The new system, developed under the guidance of the GAPP, stops individuals from playing online games for more than three hours by cutting the abilities of game characters. The new system cuts the ability level of a player's online game character by half after he or she has played for more than three consecutive hours. Once a player has played for more than five consecutive hours, the system cuts the ability level of that player's character to the lowest level allowed by the game.

The system also lowers the ability of players to find treasures or prizes available in an online game after they have played for more than three consecutive hours.

Furthermore, the system keeps track of hours of play. Individuals who immediately log back onto a game after three hours of consecutive play will continue to have the ability of their game character lowered by the system. Players must be logged off for a minimum of five hours before the system resets.

Because they keep dying after playing for 48 hours straight, or forgetting they have kids/jobs/etc... I'm not saying the new system is right, but asian countries (Korea in particular, though China seems to be picking up too) do seem to have an increasing fanaticism with MMO's, and they obviously felt something had to be done to keep it under control. 3 hours is perhaps a bit stingy - 5 hours on for every 5 hours off might have been more reasonably - but its better than some sort of outright ban.

Why not let HL2 owners play single-player without having to connect to steam?

Why's that?

Must be amazing when you aren't allowed to decide for how long you want to play a computer game.