On the other hand, both systems owe their existence in part to government saber-rattling that they would impose actual regulation. Some attempts at actual legal enforcement have been struck down over the years.

I do agree with you that a lot of rules on kids even in our "free countries" were hypocritical and didn't actually work.

Kids shouldn’t be playing games 5 hours a day and looking up to streamers. The government shouldn’t be involved in this.

I think the larger threat of gaming in today’s society is that we have a situation where the standards have gone up dramatically for everyone to be an average mediocre person. You will have to do something serious if you want a real career in the future. You will have to be social and socially astute to navigate social networks (pretty much as early as 10). The pressure is much higher at a much younger age, and chronic gaming is going to be the goto escape. We don’t have a reasonable enough society where gaming can just be an innocuous past time. It’s going to be a hideout for people growing up under the enormous pressure of this new world.

I expect drug use, and prescription medication use to be going up on exactly the same curve.

I'm against that but don't see it as overly authoritarian.