German Minister Seeks Jail Time For FPS Players

GamePolitics has the somewhat unbelievable news that German Minister of the Interior Gunther Beckstein is seeking jail time for violent game developers, publishers, and players. MSNBC has further coverage of the issue, which has pro gamers in Germany quite worried. From the article: "The draft law, a reaction to a school shooting that shook German public opinion last month, will come before the upper house of parliament next year. But it is already sending shockwaves through the 2m-strong German online gaming community. 'We have among the most drastic censorship rules for games,' said Frank Sliwka, head of the Deutsche E-Sport Bund, an umbrella federation for German online gaming teams. 'Now we are being labelled as a breeding ground for unstable, dysfunctional and violent youngsters.'"

Comments

WOW, more of the same

[zappepcs]

More clueless people trying to make rules for systems that they have no idea how it works....

First, Didn't the neo-nazi youths have this title all wrapped up before there were violent games?
Kidding aside, this is just another stupid knee jerk reaction to social problems that nobody wants to take the blame for.

When I was a kid, we played with toy guns, king of the hill, kill-the-guy-with-the-ball, and other VIOLENT games...
It wasn't until they banned 'red rover' that this sort of bad finger pointing started to happen...

FerChrisSakes - lets blame everyone and everything but the parents and families of violent kids...

Sheesh

Re:It's all the games' fault!

[Drooling Iguana]

Germany didn't start WWI. It began as a war between Austria and Serbia.

They got involved pretty damn quickly, though.

You know what causes the most school shootings...

[Tokerat]

...is all the media glamor and shock that is the result of school shootings. These kids want to "make a statement". They're so hurt or outcast and they shoot up their school to lash back and to make the world notice, as if to say "It's that bad here." It's essentially an act of terrorism.

I'm pretty sure Islamic extremist groups didn't become violent from video games, but because they felt a need to lash out. The behavior is, plain and simple, unchecked immaturity combined with a little knowledge.

Re:It's all the games' fault!

[Lord Kano]

World's fastest invocation of Godwin's Law? :D
        ~~=====> - Godwin's Law

            0 - You
          _|_
            |
          / \

It's not a rule that can be invoked like "Whoever finishes the TP must install the new roll.", it's a law in the sense of "E=MC^2".

Let me introduce you to Kano's Law.

• The odds of someone using Godwin's Law to shield an idea from criticism is proportional to how much that idea resebles those of the Nazis.

LK

Some clarification

[Fefe]

The guy is not the German minister of the interior, he is the Bavarian minister of the interior, and he is well known for this stupid publicity stunts. He is always at the forefront of demanding new databases, new surveillance, longer jail time for everything, more police and using the military to do police work. In short: the guy is a nutcase.

He is doing it to make sure people don't notice all the scandals his administration is involved in, for example they just completely botched a police IT spending bill, wasted millions on new software which does not work. And his law and order state had issues with soccer hooligans.

In short: the guy is a joke. Don't take him seriously.