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Germany Wants EU to Ban Violent Games 122

Posted by Zonk from the they'll-getcha dept.
FredDC writes "Germany is seeking support among other European countries to ban violent videogames during its EU Presidency, according to Infoworld. In an initiative led by Franco Frattini, the European Justice commissioner, Germany is pushing for restrictions on the sale of games with violent content of any kind, from Half-Life to Star Trek . In the eyes of the EU, gaming and real-world violence is 'linked', and steps should be taken to prevent the purchase of these games by younger people. From the article: 'The German government said it will conduct a study of all the different national rules concerning video games, with a view to setting Union-wide norms. Its initiative makes the prospect of a ban much more likely. Video game violence became a hot political issue in Germany at the end of last year when 18-year-old Sebastian Bosse shot up a high school in Emsdetten, Germany, injuring 37 before fatally turning the gun on himself. Police said Bosse spent most of his waking hours playing Counter-Strike.'" This, just days after two Final Fantasy VII fans were arrested in connection with a series of killings.
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Germany Wants EU to Ban Violent Games More

Germany Wants EU to Ban Violent Games

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  • Hostile? (Score:1, Flamebait)

    by pembo13 ( 770295 )
    Isn't Germany where Hostel 1 and 2 are based?

  • In other news.... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by MicktheMech ( 697533 )
    The rest of the west wants the United States to ban captial punishment. Not going to happen...

  • Wrong again... (Score:2, Informative)

    by F-3582 ( 996772 )
    They just aim to create EU-wide unified criteria for judging violence in games. Nothing more. It has nothing to do with banning games!

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by RichPowers ( 998637 )
      But...but...an accurate headline would make fewer people click on it! I can't fathom this!

    • Re:Wrong again... (Score:5, Informative)

      by 99BottlesOfBeerInMyF ( 813746 ) on Wednesday January 17, 2007 @05:32PM (#17654364)

      They just aim to create EU-wide unified criteria for judging violence in games. Nothing more. It has nothing to do with banning games!

      Slashdot summaries are often misleading interpretations of articles. That is not the case here. From TFA, "The Commission wants to see a combination of outright bans on the most violent games, together with minimum age rules on other titles." If you're asserting the summary is wrong because you read the article, your comment would be fine as the reference is already there. As it is you're making an assertion that contradicts the article. For that you need to provide a real reference if you want anyone to believe you.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by KDR_11k ( 778916 )
        If we go by what Germany banned itself "most violent" means games like Manhunt, not GTA or other commonly played games.

    • Re:Wrong again... Yes you are.... (Score:4, Informative)

      by LWATCDR ( 28044 ) on Wednesday January 17, 2007 @05:34PM (#17654418) Homepage Journal
      From the article.
      "The Commission also wants to harmonize national rules in the 27 countries in the Union. "Protection of children cannot have borders," Frattini said. The Commission wants to see a combination of outright bans on the most violent games, together with minimum age rules on other titles."

      How does an outright ban have nothing to do with baning games?

      • Re: (Score:1, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward
        The Infoworld article is misleading and wrong (american journalism at work).
        What has been reported in German-language news (see heise: http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/83790 [heise.de])
        is simply that steps are being taken to create a central list of banned games in member states.
        This in itself has NO effect on the actual bans or lack thereof.
        The second thing is that the EU justice comissionary wants to (rough quote) "harmonise member state laws" on the matter (or as he refers to it, protection of children). It s

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by HTH NE1 ( 675604 )
      You say that now, but when there's a rash of punks smashing down walls, don't think they'll start banning the sale of games glorifying property destruction like Tetris!

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by F-3582 ( 996772 )
      According to several articles and interviews I heard on the radio, as well as this little german article (idn't found any better one) the german efforts only involve creating unified child protection rules. Of course they'll ban games, but this will only affect MINORS!
    • Except they explicitly said they wanted to ban violent games. So when they say "we want to ban violent games", how exactly does that mean that they don't want to ban games?
    • not quite wrong. those idiots (especially the bavarian minister of the interior) really do want to ban shooters.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by KDR_11k ( 778916 )
        The Bavarians are more of a running joke than any serious political force.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by F-3582 ( 996772 )
        Yes, but Beckstein is a moron - can't believe that so many want him to be Stoiber's successor. From what I read [stern.de]/heard Mrs. Zypries (minister of judgement) only intends to create unified rules for creating a blacklist of ultraviolent games. Selling those blacklisted games to minors would be made a crime then. Oh, and this article clearly states that "a EU-wide ban of ultraviolent productions is NOT planned. Every EU country has to decide for itself which videos/games to ban. That's no decision to be made in

  • They should just ... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Skapare ( 16644 )

    They should just implement some kind of gun control. Yeah, that's the ticket; keep guns out of the hands of kids. Oh wait ...

    • Re:They should just ... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by westlake ( 615356 ) on Thursday January 18, 2007 @01:53AM (#17659730)
      They should just implement some kind of gun control. Yeah, that's the ticket; keep guns out of the hands of kids. Oh wait ...

      [T]he United States has the highest rates of childhood homicide, suicide, and firearm-related death among industrialized countries. ... The firearm-related homicide rate in the United States was nearly 16 times higher than that in all of the other countries combined (0.94 compared with 0.06); the firearm-related suicide rate was nearly 11 times higher (0.32 compared with 0.03); and the unintentional firearm-related death rate was nine times higher (0.36 compared with 0.04) Rates of Homicide, Suicide, and Firearm-Related Death Among Children -- 26 Industrialized Countries [cdc.gov] (1990-1995) ___ Where firearms are tightly regulated, firearms are insignificant as a cause of death among children.

  • Sucks for the EU =( (Score:3, Insightful)

    by spyder913 ( 448266 ) on Wednesday January 17, 2007 @05:30PM (#17654324)
    They already have enough trouble getting stuff at the same time as the NA/Asian markets, and if this goes into effect, they'd be even worse off.

  • It was going to happen somewhere. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Esc7 ( 996317 ) on Wednesday January 17, 2007 @05:33PM (#17654412)
    I feel for Germany. As the country that was host to probably the greatest villain in the twentieth century there is going to be a lot of pressure to condemn things that could ever be even remotely like the horrible things that happened there during WWII. I say this is an overreaction, but it still makes sense in some way. After reading about this http://www.quartertothree.com/game-talk/showthread .php?t=31767 [quartertothree.com] story on slashdot earlier, and forcing myself to remember that Europe has its nudity/violence tolerance levels switched compared to America, I see this as a misguided, but inevitable event.

    • Re:It was going to happen somewhere. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Wednesday January 17, 2007 @05:50PM (#17654796) Homepage Journal

      I agree entirely with your analysis of this news event. In fact I scrolled down specifically to see if there was a comment like this one already so I wouldn't be redundant.

      It's quite telling that laws mandating so-called decency don't work and that repression seems to typically lead to inappropriate behavior. You tell priests they can't get married and either you attract or turn people into molesters. Try to keep your kids innocent of sexual reality (e.g. unisex religious schools) and they end up being, uh, promiscuous. And what about gun control laws in America? It's harder to get a gun now than it has been at any prior point in time, yet gun crime is generally trending upward and has been for a long time. None of this is actually working. It's almost as if when you push people, they react against you!

      Every time I see kids treated like adults, they act like adults. Every time I see kids treated like kids, they act like kids. Oddly enough the maturity of their behavior tends to be pretty proportional to the trust you place in them, although obviously everyone is different and if you take anything too far, the results are negative. Brushing your teeth helps fight tooth decay, but you want to stop before your gums are bleeding all over the sink.

      • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

        by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday January 17, 2007 @08:02PM (#17656808)
        Comment removed based on user account deletion
        • Well, my role models were more or less Han Solo (or Indiana Jones, or whatever name he has at the moment), Douglas Adams, and Richard Nixon, and I turned out with a rather odd personality.
      • Every time I see kids treated like adults, they act like adults.

        Absolutely. I like to make this point whenever I can. I don't know so many people can forget that kids are people too; I mean, everyone was a kid once.

        I would add that adults follow the same rule. If you start thinking badly of someone, they will lower themselves to meet your expectations.

        Finally, nitpick. I think you mean single-sex school instead of unisex school. Unisex means "sex not distinguished" - think uni- in united rather than unique.

        • I would add that adults follow the same rule. If you start thinking badly of someone, they will lower themselves to meet your expectations.

          I couldn't agree more. Sadly, this is a far more reliable force than people rising to the occasion, but I blame that on people not giving them occasions to rise to, and stunting their development.

          Finally, nitpick. I think you mean single-sex school instead of unisex school. Unisex means "sex not distinguished" - think uni- in united rather than unique. I don't kno

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by chroma ( 33185 )
        And what about gun control laws in America? It's harder to get a gun now than it has been at any prior point in time, yet gun crime is generally trending upward and has been for a long time. Are you sure about that? Read this: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/guns.htm [usdoj.gov]
        • Violent crime in general is down at the moment. You'll note from the link you posted that the percentage of crimes which involve firearms has been jerking back and forth in the same range for years.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Lorkki ( 863577 )

        It shouldn't really be surprising that a legislative solution isn't going to do much to solve a social problem. There was an idea going on around in the beginning of the last century that banning alcoholic beverages would magically erase all their harmful effects from society. As it happened, such laws only served to create a huge market for smugglers and organised criminals, putting things further out of reach for regulation.

        I would imagine that sweeping the concept of violence under the carpet, in a s

      • This is a perfect example of my friend. He was raised with the mentality that he was never too young to take responsibility for something. Hence, his dad (who owneds a business) had him placing orders and running the office work at the age of 14-15. By the time I was working with him and his dad, he could run the entire business at the age of 16. The kid's ~20 now and he's insanely good at whatever he puts himself to. You don't get that from treating kids like kids.

    • Re:It was going to happen somewhere. (Score:4, Informative)

      by turing_m ( 1030530 ) on Wednesday January 17, 2007 @10:36PM (#17658376)
      "As the country that was host to probably the greatest villain in the twentieth century there is going to be a lot of pressure to condemn things that could ever be even remotely like the horrible things that happened there during WWII."

      The pressure has less to do with hosting the supposed "greatest villain in the twentieth century" and more to do with the fact that Germany was invaded and has since been occupied by foreign troops until the present day. And contrary to what is shown on the "History" Channel about the postwar events - with commentary about the Marshall Plan, Hershey bars and grainy footage of airplanes dropping off bales of cargo - the reality was much more harsh. Over 4 million Germans were used as slave labour by the Allies after the war. This went on for a period longer than the war's duration!

      Meanwhile in Germany after the war in 1945 and 1946, international aid organizations were prevented from sending relief to German civilians. In 1945, the average German civilian received a starvation diet of 1200 calories - in the US and UK occupation zones. In 1946, the average German civilian received 1500 calories, still well below what is considered to be healthy.

      Their press and government were also under strict Allied control.

      THAT is where the pressure to self-flagellate comes from. Germans knew that if they didn't kowtow to their occupiers, their lives would be forfeit. These attitudes got passed down to the next generation.

      Stalin was at least as bad as Hitler ever was. The difference between Russian and German attitudes about their past leaders is that one was occupied by enemies of the prior regime, the other wasn't.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgenthau_Plan [wikipedia.org]
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eisenhower_and_German _POWs#American_food_policy_in_Germany_shortly_afte r_the_war [wikipedia.org]

  • Except... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Purity Of Essence ( 1007601 ) on Wednesday January 17, 2007 @05:35PM (#17654460)
    Violent crime has gone every year since videogames were first introduced. And the rate of violent crime began dropping very sharply starting in 1994 in the USA. Doom, the first modern "murder simulator" and poster child for those who like to like fantasy and real-world violence, was released in 1993. Is there a correlation? Maybe not, but it's every bit as cogent an argument as anything these anti-gaming fascists can come up with.

  • So every other EU HL gamer is also a murderer? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Jtheletter ( 686279 ) on Wednesday January 17, 2007 @05:37PM (#17654510)
    I think we're all pretty sick of the constant political campaigns against violent games. In every case it's someone who goes nuts and commits some heinous crime and the fact that they played violent video games often is trotted out as either the sole cause or the trigger for the event. But there's thousands (maybe tens of thousands I don't have figures for EU) of other EU gamers playing HL and CS and somehow, beyond all odds, they manage to not go psycho and kill a bunch of people, how do they manage? [/sarcasm]

    Why in this modern age must popliticians treat entire continental populations like a kindergarten class? A statistically insignificant number of people are in the ven diagram overlap of violent videogame players and violent criminals so such games are banned for everyone? Talk about lazy legislation, so sorry it's easier to try and ruin it for everyone else instead of actually investigating the other motivations and causes that lead to these tragedies and maybe learning to diagnose and treat or prevent such violent behavior. This has all been said before, it will all be said again, just ranting to get it out of my system.
    • Try millions and you might just be getting somewhere. (Me included)
    • Video games are the new Rock'n'Roll/horror movies/Heavy Metal. They are declared the cause for everything that might be wrong with today's youth and in twenty years today's gameing youth will agree that 4D sens-o-vision is the source of all evil...

      People love easy solutions to complex problems and they will always seek someone to blame their problems on, whether it's video games corrupting the youth or $MINORITY destroying the economy. By declaring video games to be the main cause of students running amok
    • Due to their track records of very bad decisions, politicians in general are less and less trusted to make correct decisions. In all areas that count, like economy, foreign politics, energy, there is a strong milieu of think tanks, lobbyists and experts that make the politician's individual ideas a minor factor. So when politicians find a relatively unchartered territory, where expert knowledge has not created a clearly limited field of options, they like to hold extreme views that they wouldn't get away wi
      • Not to mention more studies that prove or disprove a causal relationship between violent games and real life violence. And beyond that even, studies which show that those who may be affected are or are not similarly affected by other forms of violent media. There's certainly room for more psychological and sociological studies to help support or refute either argument before politicians should be allowed to wield their assertions as facts. I find your reasoning on the politicians' motivations to exploit gre

  • Exchange Student (Score:4, Funny)

    by the dark hero ( 971268 ) <adriatic_hero@@@hotmail...com> on Wednesday January 17, 2007 @05:40PM (#17654582) Homepage
    I remember the German exchange student in my highschool years relating a story to me that fist fights and such outward violence is viewed as idiocy. He told me they tend to resolve conflicts verbally. Sure, they might swear at each other, but rarely does anyone resort to violence. He also played tons of GTA and said he did enjoy videogames. The guy woldn't hurt a fly. He was one of the coolest, most laid back people i've ever met, but the pot might've had something to do with that.
  • I have criticized the EU gov't for a long time already because it is an overreaching, overregulating piece of bureaucratic uselessness. This is the final straw.
    Go on, restrict free speech a bit more, not that it matters by now. I'll download everything from respectful countries if need be. My country will probably be first in line supporting this idiotic idea, seeing as a liberal gov't official was recently quoted advocating the ban of Rule of Rose and this gov't is oh so keen on "protecting" me...

  • Problem with homicidal tendencies not games (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Sciros ( 986030 ) on Wednesday January 17, 2007 @05:52PM (#17654848) Journal
    What is with the constant scapegoating of video games in Germany? Folks connected to a murder being Final Fantasy fans is about as relevant as their being, I don't know, Nestea Cool fans or something. You would really have to be flat-out disingenuous and have some alternate agenda in order to make a connection between Final Fantasy VII and a homicide (unless it was with a big big sword, or one of those sweet guns Vincent has... mmm triple barrel goodness...). As for pushing for EU-wide standards for violence in games, well unless the EU is all one big monolithic culture, those standards will not reflect the views of enough people IMO. But then again I'm not even a supporter of ESRB ratings in the US. Or movie ratings for that matter.
    • Hmm, Why Scapegoat? I hope that is a rhetorical question.

      In case it not...

      It's because people want a solution to a problem that doesn't involve them acceping responsibility for their own actions, or that does not require much effort on their part.

      Buty I hope you knew this already.
  • ... Violent Video Games Play You!

    Sorry, couldn't resist :D
  • Come on, people, everyone knows videogames make people violent. For example, Adolf Hitler was a Duke Nukem 3D fanatic, Josef Stalin loved Mortal Kombat, Che Guevara played Carmageddon the whole day, Pol Pot was crazy for Resident Evil...

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by T_ConX ( 783573 )
      I heard Dick Cheney was a real Duck Hunt nut in the 80's... but he wasn't very good at it.
      • hey come on, who modded the parent down, its the funniest comment Ive seen all day :) (and relevant, maybe if he played it some more the incident wouldnt have happened....(or it would have been fatal, depending on if it was accidental)
    • I wonder if they all played Chess, which is a war game... The major difference between a board game and a computer game is the medium, they still have goals and metrics.

  • Sour Grapes. (Score:1, Troll)

    by crhylove ( 205956 )
    I think they are all just pissed off about being the bad guys forever, since Wolfenstein 3-d. But that's what happens when you let a false flag terror operation suspend the original precepts of democracy so that the fascists can take over and start espionage against the public. Luckily here in the US we're way too smart for that..... Oh. Shit.......

    rhY
    • Your point would have been better if it included the mass slaughter of citizens by the government, but then your couldn't draw your ridiculous parallel anymore. I guess it sucks when you're dying to make a shitty point.

  • One thing in common (Score:3, Funny)

    by The_DoubleU ( 603071 ) on Wednesday January 17, 2007 @06:20PM (#17655374)
    Germany has had a few kids going nuts and in every case there was something in common. The person in question owned 'violent' video games. So it is very easy to ban video games.
    But they forgot another thing all cases had in common, every person was attending high-shool of some sort of education. So my conclusion is to ban education and no more school shootings.

    This give the kids also more time to play video games.
    • Objection your honor: In the first case the police report showed that the person did not even have a computer, the press just was screaming constantly he was an evil counterstrike player. In the second case he was a counterstrike player but the letter of farewell basically had no computer connection at all. In the third case, those evil guys were members of a computer club where they learned to program computers, the press instantly shouted they found the evil killer computer game final fantasy VII thats it

      • Objection overruled.

        While I hear that claim quite often (and I somewhat wish it was true), it clearly ignores the facts. From the official report of the Gutenberg Kommission (http://www.thueringer-allgemeine.de/ta/ta_media/t a.KomGut.pdf [thueringer-allgemeine.de] (PDF warning), page 336

        Darüber hinaus wurden eine Vielzahl von Computerspielen, darunter überwiegend sogenannte Egoshooter aufgefunden. Als Auswahl sind insoweit zu benennen: "Return to Castle Wolfenstein", "Unreal 2", "Hidden", "Half-Life", "Undying", "Die Ha

  • Re: (Score:1, Offtopic)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Correlations... (Score:3, Informative)

    by MaWeiTao ( 908546 ) on Wednesday January 17, 2007 @06:33PM (#17655558)
    This, just days after two Final Fantasy VII fans were arrested in connection with a series of killings.


    Most people are a fan of something. Is the media going to start associating other crimes with the personal interests of those perpetrators? In some cases it may provide some insight but in most cases it does not. I can think of a few things out there more closely related to crime than this and those aren't investigated.

    But I guess this hits closer to home for many people and when was the last time the news media hasn't sensationalized a story to make a few extra dollars?

    There's something very frustrating about government officials getting fixated on non-issues when there are far more serious problems to contend with.

  • Final Fantasy VII?! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by HTH NE1 ( 675604 ) on Wednesday January 17, 2007 @06:35PM (#17655598)
    This, just days after two Final Fantasy VII fans were arrested in connection with a series of killings.

    They're calling Final Fantasy VII "Killerspiele" ("killer game") because two killers used aliases from the game.

    They think the game inspired them to kill. How? Did they take turns?

    Did someone translate the X-Play skit for "RPG Radiculopathy" [youtube.com] into German and leave out the humor?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by HTH NE1 ( 675604 )
      How is the parent Redundant? No one else posted that FFVII was a turn-based RPG or referenced RPG Radiculopathy before it did.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Jesus_666 ( 702802 )
      Slight correction: One Killerspiel, many Killerspiele. The s-suffix indicates the plural.

      On an unrelated note, I'll try to raise public awareness of Gewaltliteratur ("violence literature"), which is a term I've invented for any kind of book in which someone kills any being without immediately being followed by a note by the author detailing that what that character did is wrong and that killing is bad. Such violent hate speech-filled books needs to be banned, all of them. Yes, including the Bible and all

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by r3dx0r ( 716364 )
      The did not play one of the FF games. What they did, according to http://www.spiegel.de/panorama/justiz/0,1518,46049 7,00.html [spiegel.de], is watch the movie "Final Fantasy XII".

  • Data (Score:2)

    by Xiroth ( 917768 )
    Do they have any supporting data, other than hearsay and fear? The only thorough study of the idea that violent video games and violent tendencies are linked that I know of (here [inist.fr]) failed to find any such link at all, even when the researchers entered the study expecting to find a link. And this is any link whatsoever, not just whether violent video games cause violent tendencies.
    • Politicians never bother with it, they go with what they think, and they got elected so they must be right.

      For examples of this behaviour see the war on drugs. Whenever new studies come out, even if they were funded by the government, if they don't fit the ideology they are discarded.

      We do not currently have a society based on evidence or reason. More's the pity.
  • Violent video games do not create violent people. Instead, society ills create violent people, none of which are the video game's fault.

  • No, not "Germany" (Score:3, Insightful)

    by koinu ( 472851 ) on Wednesday January 17, 2007 @07:10PM (#17656090)
    Only some stupid politicians!
    • And BILD, which still is Europe's biggest tabloid and which, inexplicably, still enjoys great popularity (and thus power), despite having been (and still being) the most scummy collection of drivel Germany has to offer for the last couple decades.

      BILD says something -> millions of idiots believe it -> politicians sharing BILD's viewpoint are suddenly very popular

      Don't forget, BILD's slogan is "BILD dir deine Meinung". (For the non-German-speaking readers: It roughly translates to "Form your opinio
  • The Germans, they are not a warlike people.
  • Apparently violence is bad, but shitting and pissing on someone in a porno is A-OK. I could wrong though, perhaps I wasn't watching German porn so much as it was the German version of the School House Rock segment on how the government works.

  • prio "art" (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Walter Carver ( 973233 )
    Some of the games that I have played (and enjoyed) include Carmageddon, Doom, Doom2, Unreal Tournament, Quake3, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, Unreal Tournament 2004, Doom3. After all this virtual blood, I can't hurt an ant and I can't stand to even see violence in real.

    Some people just don't get it. Real violence is one thing, virtual is another.

    And it's not like that violence in movies can be as (or more) graphic as in video/computer games, right? Not that violence in Germany wasn't present before video ga
  • Why would Germany care for what other countries allow? :-p

    Are they losing out revenue on not wanting violent games in their own country, and thus don't want anyone else to profit from sales or what?

    If they only minded their own business and limited their own crazy laws to themselves.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by KDR_11k ( 778916 )
      Because it's very easy to trade stuff across EU-internal borders and as such minors could circumvent an age restriction by ordering the game from e.g. Austria (or even walking over there and buying it if they live close enough to the border).
  • Ok.. so a country bans a video game... because it creates violence for children and kids.

    Well violence still continues...

    So, do you ban the console video games are played on? Start banning hockey, soccer, other sports, media, wars?

    For every bit of violence that is seen, someone will make an excuse for the violence. It is becoming a never ending cycle - ban something you do not understand instead of actaully seeing where the problem stems from.

    Shall we ban people from the internet next? What a kid doesnt see
  • Has everyone on this planet forgotten there were murders and crimes before we had video games?
  • Ok, this guy did spend quite a lot of time playing Counter-Strike, and thus, when he kills some people with a gun, it has to be linked. Correct?

     
    No, it isn't. Now, if I was an avid surfer (IANAS), and one day I cracked and decided to kill my classmates, I would not whack them to death with my surf board. No, I would get access to whatever knife or gun I could and kill people that way. These people are over-reacting.
  • You know perhaps the issue is about a young man playing to much computer games (I'm guessing 8 hours to 14 hours a day)... I played alot of Quake ten years ago, and got very good at it, well you have to get good if you play 8 hours a day for a couple of months. But you can't play that much without getting into somek ind of trouble, e.g. not doing everything you should in school, moving around less.

    There are several reactions you can have when you discover that you are playing to much, either you stop, or yo
  • Not germany, Bavaria (dont mix that up with austria, we are very close languagewise, but totally different mentalitywise) Bavaria sort of is the Redneck state of germany, with some asshole populist politicians who have been on an anti gaming and video crusade for almost 20 years.
  • As someone stated once,

    If computer games makes you violent, why isn't there more violence at computer gaming cons?

    It would be the perfect opportunity, people play counterstrike for 40 hours straight, have their senses depraved from lack of sleep and too much Red Bull and CC and Jolt and whatever, probably gets pissed at the kid who kills them in every single game...
  • When, for god's sake, are they going to realize that it's responsability of the parents to guide their children and prevent such cases of younger people playing too many hours or inadequate games. I have played all kind of games trough all my life and I've never kill anybody, the difference is, my parents told me when to stop. Instead of banning games, they should made a training camp for parents.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by KDR_11k ( 778916 )
      When more people vote for the green party (which has politicians that do understand that) instead of the CSU (which just wants to ban the easiest target).

  • Why? (Score:1)

    by jkiol ( 1050424 )
    Why has no one ever mentioned banning something that has a REAL correlation to centuries of violence like organized religion?
  • Something I haven't seen mentioned yet is the developers of FarCry, who have a 100-strong team in Germany told 1up.com that if the German goverment were to enforce this rule - they would simply relocate. Now surely this would not only hurt their development industry but also the sales industry (with a 3million+ selling game like Gears of War dissallowed, people will start being reluctant to paying out the prices for next-gen consoles if they can't get their favourite games for them). Another point to consid
  • There's too many people out there who are mentally deranged enough to act video games out in real life. I dont think we can ever pinpoint these psychos entirely, but the best we can do is limit gaming content. On one hand, I do enjoy a good FPS, but on the other, so does Mr Psycho in the Middle East. Who takes action? Me? Living in a first world country where violence is a minimal thing - I dont think so. Or Mr Psycho in the Middle East where violence is as prevalent as breathing. I can't see an answer th

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