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.""

We knew this was coming

[RogueyWon]

The Germans made no secret of their plans to advance this during their turn with the rotating EU Presidency. Fortunately, this wouldn't force other member states to adopt the ridiculous German position on games, but it's still pretty bad. Last I had heard, several Governments, including the UK, were less than enthused by the idea and planned to resist it (although this may have changed).

Our best hope, really, comes from the fact that the Presidency moves on to Portugal at the start of July. So far as I know, Portugal's position on games is nothing like as screwed up as Germany's and they might not be so motivated to keep pushing to advance this.

The proposed EU constitution rejected by a number of states over the last few years was a bad joke, but there's no denying that the EU needs serious structural reform. Unfortunately, given that said reform should really limit the powers of the EU institutions rather than enhancing them, we're unlikely to see any sensible proposals emerging any time soon.

Gun violence != Violent video games

[MMaestro]

I think European politicians are simply jumping on the bandwagon and blaming video games for cheap political points. Seriously Europe already has less gun-friendly policies (compared to the U.S.) already in place, regulating video games is going to be even more of a waste in their political system compared to the U.S.'s.

Re:Cruel?

[Anonymous Coward]

They should regulate "stupid parents" first.

What could happen?

[jonathan DS]

Well, you can ban violent games for children, but maybe that's one way to 'de-frustrate'. They will still see violence on TV, in real life.
At least they can control the violence in games, but TV doesn't bring that option.

I think it's up to the parents to take control over what their children can handle. The parent knows best what's best for the kid. I know a 10-year old that plays GTA, but he still knows the difference between games and real life. The parents need to know if their child can draw that line, before their children cross it.

And it will start with violence, but what are they going to do about racing games? They'll try to find a link between car accidents and Gran Turismo...

oh yes, that'll help

[rucs_hack]

Because y'know, there never was any violence before video games turned up.

What we have here is a handy emotive issue that can be used to make politicians sound like they are 'in touch' with the needs of the community. The fact that its a loads of nonsense obviously has no relevence.

Re:Gun violence != Violent video games

[c_jonescc]

As a university scientist, I can say that he most brilliant researcher I ever worked with, or even encountered ended her own life as a result of suffering from a borderline personality disorder.

Clean up the gene pool my ass. Our field of physics will move more slowly without her.

But then, I wouldn't want to get in the way of you clinging to your unnecessary guns with a religious zealotry.

Anonymous Coward couldn't be more appropriate for that tripe. If you're a total jackass, fine, but have the strength in your blind faith to attach your name, loser.

Re:not an outright ban

[Fulcrum of Evil]

You say that, but why should we hold games to a higher standard than movies, which are also voluntary? Lots of places will refuse to sell M rated games to kids. Problem is, the parents will just come back and buy the games for them anyway. Woops.

Re:Actually...

[CommunistHamster]

The point is that the law would discriminate against videogames, and not regulate the sales of violent movies or other media. So, because the violence was in a videogame instead of a movie, that makes it so much worse it has to have it's own law.

Make a law regulating all violent media, or don't make a law at all. Preferably the latter.

Why politicians want to scape-goat violent videos

[unlametheweak]

Two reasons why politicians want to scape-goat violent videos games for the perceived demise of society:

1) Boost their popularity by portraying themselves as crime fighters who are protecting the children
2) An excuse to get rid of (or at least limit) things they just don't like or want

It's interesting:
- that this crime was committed by a 19 year old, which would be considered a legal adult in most countries (except for the US where you have to be 21 to enjoy full legal status, i.e. the alcohol laws)
- they don't blame guns
- they haven't looked into the social life and influences of this person other than he played a video game(s)

Point in fact:
- rape and murder are not caused by pornography, video games, rock and roll, Drugs, or any of the other usual suspects. False analogies are just that - false. It's too hard for them to find the real answers to social problems like spending money for after school programs, and providing people with proper social housing, medical and social support for psychiatric programs, etc... the list goes on. Simplifying the cause of a murder to a video game is so ludicrous it would be laughable if it were not true.

When I was a kid I wondered why adults are so stupid. As an adult I still wonder.

Re:Gun violence != Violent video games

[Turn-X Alphonse]

If you have a 1 hit kill weapon in your house that requires no pain until the moment of impact when it hits suicide is MUCH easier.

Hanging takes time and you have to resist saving yourself (or you set it up so you can't).
Cutting your wrist/throat/whatever requires resisting a lot of pain til you black out.
Drink/Alcohol requires a lot of work to get it and then take enough to die.
Jumping off a building/bridge requires you to goto said place, climb up, then jump off.

All of the above have some kind of barrier between you and them, picking up a gun is just as simple as closing your eyes and pulling a trigger. Which compared to the others is a walk in the park.

Re:Cruel?

[lanswitch]

it's easy for governments to control the sale of video games, but nearly impossible to control all those stupid parents...

Re:We knew this was coming

[Zelos]

Doesn't the UK already have age limits on some games? My copy of RE4 has the same "15" label as films use, God of War has an 18. The age limits on films are non-voluntary and legally enforceable, presumably the game limits are too?

Re:Gun violence != Violent video games

[DerangedAlchemist]

As far as the necessity of an armed populace, there is only one sure historical truth: Sooner or later the tree of liberty must be refreshed with the blood of patriots and tyrants and if tyrants are the only ones with firearms the tree may very well drown from an excess of the blood of patriots.

In a democracy you can vote people out of power. Historically there have not been many democracies so far.

I'll believe this type of argument if say the US citizens use guns to revolt instead of voting out the current party.

If you really believe this, wouldn't citizens owning nuclear weapons just accelerate the process, or do you think there should be limits on the destructive power a single person should have?

PEGI?

[TechnicalFool]

There is already a perfectly usable [wikipedia.org] pan-European game rating system. It's voluntary, but I haven't seen a single game on sale in the UK that doesn't have it, with occasional mandatory BBFC [bbfc.co.uk] ratings for more "realistic" games (GTA3 and beyond are all released with an 18 cert). As well as that, you'll find that a lot of stores here will abide by PEGI ratings, which detail exactly why the game has the rating it has (sex, violence, drugs and gambling amongst the reasons) supposedly so parents can make a more informed decision. I don't see how introducing more centralised bureaucracy is going to work any better than the current systems in place in European Union member states. Whatever ratings system you put in, you'll still get 45 year olds coming into the shop with a 12 year old waiting outside and swearing blind that the copy of Bloody Chainsaw Revenge IV they are buying is for their own personal use.

This stuff happens every time some psychopath decides to go on a rampage. Banning violent video games won't work, and is completely bloody stupid when you consider where half of your so-called "traditional" games come from. Chess is a war game. If you think British Bulldog [wikipedia.org] is innocent, try thinking of it as a bunch of people trying to rush a gun platform. "Ring-a-roses" is a warning poem describing the symptoms of bubonic plague. The only difference between these games and video games is the fact that for the first time in history, a war game or zombie horror story can be rendered on a screen in real-time with precise detail.

You can only take a psycho down before they kill too many people. Sometimes you're lucky and someone will spot that a person is acting strangely or getting unstable. Banning violent video games will just mean that the next time someone decides to start dishing out mass lead injections, we'll have slingshots or some other item banned because, well, he started by firing marbles at cats and it progressed from there. Something Must Be Done, Think Of The Children, you catch my drift.

I hope the justice ministers discussing this have a sudden attack of common sense and declare that any mature, sensible adult should be able to engage in as much of an orgy of virtual destruction as they like. Fact is, taking some geek out with a headshot is fun, dammit. It's the old equation of "(fear - danger) == excitement".

Has anyone ever wondered about reasons?

[Opportunist]

Fakt: ALL shootings, no matter where on this planet, were conducted in schools. The youths who went on a killing spree didn't just grab a gun and besiege the next mall where the body count could have been considerably higher. They invariably went to their school and many of them started the killing spree in their class and/or with certain hand picked teachers.

COULD there be a connection rather than with their choice of video games?

Fakt: ALL of those teenagers or young adults who went on a killing spree had rather poor grades and were generally not accepted members of their "society" (however you want to define it). Many of them have already dropped out or were forced to leave their schools.

COULD there be a connection rather than with their choice of video games?

Fakt: ALL of those who sought bloody "revenge" come from what is today labeled a "broken home", usually with negligent or abusive parents with few or no friends.

COULD there be a connection rather than with their choice of video games?

But no, let's blame games. It's less hassle than having to deal with the problems.

I am questioned ...

[testman123]

When I see those all-day-long movies and TV sequels displaying murders, torture, sadism (including people beeing massacred with gallons of blood ejected) without anybody disturbed or questioned about that (look at PG "rating" details).

And when I see at the same time that one single nipple displayed on a show triggers a massive censorship on live TV shows, I am even more questioned.

Does this mean that a nipple is more obscene for child that a live murder ? Does it mean that a nipple is more abnormal and unnatural than to kill somebody ?

What kind of example is this for children ?

When born, children have no nudity problem, once fed with occidental culture, the trouble starts : nude = abnormal bad evil, violence = normal cool fun !

To me the real problem with occidental culture is violence addiction. Violence shocks nobody. But a single niple shows almost everybody.

Realy we should all go and consult a Psychologist, because we got a problem ...

Re:Why politicians want to scape-goat violent vide

[zCyl]

Two reasons why politicians want to scape-goat violent videos games for the perceived demise of society:

Two more:

1. They don't understand or play video games.
2. They don't believe a significant number of their voters or donors play violent video games.

Re:Cruel?

[h2g2bob]

Isn't torture already illegal in the EU?

Not according to the CIA

What's wrong with this?

[rpillala]

Do folks see this type of regulation as a slippery slope? What could it lead to?

If parents want their kids to be able to play violent games, they can just buy them. Not allowing the children themselves to purchase the games isn't really a problem IMO. If publishers are concerned that their marketing efforts to children will be wasted, then maybe they need to change their marketing. If adults won't buy these games for their kids, it's a different problem.

Re:Has anyone ever wondered about reasons?

[Opportunist]

Well, then what about the thousands of people who play shooters day in and day out, leaving virtual corpses left and right, while at the same time being rather "normal" in real life? Should I consider them mass murderers who're just warming up for their moment in the limelight?

Talking about limelight, another reason we didn't even touch yet. Generally, you have teenagers and young adults in that "going postal" group who are anything but the limelight takers. They ain't the sports heroes, ain't the top geeks, ain't anything special. Actually, they're at the bottom of the pecking order. But with the killing spree, they suddenly become stars. In a rather odd way, but still...

No reason to blame the media hyping those murderers like some kind of celebrities? Dissecting their lives and their families, telling everyone nationwide who they are and what they did?

Why is it by default always something that can at best play a minor role in the whole picture? Most of all, why are by default no people in their vicinity ever guilty, those people they do interact with on a daily base? What about parents, teachers, other students? Generally they're treated like they don't exist in the lives of them.

Of course, you can't blame the other students for mobbing them! They are their victims! You can't blame the teachers either who told them time and again that they're essentially a waste of precious oxygen, they're their victims! Oh, and of course you must not blame the parents after they've just lost their children, they're victims too! Blaming the victims is bad, bad form, and you'd get very angry calls and letters from your viewers.

Better blame something most of your audience doesn't know jack about. It's a cheap scapegoat, nothing else. But appearantly that's all we want. A nice, warm feeling that we're all innocent and victims, and the bad influence and the trigger for the bomb these people were is anything else.

But not us! Don't blame us! We're innocent bystanders! We're victims! It ain't my fault! Shift the blame on something else!

Re:It's just the usual "dunno it, so it's the culp

[Opportunist]

Oh, I'm pretty sure Anime/Manga will sooner or later become the scapegoat. And it will reunite America. Gramps who remembers '41-'45 side by side with Pa who lost his job due to Japanese cars being more reliable and chaper than Detroit's products.

Maybe 5 years was a bit early. But it's certainly gonna be some very suitable scapegoat for the 2010 to 2020 years. After that, who knows what's the next fad for teenagers. But it's certainly going to twist their minds, ruin their lives and turn them into monsters.

Re:It can get more stupid

[Ihlosi]

On the other hand, a friend pointed out to me today that you never hear of school-massacres from countries other than the US. Is it because we don't pay attention to world-wide events, or is it because it just doesn't happen as often?

Probably both. They don't happen all that often in the rest of the civilized world, and when they do, they don't receive a lot of coverage in the US (just like so many other news items that happen "elsewhere).

On the other hand, you don't hear about many "school shooting" incidents that happen in the US over here, especially if there are few or no casualities. Last time I was in the US, I read about four school shootings in the newspapers, and only one of them (the "Amish elementary school" one) received international coverage.

Does it not happen because of 'stupid' laws like these?

Probably because of more restrictive gun laws and more of that evil welfare stuff. And if the bureaucrats had done their job, the Erfurt shooting wouldn't have happened. They passed up several very good opportunities to yank that guys weapons license instantly and permanently.