EU Considering Regulating Sale of Violent Games 299
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.""
What happened to gun regulation? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Gun violence != Violent video games (Score:5, Interesting)
Not part of the EU but here in Switzerland the gun lobby made sure the policies are quite friendly to them. No politician wants to touch that with all the foreign currency coming in from weapons exports. Time to time the mandatory assault rifle at home for all service-man policy (with military service mandatory for all males) makes a scandal when some guy goes Rambo but then they hush it with "values of tradition" and other crap and everybody forgets about it. And nobody talks about the use of such rifle involved and way too many suicides.
But yeah, lets blame video games and leave the weapons in the hands of the people... Like we need them! It's bloody Switzerland, not Israel.
not an outright ban (Score:5, Interesting)
I have loved playing GTA over the last few years, but that doesn't mean that I think it's appropriate for 10 year olds to play. I have no interest in the likes of Manhunt, but I see no reason that it shouldn't be made - only reasons that it shouldn't be sold to the wee ones.
If we had something stronger than volunteer parental ratings for an ignorant parental populous, just maybe we wouldn't have to listen to Jack Thompson's tripe any longer. After all, the generation that up until very recently has been buying games for their kids has had NO way of understanding the medium - it's been foreign to parents, and therefore parents have made dubious purchasing decisions.
Why not make retailers check ID as a liquor store does? Some games are simply inappropriate for little kids and should be limited to adult consumption. They shouldn't be "banned" or limited in the production, but the sales should be limited to those who are old enough to have learned what boundaries are.
They have already admitted that the reason is fake (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm from Germany, which is the country pushing hard for this sort of nonsense I'm ashamed to say. However, the reason they ostensibly give is not the true reason they are pushing for it. Several of the major proponents of this have already let it slip that the real reason is that they don't want people to play video games period. They don't want teenagers "wasting their time" with games and get "worse grades" at school which may make them less attractive as wage slaves, I mean, makes it harder for them to find employment.
Magic Bullet (Score:3, Interesting)
The practical effect of this seems to me to obviously be that people that want to play violent video games will now just get them through non-official channels - ie, they'll pirate them. Or download any number of violent video games that are made available for free on the Internet [americasarmy.com] to anyone in the world.
Politicians - please stop wasting your time and our money and get back to doing something else. Leave the parenting to the parents and let people accept some responsibility for their actions, eh?
Simple solution to "think of the children" complex (Score:3, Interesting)
This forces their parents to buy everything for them. They can't hire Random Guy to buy their cigs because Random Guy would in effect be selling to the minors (a crime). The parents are presumably giving their offspring what they need, so they commit no crime. This way, I don't have to deal with stupid laws, but more importantly the state doesn't have to decide on the standard by which children are raised, which is a terrible, terrible idea.
Re:oh yes, that'll help (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Cruel? (Score:5, Interesting)
Is it me or COULD there be a connection? I mean, when did you ever hear of a teenager going postal in a, say, Starbucks? Why is it always schools?
Germany is already completely screwed up (Score:5, Interesting)
- No soldiers, you're commanding "robots". Which is a bit odd when it comes to the special units, but
- Of course they don't bleed or yell when they die. They just fall over and vanish.
- No Anthrax in the arsenal of the Terrorists, they're using acid. Why that acid only affects "robots" and no tanks is beyond me, but ok.
- Here's the best part: No suicide bombers, instead you have cute little "rolling bombs" which resemble a tea-cart with a comic-style "bomb" on top. Why those teacarts can drive cars or generally behave like humans not really explained.
And so on. I mean, I don't need my games "bloody", but when it crosses the line to ridiculous that's usually where I stop enjoying the games. And the "germanized" versions usually leap over that line by a few miles.
It's just the usual "dunno it, so it's the culprit (Score:5, Interesting)
Along came radio. So it was the radio telling our kids all the wrong things. Radio listeners grew up and behold, again being a loonie wasn't the next big thing.
Swing music. It has to be that dreaded swing music with all those odd wiggling dances that drives the youth nuts. Well, guess what, the swingers grew up...
Ok, television. That flashy crap, it's the bane of youth and rots their brains. Hmm... nope, the TV generation grew up (not to mention that the TV lobby is strong enough that even though TV did rot their brains...).
Heavy metal! The devil's music and all those hidden messages twisting our kids minds and making their hair grow! Well, the metalheads grew up and cut their hairs, the beheading of chickens by biting their heads off isn't the new fad, so... nope, not either.
RPGs. That's it. Dungeons and Dragons, the devil spawn itself! Look at all those false gods and whatnot and our kids getting lost in that fantasy world. Well, the D&D generation grew up and still no temples of Bane and human sacrifices.
But
See a pattern? It's always whatever the teenage group is interested in that the parent generation does not understand. The current generation of teenager parents is in the area of their 40s, born around or just before 1970, grown up in the mid/late 80s. Some might even know computer games, but those games were anything but realistic. They know all about TV, radio, books, music (hey, especially music!), but usually know precious little about computer games.
So who's gonna get the blame?
I predict in 5 years it's gonna be trading card games and Animes.
Re:Ridiculous (Score:3, Interesting)
Banning violent video games IMHO is stupid and counter productive since a violent game will most likely enable a person to take out their aggression on the game rather than actually take out their anger on real people. Most people who play violent games (good grief what game isn't in some way) would never even contemplate mass murder and would even find this very thought in real life repugnant even though they could happily butcher virtual enemies. You are always going to have the "nutters" and "fanatics" who are in a very tiny minority and hopefully they can be stopped before they commit a crime.
For people to give up their rights for some perceived security is IMHO very short sighted. What will the politicians want to to do next ban violent cartoons such as "Bugs Bunny" or "The Road Runner" (think of the children) maybe we should ban smoking or alcohol (again) after all they kill more people than some madman with a gun. Do this and all you succeed in doing is driving the problem underground as the Prohibition era in the USA did and effectively made many law abiding adults into criminals.
Re:oh yes, that'll help (Score:2, Interesting)
In western society we pay too little attention to the subtle symbolic values of our actions and the powerful cumulative effect that our behaviour, TV, music etc has on signalling to those around us. Those signals accumulate and gradually change attitudes and taboos. You're right that there is no one-to-one relationship between violent games and real violence. The relationship is more complex and more subtle but no more powerful for that.
Politicians have picked up on widespread concern amongst the public - believe it or not, that is their function in a democratic society.
Re:Germany is already completely screwed up (Score:5, Interesting)
I often ask myself if this is doing any good to the children. Especially in first person shooters. Kids shoot at things that look like humans, they kill them but nothing happens, they usually just fall down and/or disappear. The lessons a kid could learn from this is? pointing with weapons at people and pulling the trigger doesn't do much (no scream, no blood, nothing). It's clean
Erfurt (germany's colombine) did happen despite the draconian measures the german government put on computer games. AFAIK there has not been such a case in another european country which have (mostly) very lax rules about computer games. It should be clear that happenings like Erfurt or Colombine are not caused due to computer games but most likely due to the environment of the school kid (personal problems, problems with family, teacher maybe all of them).
Such laws do what? Usually after a release of the "german version" of a game there'll be a patch available (or a config setting documented) how to change the game back into its original non-german state. That's what i always do and i do not know anyone who does not. Many german friends have started ordering their games via internet from the uk or usa not because these games are cheaper there and not because many games get released earlier in the uk and the usa no - they want the "original version[tm]"
i subscribe to the catharsis theory (Score:5, Interesting)
the truth is that violence and rape have actually been going down in areas of the world where media saturation with sexual/ violent content is allowed. that instead of desensitizing people to sex/ violence, pornography and violent media provide for a harmless release that would otherwise happen in the "real world"
it all boils down to how you view the social development of children. are we born vessels of purity and innocence that are corrupted by society? or are we born raging no impulse control demons that are tamed by society? i don't know about you, but i've been around some 3 year olds recently, and a 3 year old human being is basically a feces slinging monster. Scale up a 3 year old to a teenager or young adult, without any proper social development, and you have your basic madman killer/ rapist. so social development channels our sexual and violent impulses into more appropriate channels, and violent and sexual media are merely an extension of this ability to tame our negative and natural impulses into harmless release
anyone who played a lot of violent videogames/ watched a lot of violent movies/ indulged in a lot of pornography and then went out and killed/ raped is someone who is psychologically already damaged, and it wasn't the media that made him or her commit crime, and it would have been some other stimulus that would have precipitated their behavior if they were never exposed to violent/ sexual media. blaming the media is a red herring
some of you may consider me bizarre, but i actually think we should expose children to MORE violent and MORE sexual media, in GREATER quantity, at a YOUNGER age. and this will result in less real life rape and violence
i am not in any way joking. i seriously and firmly believe that