Slashdot Mirror
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.'"
After all, everyone knows Germany has had absolutely *no* history of violence before video games appeared on the scene.
*ducks*
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
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
Can you say publicity stunt? Seriously, gaming in Germany is massive, and nearly every video game is violent in some way. Why don't they ban "tag" while they're at it, a game which encourages *actual* attacking of another human being in the game. I'm not familiar with German law, but I get the feeling this guy isn't elected. Why? Because so many germans play games and would be against it. This would probably be political suicide even in America, a country that seems more inclined to take away people's rights. Now, however, whoever the interior minister works for can point to this (probably) failed bill whenever a school shooting comes up, but then point at someone else whenever the bill is criticised. Some day people are going to realize that the people in school shootings got the plan on *how* to go about doing their crime from a video game *at worst.* The idea *to* do it came from themselves, from deep mental issues probably stemming from their parents or not having enough ways of releasing their anger safely (ever try video games for that?). If they hadn't gotten the plan from a game, they'd get it from a movie, or a book, or even (gasp) come up with their own.
Does a line appended to your comment give your post meaning in and of itself, or only in relation to those without?
1) Pretty females can have a stimulating effect on sex offenders (known and unknown), so will you ban women from walking in public?
2) Good tasting food can have a stimulating effect on people with eating disorders, so will you ban good tasting food?
How about doing something constructive and helping people recognize problems in their kids, providing free help to families with issues, and promiting good family relationships, instead?
I don't reply to Anonymous posts; if you have something to say to me, identify yourself or I won't reply.
...is invariably an over-reaction.
Surprised? Nope.
The USA did ban playing cards online.
Is a throughly docile democratized (herd mentality) society. No one must be able to imagine or visualize "solving problems" by using violence, by himself. No one must be able to imagine that there even is a problem. I love this State! More soma, please!
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
he (Beckstein) is not the "German Minister of the Interior" but the one of Bavaria (german: Bayern). Bavaria is the most conservative state in germany, ruled for nearly 60 years by the same party. He has been joined in his attempt by the minister of interior of lower saxony.
The core of the prolem is the definition of "killer games". Since nearly all major politicians are 60 or older, they have nearly no understanding of the topic. They believe e.g. that Counterstrike is played with a joystick and the goal of the game to be "killing hostages". Usually, hearing them, i'm torn between laughing and crying.
Regards, Martin
No... But WWII is responsible for all the WWII video games of the last few years. If I see one more WWII video game, I'm going to jump into my Sherman tank and take a tour through town!
is worth a pound of cure. We all know that.
But what is seldom appreciated is how often that a pound of prevention turns out to be worth only an ounce of cure. Or less.
The reason that the "ounce of prevention" strategy works is that it focuses you on simple, reasonable actions that accurately target the concern and produce few side effects. Like putting a lock on your door to prevent burglary. Now you could sit on your front porch and shoot at everybody who comes near your house that you think "looks shifty". There is no doubt a more vigorous preventive measure than locking your doors and widnows, but it isn't more effective.
It really doesn't matter whether something is done before or after the fact, so much that the action be chosen to produce the results desired, and not much if anything else.
And seeing as we've already triggered Godwin's law, I may as well raise the example of the Final Solution as an instance of the pound of prevention phenomonon. If people thought that the Jews where using their control of money to ruin the country, why didn't they simply pass a few banking regulation laws? Then nobody could ruin the country that way, Jew or otherwise. The answer is that the pound of prevention phenomon, like road rage, is driven by highly emotionally charged thinking. The kind that makes you act so stupidly that the only way not to die from embarassment is to do something even stupider.
If you're so concerned with pathologically violent people, why not simply screen for them at various reasonable points? You provide mental health services at school to disturbed kids and training for teachers on how to recognize and deal with them. You screen people who have violent run-ins with other people before they go onto bigger and badder things. You run a public education campaign so people can recognize when their associates and familiy members need help -- maybe a few people will recognize they need help themselves.
Will this get rid of all violence by disturbed people? No. But it will do a hell of a lot more than banning video games.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Well, then, your car will immediately be stopped by the police and you automatically lose the race. In fact, in order to keep anyone's feelings from being hurt, GT4 will be rewritten so that all races always end in a tie between all drivers.
Yes they do. In fact, the makers of personal computers will be liable if someone uses their personal computer to virtually harm another being--including making them feel bad. Of course, makers of personal computers will then sue all of their component suppliers and so on down the line.
...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.
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
This guy is elected...By old people.
More aptly, this guy is elected by people who bother to vote
Does this mean that FPS Doug would be made an international criminal???
I got nothin'
He is the Minister of Interior of Bavaria, and Bavaria is just one of 16 states (Bundesland) in germany. That's like calling Arnold Schwarzenegger president of the united states.
And besides that, he isn't even very popular in germany (at least outside bavaria).
To give you a picture of his political position: The conservatives (CDU) are the largest party in germany at the moment, althouth they are only supported by about 35% across germany.
In bavaria, things are a lot different. Bavaria is so conservative, that the more moderate CDU is split into two partys. The party in bavaria is called CSU, so the rest of germany does not link the radical positions of the CSU to the conservatives outside bavaria.
That works incredible well: the CSU dominates bavaria around 60% for decades, with political statements like the above. And Mr. Beckstein is often the one saying the radical statements.
Shall I mention that Mr. Beckstein is a huge fan of the Bush administration whereas most germans are not?
I've been playing a video game all evening. And I still have a desire to violently knock down ten defenseless pins with a large heavy ball. Sometimes even as many as 91. Though I've successfully managed to restrain the urge to destroy video screens with small flying white objects.
[Insert pithy quote here]
And not because kids want notoriety, but do to this simple formula: a kid is bullied and ostracized until he or she decides that life is simply not worth living anymore, and before they go, they might as well take the fucking assholes with them that are responsible for making them feel that way.
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.
Gamers only need to hold out for about 30 more years. By then every politician will have grown up with "violent" gaming themselves, and stupid things like these will be history. Of course, by then, all politicians will have something new to wrongly accuse of turning people into drooling monsters.
Not entirely. He's more correct than he probably knew he was. Germany has a terminal population problem; the only think keeping their country afloat long-term is immigration. So it's entirely plauseable that "old" people are a statistically larger percentage of the population than the younger - just as it would be the other way around in a healthy civilization.
At least one good thing can be said about such things: if the trend isn't reversed, at least their society will experience a short age of guaranteed non-agression before its departure from the face of the earth as a cultural entity.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
We have Nazis in the USA too. They have even, on occasion, paraded in the streets (through Black or Jewish neighborhoods, in fact), protected by police from hecklers.
For the most part, they are laughed at. It doesn't take a legal ban to render them harmless - letting them spout their doctrine on TV seems to make them objects of ridicule in and of itself.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"