EU Considering Regulating Sale of Violent Games

Spamicles writes "European Union justice ministers met today in order to discuss the regulation of sales of violent video games to minors. Europeans were riled up last year when a German gunman shot several people before taking his life at a secondary school. A European Union Commissioner is taking advantage of the shootings last year called for stricter regulations in the video game industry. A motion introduced last month calls for legislators to "put in place all necessary measures to ban the sale of particularly violent and cruel video games.""

Cruel?

[The Orange Mage]

"Cruel" videogames?

Like Daikatana?

Ridiculous

[phantomcircuit]

This is utterly ridiculous, can't they at least think of their own fake reasons!

Save The Children is our politicians!

Re:Good

[deftcoder]

Is that you, Jack? I didn't know you posted on /.!

Re:Gun violence != Violent video games

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think it gets any more 'ad-hominem' than attacking the quality of someone's genes!

Re:Cruel?

[MysteriousPreacher]

It's not illegal. You just have to fill out so many forms beforehand that no-one can be bothered.

It can get more stupid

[Moraelin]

It can get more stupid than that.

E.g., take "No One Lives Forever 2". The original game tweaked the AI a lot, so the enemies would notice a fallen comrade, see if he's dead, etc. Except the German version came and replaced all corpses with backpacks.

So for a start you ended up hiding and/or disposing of backpacks instead of corpses. I mean, wth? Why would someone sound the alarm for seeing a backpack near a bed in the barracks? Don't all soldiers have one of those anyway?

But it gets better. Picture this: A patrol comes by and starts shaking the backpack and saying stuff like "Oh no! Are you still alive? Say something!"

I mean, WTF? Since when was a backpack alive in the first place?

All that clever scripting and trying to make it believable in the original game... just made it look stupid in the censored version.

Re:What are non-violent games?

[k3vlar]

Would somebody please think of the Tetris blocks? Every year, millions of blocks that make up a Tetris piece are senselessly killed when people of all ages complete a row horizontally. Many justify this atrocity by saying the blocks are now complete, are going to a better place, and that it adds to their score. We at the Unjust Treatment of Tetris Pieces Foundation implore you to stop killing these defenceless sprites. Please also consider making a donation to our foundation, or participating in our Adopt-a-Brick program, where you can sponsor a Tetris piece, and ensure it lives a full life, with plenty of food, access to clean water, and decent education. Call 1-800-555-TRIS today.

Re:Cruel?

[10Neon]

I believe the only appropriate place to go postal is at a post office.

Re:Ridiculous

[plover]

And just in case they can't think of their own reasons, let's send them Jack Thompson. We're certainly done with him.