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Germany to ban ze violent games
Author: Andrew ClarkPublished: 8th December 2006
Many games are banned or altered in Germany due to their violent nature.
The new law could see developers, retailers and players of violent video games being jailed for up to a year. Germany already has some of the strictest censorship rules for games in the world and many believe that these latest recommendations could have an impact on their economy.
Frank Sliwka, head of the Deutsche E-Sport Bund and spokesperson for a number of online gaming teams said:
“We have among the most drastic censorship rules for games. Now we are being labelled as a breeding ground for unstable, dysfunctional and violent youngsters.”
Germany has the third largest market for computer entertainment, according to PriceWaterhouseCoopers, and boasts 40,000 online gaming teams. Despite this, many games like Counter-Strike, have been changed so that they don't feature any blood. Despite these precautions Germany has suffered a steady flow of school attacks, most of which have been connected to games in some way.
Holger Scherff, head of a-Losers.MSI a top German gaming clan, feels that this bill could destroy electronic sports within Germany, even if it fails. He feels that corporate sponsors may review their policy regarding the sponsorship of gamers and gaming organisations in the country.
Could this do more harm than good to the German gaming scene? Let us know in the forums.
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Comments (58)Stats: 0.040 seconds
Seems to me that this would be very difficult to impliment.
:D
our politicians here in germany are totally crazy.....
But i would like to know how this works in your (other) countries? Is there an active discussion about games like counterstrike (or real life sports like paintball) and the "violence" within?
thats exact what i´m thinking too.....
But our politicians think that they maybe were crazy before they get the games.....BUT the games show them the way to let their violent thoughts out.....and beside that they think that those crazy people "train" their real shooting skills with those games....
You might want to up shop and leave or consider closing down, Choozen: since paintball is also a violent, murder simulator sport.
Pathetic
i totally agree with it
yeah i know....here in germany it is often put in the same discussion with CS and other killergames like our politician call them
therefore my question how it is in Gb? Ireland? Scotland? etc..... i now that people in your countries also like playing those games or sports....is there a public discussion like we have? (i think for a few years now)
People get hyped up from watching news scenes from IRAQ or Afgan its a similar thing.
They going to Ban kids from playing Cowboys and Indians on the street becuase you might kill some one ? $hit like this happens once in a blue moon and we get jumped on like a their is no tommorow just because some crazed kid cant be brought up correctly.. Blame the parents...
Come on, these communities are small and we are getting picked on.
What next hey...
Their is no way they can Ban games like CS , impossible...
I don't think anyone in the UK really has anything against stuff like paintball, apart from the pain they have after they play :p
In pretty much every city we have some kind of Quazar game (like paintball but with lasers, if you get hit your vest detects it, you can't fire for a while and you get a "death" on your scorecard, it's just like an FPS really).
TBH it isn't really much different than playing cowboys and indians or soldiers in the back garden as children, are they going to lock up children for a year because they go "bang! bang!" at each other?
Its the wrong reaction to the happenings. Germany has a lot of big flaws in its educational and social system that lead to a lot of perspectivelesnes among the youth, especially in social weak familys, but politicans are unable to change that so they search for somebody else to blame ->videogames.
Well actually certain f***wits withing the government have been working tirelessly to get airsoft(that's 6mm bb guns) banned for quite some time. Thankfully more pressing matters like..I dunno, anything..have taken precedence and the government hasn't gotten around to it yet. Don't think they don't want to though. I'm sure they'll find another thing to ban as soon as they've got some free time.
I feel sorry for Germans here. Just another case of people suffering because of other peoples stupidity and misperceptions. The shootings won't stop if they ban violent video games, but I very much doubt anyone will actually bother to say "hold on, the shootings didn't stop, let's legalise them again" because the people who could do that, they just do not care.
lol
Actually I won't let anybody tell me what to play. I'm 22 goddamnit!
Here's a challenge, name a non-violent videogame... a puzzle game like Lumines can easily provoke violent reactions, hacking down Beckham in Pes always makes me smile, and anything on the Wii can cause actual physical harm...
i mean... the only purpose of weapons is to kill, so, why not ban them? woudnt that be the way to go?
also, they should consider the effects it has on switzerland and austria, i doubt that those too country's (im from switzerland) will ever see a game again that gets translated to german....
Also, as j.rhy@n said, news is far more violent and is most likely responsible for the 'Daily Mail' sort of view in that muslims/paedophiles are going to kill us all.
Ban the news.
FFS, if people are deranged enough to go on a murder spree, you might just consider that there was some other sort of trigger that caused it. Violent games are a good way to NOT kill people.
And yeah, that video rocks :)
Are they going to put all these games on one big bonfire or something? :|
I think weapons should be banned anyway, save things like hunting rifles. Also, where are the parents telling their children what is okay? How come no one noticed the child was violent? How did the child get a gun? I know how to solve all those questions! Ban video games!
Sure, there are tons of guys out there like Jack Thompson who try and try again to ban violent games, but time and time again the law is upheld and their restrictions are deemed unconstitutional.
I have confidence in the german people and government to retain their sanity and look beyond the common scapegoats and not punish innocent gamers and publishers/developers by letting this ridiculous law pass.
Could this spell more trouble for Crysis?
If anything will make German gamers go crazy it will be if this law passes and Crysis gets canceled or grossly delayed while they relocate to a sane country. Actually, if this law passes, Crysis won't ever be released in Germany due to violence. Really, if this has one sure-fire result, it will be the huge void in the German market that will be filled with piracy and black markets for video games. That would not only do a disservice to legitimate game makers in Germany, but it would be a kick in the balls to game developers as piracy will be the ONLY way for gamers in Germany to get the games.
Guns don't kill people, imbalanced teenagers that don't have a healthy home life or proper supervision who somehow manage to acquire firearms do. When will politicians finally understand that?!!
I think they're just mad that every single WWII game features the Germans getting their asses handed back to them. Well, not really, but it must sure piss some people off.
it prolly wont pass, (atleast i hope so), because imagine all the moeny loss from no more taxes.... (afterall thats the reason why smoking hasnt been banned yet)...
gamers will just download it.... or if they real badly want a retail copy go to a saner country to buy them.....
i had no idea...... knowledge is power :D thanks.
oww and that is impossible, they will not be able to ban games because of the brutal amount of people that play these games would make a big ass riot and burn half of the capital.....
The result, they are making mature games harder for minors to get by punishing the retailer if they sell to kids underage. Only problem is ignorant parents who dont pay attention to their kids just go into the stores and buy the games for them! Theres your problem. Bad parenting, not video games
But, ya, an total ban or blocking of games is not going to happen down here. In reality, the only people who can keep games off the shelves is the retailers themselves (walmart has done it a few times I believe )
yeah i agree with you, making it harder for young people to buy this stuff was the first step......therefore a special organisation was created by the industry (here in germany) which controll every videogame before it get into the market if it contains violence...if so it gets an rating like movies.....with that rating the stores could easy see if a game is for people over 18 or free for kids.....
only problem with that is that many stores don´t know much about it or don´t care and sell those games 18+ to 12 year old kids
Most people at school have played violent video games, therefore the chances of someone who did a school shooting also played violent games is very high.
"OMGZ! THIS MUST MEAN THE GAMES MADE THEM DO IT!¬¬!¬!!"
Most people at school have watched violent movies, therefore the chances of someone who did a school shooting also watched violent movies is very high.
"nah, violent movies don't hurt anyone"
Many people at school have listened to <whatever> type of music, therefore the chances of someone who did a school shooting also listened to said music is very high.
"nah, music doesn't hurt anyone"
Many people at school have read violent books, therefore the chances of someone who did a school shooting also read violent books is very high.
"nah, violent books don't hurt anyone"
Gaaaah! when will politicians realise that videogames are just the generic scapegoat for everything at the moment? censorship achieves nothing at all... :(
This coming from Germany, I think there may be another cause of the problem.
I see no point inforcing your twisted morality on others... I quite like my violent video games, hence why I buy them over the internet as I am not 18 so games like fear arn't available to me in stores. which is a shame as there only loosing money by refusing my custom.
my body count so far:
virtual: billions
real: one rat a mouse and do fly's count?
:D
At any rate there is evidence that links violence to violent videogames, but I'm not sure if they have ever proven causality. At any rate i do support protecting minors from violent video games the same way that it's pretty hard for a minor here to goto a theatre and see a rated R movie.
At any rate a blanket ban on video games will do nothing just as increased border security between US and canada does nothing as theirs still thousands of miles left unprotected.
interestingly enough I've never heard anyrallies against paintball, most consider it a fringe or extreme sport for people with a penchant for pain. There again i don't think people who play paintball are any more violent probably less so as you understand the consequences of getting hit.
Hmm.. I'll take a crack at what he might've meant, or at least, what the reality is..
Socialism is the root of the unwinding of civil liberty in the EU by the removal of personal responsibility to make decisions or have personal morals through almighty unions, incredibly powerful labor laws, strong unemployment benefits, and a whole set of laws like this one and that Godwin's Law linked to earlier (which is a social version of the idea behind this now real law) that let their people know how they should think, and through socialized services (medicine) and nationalized industries that allow individuals to no longer have to make some times difficult personal financial choices and instead places all of it in the hands of government. And of course, wrestling powers from the government once granted tends to be, well, nearly impossible. :)
All of that is of course seductive (why should the masses want to think for themselves and take responsibility for consequences when they can hand over more than half their paycheck and all they're left to worry about is what color iPod to buy?). Very seductive. It's economic ideas, though flawed, are also seductive. Much nicer to think "Hey, we can set price ceilings to stem the rise of the price of x, y, and z!" rather than "wow, supply is getting pwned, time to think hard and innovate to create a different good that can be substituted for that one to make some money, but in the mean time, there will be tons of suffering". Thanks to that seduction, America has been slowly getting cross-pollinated with this garbage. See Medicare Part D, the failure of privatizing Social Security, and a general unwillingness to tackle entintlement programs versus a national round of applause at 'realists' who plan to raise taxes instead of control spending.
So.. I think Malccy was suggesting our masses here are lagging our European neighbors and it's just a matter of time before we follow them down the tube to eternal low economic growth, while our economically free neighbors across our other bordering puddle have growth rates two, three and four times our own.
Hmm... okay, rant off, flamesuit on. B)
Not that it'll shield me from America-haters, or welfare lovers, but I only said on the social issues what everyone else in this thread has already said about their own countries (Germans, British), I've only attached the 'rest of the picture' instead of debating only the singular issue but instead the total social/economic world view that leads to legislation like this.
Edit: Oh, and what he meant by germany being held in the hand by America.. on his own on that one. ;)
LOL!
Germans, pffft...
That about sums it up.
ARTICLE
the fact the guy was completely off his face seems to have been lost on him
Dude, I said this to you on another thread (considering you have linked Wiki you really should try reading it!).
"As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one."
You can't keep calling Godwin's Law just because someone hinted at Nazism or mentioned Hitler, Godwin's Law is generally used as a way of gaining the moral high ground if someone is using the term Nazi or Hitler as an insult or inappropriately. As the German's are involved in this discussion and are trying to ban an artform I think it is fair to mention Nazism and the buring of literature, please if you disagree then reply to this post with something other than "GODWIN'S LAW" "GODWIN'S LAW." I'm not flaming you here buddy just letting you know. :D