Epidemic of Internet Gaming of Young Schoolers

This summer, my brother called me that his son dropped school. His son has been playing internet games during the recent three years in internet Cafe in China. He is so absorbed in internet games and he lost any other interests in his school work. He often plays in internet cafe for all day and all night. He even steal money from home to play games. Game became his most important part of his life. Finaly, he quit school,  and find a position in a internet cafe.
Yesterday, when I was pick my little daughter Amy, I chatted with a lady. She told me that if she does not pay attention to her son, he will play games all the day. Now, she has a strict rule for her son's game playing. She told me that her son should ask permission from her if he want to play game for only very limited time.
A friend of mine has a son in high school now. When he is little, his academics were exellent. I admired this friend for the way raising children 8 years ago. However, the kid now is a high school sophmore, and he most got C and D even Fs. What is the reason? His mother was too busy to pay attention to him. He was playing game all the time.
Yesterday, my friend call me about her son. Her son is a very smart boy. He got all A's in the previous year. However, he did not want to go to school for some execuses. The apparent reason may be the new school, new classmates. The real reason is game playing. Recently, his mom was very busy and could not pay too much attention to him, he played too much games.
Internet games are really a epidemic. How to solve the problem?
Two answeres: Strict rules for game playing and more activities for fun and learning.