Clever Chinese gamers and Chinese game companies are finding creative ways to get around government rules designed to restrict how long people can play for.

Massively multiplayer online games are incredibly popular in China, where, by some estimates, more than 25 million young people while away the hours with virtual mayhem. In fact, with that number a year old, it's likely that another few million have since logged in and looked for fresh skulls to cleave.

But all has not been smooth sailing in the real world where, about a year ago, the Chinese Government took interest in the problem of "online game addiction". A series of alarming stories about youngsters unable to tear themselves away from computers and in some cases killing themselves after extended gaming sessions prompted both government action and lawsuits.

Do you feel joyous, punk?

The result was the "Fatigue System", mandated for a range of China's most popular games and launched late last year. The idea was to encourage players to find something else to do with their time by limiting the amount of "experience points" they could earn in a given period of time: Full points for the first 3 hours of play in a day, half experience for the next 2 hours, and no experience after that.

Well, you don't have to be 50th-level wizard to see the flaws in this system. This week, China-based technology consulting firm Marbridge Consulting sent around a newsletter item summarizing a Chinese news report that listed how both game companies and gamers are flummoxing the system:

In a clear attempt to bypass the effects of the system, one well-known game operator has recently launched a "1.5x Experience Card". A gamer who has reached the 5-hour limit can purchase this card to start earning 1.5 times the normal experience points, thereby negating the effect of the anti-fatigue system.

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One gamer listed three ways of beating the system: Apply for one more account and use the two in turn; simply switch between different games; or the most popular method--play on a pirate server.

In the race between enormous state bureaucracies and nimble computer gamers, it's not hard to predict who will win. Still, the Fatigue System is expected to move out of trial and into full deployment later this year.

Of course, this is China, and if the Government gets truly worried, it could always simply do something drastic. But that seems unlikely. As alarming as the social costs of online games may be, the Government will also be wary of torpedoing the fortunes of a number of China's overseas-listed online game companies. A few of the operators have already complained that the Fatigue System is hurting their revenues, but some analysts suggest that this is due more to the staleness of their titles than the Fatigue System.

If anything prompts the Government to take more drastic action on online games, it probably won't be the occasional suicidal geek. Rather, it will be the ability of the online games to act as a mass organizing tool. We saw shades of this recently when a "Japanese flag" in an online game space prompted an online demonstration reported to have involved around 10,000 people. But a tool that can reach tens of thousands of young people simultaneously and prompt the online demonstrations could also prompt offline demonstrations, which are not well-regarded here. If you want to see the Government move fast to restrain online games in China, wait until that happens.