German Politico Calls For Ban On Violent Games

GamePolitics reports that Germany's new coalition government wants to limit the development and production of violent games. From the article: "... Andreas Scheuer, a parliamentarian serving under the banner of the conservative Christian Social Union, told Der Spiegel that violent games 'have no place in Germany's bedrooms.' Scheuer added that parents must be responsible for what their children play, but that the German government could help less media-savvy parents by introducing a 'complete ban' on violent games. Along with movies, games are already subject to a rating process."

Comments

I wish I lived in Germany

[A nonymous Coward]

the German government could help less media-savvy parents by introducing a 'complete ban' on violent games

They could help my less savvy neighbor tone down his loud stereo. My other neighbor has a less savvy nose and doesn't understand how smelly his bbqs are. I have friends who are less savvy about politics and could use some help. There's the cow-orker who is less savvy about his belching and needs help.

I sure wish I lived in a country like Germany with such savvy politicians looking out for my less savvy fellow citizens.

Re:I wish I lived in Germany

[vistic]

How do you ork a cow?

wow, talk about two-faced....

[Malor]

That's an amazing piece of spin. Saying "Parents must be responsible" and then within ONE SENTENCE flipping that around to "Parents aren't responsible so we're going to ban the things we don't personally like." Even the current American administration would have a hard time topping that one.

Err...

[Winterblink]

"... violent games 'have no place in Germany's bedrooms.' "

Wait a sec... what are we talking about here? :)

Yes, they do

[Red Flayer]

"told Der Spiegel that violent games 'have no place in Germany's bedrooms.'"

Let me get this straight, no violent games in German bedrooms?

Guess we'll have to go back to playing scheisse games.

Guess what? How about the idea that the German government has no place in their citizens' bedrooms?

Re:Yes, they do

[MadMoses]

German gamer here.

How about the idea that the German government has no place in their citizens' bedrooms?

Amen.

There are already video games that are verboten in Germany because of their violent content, e.g. Manhunt. This game has been confiscated from video game stores.

In addition, we have some kind of red list (called the Index), which includes all games that are rated suitable only for adults (18+). Those can't be sold in store areas that minor can access (i.e. they must be in a seperate room). You cannot advertise these games, you cannot print reviews of these games.

Because of this, some video game companies don't even try to sell some games in Germany. For instance, you can't buy God Of War (!) in Germany. If I want it, I have to import it from the UK or Austria.

Fuckers.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

"Help" from the government

[Jtheletter]

I'm not really up-to-speed on politics and laws in Germany but this seems rather draconian, especially in the context of the article quote: Scheuer added that parents must be responsible for what their children play, but that the German government could help less media-savvy parents by introducing a 'complete ban' on violent games.

So OK, let's pretend for a second that banning games would in fact help 'less media-savvy parents' as intended, have they even done any studies** to show that such parents are in the majority? Or is the German government just assuming that they know better than most parents and/or most German parents aren't media-aware enough to make these decisions themselves?

Let's face it, even if bans were the answer, no one has demonstrated that even a significant number of parents need this kind of help. And is it really helping society as a whole when the solution to help one set of people completely alienates another group, and leaves them with no choices? Let's hope this fails, and additionally (as unlikely as it is) our government pays attention and learns a lesson and so doesn't waste our time and money trying to implement something similar in the future as the violent games debate continues here in the US.

(Full disclosure: I tried to read the original article linked from the blog that the /. summary points to but it is blocked by websense, if I've made some wrong assumptions - particularly about ** - then please correct me.)

Re:Sour Grapes

[meggito]

Yeah, a top-10 list of WW2 games is likely to involved some German killing. For the record, however, most of those games also involve American killing too. Oh, and those aren't necessarily the most popular, just the most popular WW2 games, which means your reference is biased. I would say that BF2 is more popular than either of the WW2 versions of BF you had listed. Your point is well taken, that video games depicted wars involving Germans may, on occasion, depict a German dying. That doesn't prevent us Americans from bannign the same WW2 game because you can pick up a Luger and kill the Yankees.

He should die a violent death..

[TheHornedOne]

This stupid Kraut needs to have a few rounds of hot lead pumped into his head, be burned alive with some flaming napalm, and have his limbs removed not-too-gently with a dull butter knife

Re:Unbelievable. Oh, wait. Yeah, it is.

[rk87]

It's a tradeoff. Most people here in Germany understand English pretty well - in fact, good enough to play an English video game. So they're banning violent video games, and all it will do is increase piracy. Nice people in the states that have the violent video games will put them on bittorrent, the people here will download. It's a tradeoff - should we try to crack down on copyright infringement and stealing and piracy, or should we try to restrict an activity which has yet to be conclusively proven to actually cause violence? They can't just ban the internet, can they?

My mom never let me play anything violent until I was 16. Once I did, I found fun in them but I was partially horrified at what I saw. This was a good experience. I was old enough to be mature enough to realize that I can't do in real life what I can do in these games, yet I was young enough for my mind to wrap around the idea of "I don't want this to happen to me in real life, do I?". So I can play all the violent games. It doesn't fase me a bit, in fact I think its pretty damn fun. But anybody that knows me in person knows exactly that I won't hurt a fly. I let out my anger in the game, and am a calm person when it matters.