when they'll get zapped and then POW! -INSTANT WIN!

Web-addict? Cause I use it a lot I guess? omg I'm using my hands! I'm a hand-addict, and this air and food I'm addicted!!! And boobs I love boobs...well I mean I already knew I was a boob-addict so nothing new there...boobies

so... where do we get to hear this sound? i want to test it.

It's not subliminal messages. the thing here was discussed in Slashdot already. High frequency sounds can only be heard by youngsters (older people's hearing is usually not that good)
Its not "hearing it better" it´s the difference between hearing and not hearing. Think of a dog whistle. So, it´s not really game related, it's just an annoying noise.

Er, why not just set it up so you can only play a certain amount of hours? It'd be easier and more effective to just require every console and computer game to have some setting that allows parents to limit gameplay. If AOL can make that happen, I don't see why Korea can't.

@Loonatick: Or, you could walk into a Korean cyber cafe and yell "I came to kick ass and chew bubblegum, and I'm all out of bubblegum" and watch everyone scatter.

Thing is, it isn't just kids that need help.This is grown adults overplaying as well.

@Bunn: And subliminal is defined as "Inadequate to produce conscious awareness but able to evoke a response." That is exactly what they are going for here. A sound that goes unnoticed but evokes a response. Where did you see this product discussed on Slashdot? I searched but couldn't find anything. I think you might be thinking of something else.

@Ren_Gamespeek:
Yeah, its terrible. Maybe its a sign of something deeper that these kids need treatment for?

They have been doing this in the UK for years now. Alot of stores where young people hang out, they use speakers to fire audiable sounds that younger people can hear. They even have it as cell phone ringers now.

subliminal messages haven't been proven to have any really affect. unless this is some kind of horrible screeching, i don't see how it would really work. if you have access to your kid's computer anyway, why not just turn it off? yank out the soundcard altogether, and see if they like to play it that way? my guess it that they would, but after a while get bored.

i don't know, besides - if korea stopped playing games, where would all those lazy kids get their $10 gil?

However since most kids will have degraded their hearing with the use of iPods this will be ineffective only mildly annoying an older demographic.

It's an addiction... I hope a workable solution comes along soon.

Also, can you stop some of my friends from smoking? That kills too.

@Scazza:

I heard about that. They call it the mosquito right? Genius. Genius more so that kids adapted it for inaudible ringtones.

@Throtex:

That's crazy talk. Next thing, you'll want to call it something crazy like "Hertz" or some other nonsense.

Are you sure it's not a subliminal message in Korean?

I ask because the article says that the sounds can be customized with different "messages." If they were just simple frequency sounds, how would message customization be possible?

@Jabbertrack: Yeah. They're decent, but nothing that's ever addicted me.

I take it this is in South Korea because I would think the threat of death from even owning a mobile phone in North Korea would be enough to put them off.

I really don't understand how you can be so obsessed to the point of not bathing and eating unless you are a stalker of some kind. How can you just ignore a natural urge to eat?

Sadly after this summer when Bay's abomination hits, explaining to kids that the picture on this article is of a Transformer will become much harder.

Clockwork Orange, anyone?

@insomniabob:

Oh, darwinism you say? Well then, stop taking medicines and stop visiting the doctor, if you contract a disease that means your bad for the gene pool and should just die. Oh and if you get a handicaped son be sure to kill him quickly so that his bad genes don't spread.

Think before posting...

In other news, a sudden rise in the number of kids playing games with the sound turned off...

@TakeoNinja: In the long run that would definately make humans much stronger, and more adaptable. Using all these modern medicines is making humans that much more weaker for the future. There is medicine for everything, its pretty pathetic.

"But our newly developed sound sequence tells them to stop playing on their own."

Something about that sounds wrong. If you're telling them to get off the computer with a sound wave, surely thats not them choosing to leave of their own free will?

My computer just told me to go do something else and then called me a fat imperialist.

No more LG parts for me!

A reference to They Live, then Clockwork Orange, in the same thread. I award this thread the thread of the year.