Slashdot Mirror
Germany Places Command & Conquer on Restricted List
heli0 writes "CNet is reporting that Germany has placed EA's newest Command & Conquer game 'Generals' on its restricted list, which means it may not be advertised or displayed on shelves although it may be kept under store counters and sold to adults. The reason according to Elke Monssen-Engberding, director of the Ministry for Family Affairs: 'It portrays war as the only way to resolve conflicts.'"
Can we put George Bush onto a Restricted list? He certainly portrays war as the only way to resolve conflicts.
Tarsnap: Online backups for the truly paranoid
The article says Electronic Arts believe it has something to do with what's going on in Iraq right now.
If this is the case, it's plain ignorance.
Many games are put on the restricted list in Germany, and this one isn't really a shocker. Perhaps if Timmy the Tooth: Decay Demolisher II was placed on this list there might be some questions behind the reasoning, but a war game? Not a surprise by a long shot.
Americans and their Freedom Fries
Rapid Nirvana
Anyone else wants to bet that sales will soar?
GTA3 was in the news here in Norway a lot when it was released. Different agencies and ministers connected with children all wanted to ban it. Result? Top seller in Norway that year...
A)bort, R)etry or S)elf-destruct?
the title alone promotes war, portrays it as a skill, as something to strive for and improve on !
And solitaire, what kind of an asocial name with an egoist attitude is that ?
When will I end this grieving ? When will my future begin ?
And my brother is a marine... muhahahaha
"We have evidence that the Brotherhood of Nod does indeed have a harvester. For all we know, they could be harvesting Tiberium as we speak."
"We Germans are not a warlike people"
"I would say that 99 per cent of what my father has written about his own life is false." - L. Ron Hubbard Jr.
A quote I saw the other day
"You know that times are stange when the best rapper in the world is white, the best golfer in the world is black, the Americas cup is held by landlocked Sweden, the French are accusing the Americans of arrogance and Germany is steadfstly refusing to go to war."
I agree with this decision. The reporting of this war has verged on pornography, with too many reporters getting excited about bombs and tanks and too little attention being paid to the human cost. They are right not to ban it, but right not to promote the joy of conflict at this time either.
Seems to me if the game has a quit button, there's an alternate way of resolving the conflict.
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
"Everyone who has seen the first Harry Potter movie knows the brutal truth about what really happens when you 'capture' a piece in chess."
Or perhaps Star Wars and that round-boarded holographic chess game Chewy and R2-D2 were playing.
"They might also point out that only one piece out of 16 on each side is female. Why not half? It's sexist as well as violent!"
Ah yes, but she is by far the most powerful piece on the board, can be resurrected from the dead, and can be cloned. Besides, do you honestly believe that the King is the one in command? Hell no! That manipulative bitch is the one really pulling the strings in that army! She's obviously more than willing to let the other male pieces get slaughtered in the violent carnage while she hides behind her protective line of foot-soldier/cannon-fodder pawns (who are, no doubt, meager peasants forced to fight for the royalty to keep their farms). Oh yeah, she'll dart out every once in a while to attack, but as soon as she's threatened directly, she'll turn tail and run.
Yes, we are working hard here in to put chess on the restricted list, too. Then again, one might introduce some new rule, where the black king and the white queen can sit down on G4 and talk for a while, or we might replace the knight by a new figure: "the diplomat". The diplomat can't move, but will have some really cool abilities. What exactly is not yet clear, the EU games council is still negotiating.
Cheers, from good old Germany.
KdenLive/PIAVE - non-linear video editing
the german "Bundesruefstelle fuer jugendgefaehrdende Schriften" (federal department for the control of youth-endangering writings) maintains a list of products that are deemed "adult material". These products may neither be advertised, nor openly sold, but after an ID check may be sold to anyone age 18 or higher. these products fall into the following categories :
- hard pornography
- violence
- drug abuse
- political extremist material
the first computer game ever to end up on this list was A10:Tank Killer. Other games include the Doom, Quake and Command and Conquer series. The Bundespruefstelle lost a lot of power over the years, but got a lot of influence after the Erfurt school shootings.and now for the reality check : as much as 18-year olds are able to obtain beer in the united states, 16-year olds can get a copy of C&C:Generals in Germany. if they can't buy it in their software shop of choice, they just get it per mailorder from Austria or Holland. the whole reason of this restrictive list is that, after WWII, there was a meme shift in Germany. The fascism meme (fascism as in "power trough violence") was replaced by the democracy meme, and most Germans/Western Europeans think that a game/book/movie that promotes the killing of human beings is not suited for kids.
my point : this restriction list is not really potent, and has existed long before the current situation, even in a time when Germany and the US where close buddies. So don't see this as some kind of America-bashing. If we "old Europeans" accept the American attitude about gun ownage, you might as well accept ours.
Karma
I'm with you. That's why I wrote that I can "somehow" understand it, and stated my reasons for doing so. However, I'm still against censorship and don't want to give the impression that I'm supporting it in the case of C&C, which I do not.
Though I can't put into words why, at least, not right off the bat... something about how the constant playing of war games could eventually become a replacement behavior for learning how to have real conflict with people. Or, as one therapist friend of mine put it, it could prevent people from owning their violence.
Like with pornography: someone who looks at that stuff too much and from too young an age may never learn what real love and intimacy feel like. It's a real problem.
Perhaps that isn't the German gov't's perspective, but it feels like a good decision to me, for the above reasons. Games like that just insulate the players from the realities of war. Sure, it's just a game, I know, but can anyone give me a reason why I need yet another false portrayal of war these days (in addition to those of most American media outlets)?
Of course, they could just be placing controls on software made by an American company, but I don't know if the publisher is American. As someone else said, I think it will just draw attention to it and raise sales. Too bad.
"The cup... the drop... it's a YES!"
I'm an American living in Germany. I was listening to the radio on the way home from work the other day. The announcer was listing off the traffic jams and construction sites of the day and casually mentioned that they were defusing a bomb in a particular area, and that people who weren't directly involved should avoid the area.
This wasn't major news -- unexploded ordinance from WWII is still occasionally found and needs to be taken care of. With such ever present reminders of the horrors of war you begin to understand why the Germans are so utterly opposed to starting them these days.
Because the Provos in Ireland are so upset about American hegemonistic tendencies that it's encouraged them to rise up and commit acts of terror, right? Ditto the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elan, the Basque nationalists, the PKK in Turkey, the New People's Army in the Phillipines, the Zapatistas in Chiapas State, and probably several others I've never heard of.
You "think Americans can only think of solutions in terms of warfare" because that's what grabs headlines. Brinksmanship is far more interesting on the world stage than a civil trade negotiation. Please note that when the Chinese were essentially holding U.S. Navy personnel hostage, that America did not go to war. Please note also that we are acting currently to enforce UN Security Council resolutions (most of them unanimous, if memory serves) that have been on the books for an even dozen years. Simply because some other countries object to the things they agreed to in the past doesn't mean our will must waver now.
When you make obviously inflammatory blanket statements that have no basis in fact whatsofuckingever, expect to get them thrown back in your face. Oh, and as for your statement about Americans trying to control the world, I leave you with a quote from Colin Powell:
They that would sacrifice their
'It portrays war as the only way to resolve conflicts.'
Somehow, I don't think that "Concede and Compromise" would be a big seller.
I see many people focus on WMD. When they are found will it radically alter your entire opinion of the effort?
You use it as a supporting argument for your US-Hating stance, but would it actually change anything?
I think people don't even really care of Saddam and his sons have WMD, they are just using it to toot their horns, and in the political arena gain popular opinion.
That said I don't think war was necesarilly the exactly right choice, but I don't think it is as wrong as many believe. This should have happened 12 years ago. We are just cleaning up our messes now.
You're right that free speech is less absolute in Germany than in the US.
But in this case, this has nothing to do with free speech. It is legal to sell/buy this game, just not to people under 18. Just as it is legal to sell pornography, just not to people under 18.
1. The "diplomat" is a neutral piece. To underscore this fact, it is not colored white or black, but rather blue, white, red.
2. The "diplomat" is never placed on the board. It cannot move and can have no ultimate effect on the outcome of the game.
3. The "diplomat" acts at the beginning of white's turn. The effect of the diplomat is to prevent white from moving any pieces.
4. Each time the "diplomat" acts, black gains an additional pawn, which may be placed on the board at the player's discretion.
5. Each time black receives a new pawn this way, the "diplomat" receives several million dollars from black, which it can stash in secret accounts to use to conduct it's "diplomacy" in other parts of the world. The "diplomat" may buy and keep other pieces of its own, which it may insert into other games without asking anyone's permission.
This sequence continues until white completely ignores the "diplomat" and begins moving pieces over the diplomats protestations.
Hate to break it to you, but just because the US "stops being the bully" won't make peace come any faster. When people like Saddam are in power; people that don't allow discussions like this one; people who, when confronted, send those people on "vacations" that they never return from or cut their tongue out and make them bleed to death ( as happened about a week and a half ago).
When these people stop ruling countries, then peace can be attained. There's more to this than just the US backing down it's aggressive stance. However, I do support the troops and the coalition that sent them, because if any of you think that Saddam should just be left alone, ask his 3rd grade teacher...oh wait you can't because he shot her in the face when he was 11.
I don't dissagree that the US is aggressive, but I do dissagree that we are the only cause of conflict.
Mike
A strange game. The only winning move is not to play. =)
Ryosen
One man's "Troll, +1" is another man's "Insightful, +1".
'It portrays war as the only way to resolve conflict'
:
In the intro they have somebody say:
"In the modern world, great leaders resolve conflicts with words, words like
Scud Luncher
Carpet bombing
Tomahawk missiles "
The game is pretty fun to play if it wouldn't crash all the time and reboot my system because my video card was a ATI Radeon 7200 and they can't make the game not crash on anything lesser then a 7500.
This is why I think they lost.
1. They didn't want war (for any reason) but there is a war.
2. UN credibility is shot. (I am rather upset on this one.)
3. Their economy is shot, because of trade with US.
4. UN may get to participate in the rebuilding, but as secondary party.
5. And the thing that pissed off the French so much, is that US and British companies would get the most lucrative business offers from it!
Whether this war is justified or now, we will find out in the long run. For now, all I see is two sides fighting, and one side fighting rather dirty.
I look forward to hearing from you. Fun debate
Free speech is getting expensive...
How many times do we have to hear self-righteous Americans complaining about lack of free speech in other countries? Interestingly a recent survey on freedom of the press (demonstrated by the breadth of viewpoints espoused in articles) showed the US 14th worldwide, below Germany, France, the UK and the leaders (suprise, suprise) Holland.
"Hate" speech is the same kind of thing that any civilised country cracks down on - i.e. racism, sexism, anti-semitism, attacks on gay people etc.
Currently out of the Western liberal democracies the one that seems to be cracking down the most on alternative viewpoints is the US, examples include the Patriot act, that bloke that got arrested in a mall for wearing an anti-war T-shirt, etc.
1: They only supported us after we won the battle of Lake Champlaign (sp) and it became obvious that the Britsh position was becoming untenable. In the aftermath of the revolution, we actually found ourselves gravitating more towards the British then the French.
2: This has less to do with what is the right or wrong course of action when dealing with Iraq then it has to do French commercial interests and French geo-political aspirations. What France is trying to do is set itself as a new global power, hence their neo-colonialist activities in Africa. If that is their goal then that's fine, a little competition between countires can be a good thing. However, I do have a couple of issues. First, I'm not sure France is prepared for the burden global leadership, I'm not sure they are ready to pay the bills in terms of money and blood. Second, when France stumbles, we end up leaving a lot of little, white crosses behind.
I did get a good laugh out of the French Foreign Minister going to London recently and saying something along the lines of how they should work together in the spirit of Anglo-French cooperation like when they teamed up to defeat Nazi Germany. I laughed so hard I almost pissed myself.
between the greater and lesser infinities sleep the dreams undreamt
My "<" had been swallowed. I find this very offensive. Here's the corrected version:
As another poster was already pointing out, this kind of blacklist has always been around and it only affect kids (< 18yrs).
In Germany we are much more sensetive to exposing kids to violence while being much more relaxed about pornography in comparison.