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EU Considering Regulating Sale of Violent Games
Spamicles writes "European Union justice ministers met today in order to discuss the regulation of sales of violent video games to minors. Europeans were riled up last year when a German gunman shot several people before taking his life at a secondary school. A European Union Commissioner is taking advantage of the shootings last year called for stricter regulations in the video game industry. A motion introduced last month calls for legislators to "put in place all necessary measures to ban the sale of particularly violent and cruel video games.""
"Cruel" videogames?
Like Daikatana?
This is utterly ridiculous, can't they at least think of their own fake reasons!
Save The Children is our politicians!
The Germans made no secret of their plans to advance this during their turn with the rotating EU Presidency. Fortunately, this wouldn't force other member states to adopt the ridiculous German position on games, but it's still pretty bad. Last I had heard, several Governments, including the UK, were less than enthused by the idea and planned to resist it (although this may have changed).
Our best hope, really, comes from the fact that the Presidency moves on to Portugal at the start of July. So far as I know, Portugal's position on games is nothing like as screwed up as Germany's and they might not be so motivated to keep pushing to advance this.
The proposed EU constitution rejected by a number of states over the last few years was a bad joke, but there's no denying that the EU needs serious structural reform. Unfortunately, given that said reform should really limit the powers of the EU institutions rather than enhancing them, we're unlikely to see any sensible proposals emerging any time soon.
I think European politicians are simply jumping on the bandwagon and blaming video games for cheap political points. Seriously Europe already has less gun-friendly policies (compared to the U.S.) already in place, regulating video games is going to be even more of a waste in their political system compared to the U.S.'s.
Maybe this will keep pieces of crap like "State Of Emergency" off the shelf, and will motivate Rockstar to do more with the GTA franchise than violence upgrades.
I thought that when a crazy guy shot someone, and then killed himself, we were supposed to blame evil guns. Now when a crazy guy shoots somone, and then kills himself, we are supposed to blame evil video games. If this progression continues I wonder who... correction, I wonder whom... correction, I wonder what will we blame next.
Joe Lieberman moved to France or something ?
This seems like a fairly sane response. I don't think violent games (or films) *cause* violent tendencies, but I do believe they can be influential and reinforcing to those in whom those tendencies already exist, (e.g. minors). As long as this law applies only to minors, I really can't see a problem.
I imagine every slashdotter knows how isolating obsessive tendencies can become (even if its just hours spent playing Nethack online).
[I know, I've stepped over slashdot's "all censorship is unremittingly evil" axiom. Make my day, mod me to hell]
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
Well, you can ban violent games for children, but maybe that's one way to 'de-frustrate'. They will still see violence on TV, in real life.
At least they can control the violence in games, but TV doesn't bring that option.
I think it's up to the parents to take control over what their children can handle. The parent knows best what's best for the kid. I know a 10-year old that plays GTA, but he still knows the difference between games and real life. The parents need to know if their child can draw that line, before their children cross it.
And it will start with violence, but what are they going to do about racing games? They'll try to find a link between car accidents and Gran Turismo...
Because y'know, there never was any violence before video games turned up.
What we have here is a handy emotive issue that can be used to make politicians sound like they are 'in touch' with the needs of the community. The fact that its a loads of nonsense obviously has no relevence.
This is not a ban on violent video games. This is a limitation on content for minors, and frankly, I don't think it's such a bad idea.
I have loved playing GTA over the last few years, but that doesn't mean that I think it's appropriate for 10 year olds to play. I have no interest in the likes of Manhunt, but I see no reason that it shouldn't be made - only reasons that it shouldn't be sold to the wee ones.
If we had something stronger than volunteer parental ratings for an ignorant parental populous, just maybe we wouldn't have to listen to Jack Thompson's tripe any longer. After all, the generation that up until very recently has been buying games for their kids has had NO way of understanding the medium - it's been foreign to parents, and therefore parents have made dubious purchasing decisions.
Why not make retailers check ID as a liquor store does? Some games are simply inappropriate for little kids and should be limited to adult consumption. They shouldn't be "banned" or limited in the production, but the sales should be limited to those who are old enough to have learned what boundaries are.
Getting diabetes AND salmonella would be a bad weekend.
... but what was Hitler playing? Ban starving artists, save the world!
More constructive advice: economies where young folks can actually get hired might put a dent in that wave of youth crime. I doubt you'll find that many of the 300 cars which will get burned in France tonight were torched by kids with jobs. Thats the liberal part of me talking. The conservative part of me adds that you'll want to figure out how to assimilate more of those immigrants, because I doubt that many of the cars are being burned by boys with names like Jacques or Pierre.
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
No we weren't.
Why not just let people buy the violent games and then go home and let off some steam (on Steam?) instead of taking their aggressions to the streets? Heravy Metal and an online boom-stick - That's the trick!
(write-line *coolsig*)
I'm from Germany, which is the country pushing hard for this sort of nonsense I'm ashamed to say. However, the reason they ostensibly give is not the true reason they are pushing for it. Several of the major proponents of this have already let it slip that the real reason is that they don't want people to play video games period. They don't want teenagers "wasting their time" with games and get "worse grades" at school which may make them less attractive as wage slaves, I mean, makes it harder for them to find employment.
So does this mean that the Pirate Bay will have to make a minors game division ?
Yes, stopping kids from getting their hands on violent video games will be the magic bullet that stops violence, aggressive behaviour, bullying, etc.
The practical effect of this seems to me to obviously be that people that want to play violent video games will now just get them through non-official channels - ie, they'll pirate them. Or download any number of violent video games that are made available for free on the Internet to anyone in the world.
Politicians - please stop wasting your time and our money and get back to doing something else. Leave the parenting to the parents and let people accept some responsibility for their actions, eh?
Two reasons why politicians want to scape-goat violent videos games for the perceived demise of society:
1) Boost their popularity by portraying themselves as crime fighters who are protecting the children
2) An excuse to get rid of (or at least limit) things they just don't like or want
It's interesting:
- that this crime was committed by a 19 year old, which would be considered a legal adult in most countries (except for the US where you have to be 21 to enjoy full legal status, i.e. the alcohol laws)
- they don't blame guns
- they haven't looked into the social life and influences of this person other than he played a video game(s)
Point in fact:
- rape and murder are not caused by pornography, video games, rock and roll, Drugs, or any of the other usual suspects. False analogies are just that - false. It's too hard for them to find the real answers to social problems like spending money for after school programs, and providing people with proper social housing, medical and social support for psychiatric programs, etc... the list goes on. Simplifying the cause of a murder to a video game is so ludicrous it would be laughable if it were not true.
When I was a kid I wondered why adults are so stupid. As an adult I still wonder.
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0777958.html
First, the Johann Gutenberg High School shooting was 5 years ago.
Second, nothing I've read on this particular shooting ever linked it to video games. He was expelled from school.
...do not let minors purchase anything. Make it a crime to sell anything to minors. They do not have contract rights or many other rights already, there's no reason to give them general buy/sell rights.
This forces their parents to buy everything for them. They can't hire Random Guy to buy their cigs because Random Guy would in effect be selling to the minors (a crime). The parents are presumably giving their offspring what they need, so they commit no crime. This way, I don't have to deal with stupid laws, but more importantly the state doesn't have to decide on the standard by which children are raised, which is a terrible, terrible idea.
1. Buy violent, cruel and unusual games
2. Advertise them in EBay for double the marked price
3. Admit those false moustaches as proof of age
4. Profit!
That without taking P2P networks into account. I'm not sure if the EU bureaucrats are aware of the difficulties of controlling the distribution of digital content in the Internet era. They should talk to the RIAA before wasting their time.
Rome taught me patience and assiduous application to detail. Virtues which temper the boldness of great, general views.
> EU Considering Regulating Sale of Violent Games
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WTF? They want to regulate games, while at the same time selling weapons willy nilly to anyone with the cash to pay for them (no questions asked)? The US and Russia leads the world arms trade, but runners up have suspiciously European-sounding country names:
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,2605823,
I think this is what we call a Cluster of Clusterbombers:
http://apps.sipri.org/milap/world_aprod_map.html
http://www.sipri.org/contents/milap/milex/aprod/s
Some of these sales are self-defense, but a lot of it feeds third-world conflicts:
http://www.boston.com/news/world/articles/2006/11
Make it as hard to get the video games as it is to obtain real guns. Oh wait a second derranged idiots already seem plenty able to get hold of them despite all the regulation. What will they want to ban next? Action figures? Chess (heck that's based on war). Idiots.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
Most countries in Europe have their own system of classification for films, usually based on an age classification, and backed by law. In Britain we apply these to games as well. It should be up to the individual nation what they do and don;t allow. Not the EU.
Especially when it comes to game violence. Have you ever played a "German version" of any kind of game? It's actually a good laugh. A few highlights of Command and Conquer Generals:
... ohwell.
- No soldiers, you're commanding "robots". Which is a bit odd when it comes to the special units, but
- Of course they don't bleed or yell when they die. They just fall over and vanish.
- No Anthrax in the arsenal of the Terrorists, they're using acid. Why that acid only affects "robots" and no tanks is beyond me, but ok.
- Here's the best part: No suicide bombers, instead you have cute little "rolling bombs" which resemble a tea-cart with a comic-style "bomb" on top. Why those teacarts can drive cars or generally behave like humans not really explained.
And so on. I mean, I don't need my games "bloody", but when it crosses the line to ridiculous that's usually where I stop enjoying the games. And the "germanized" versions usually leap over that line by a few miles.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
There is already a perfectly usable pan-European game rating system. It's voluntary, but I haven't seen a single game on sale in the UK that doesn't have it, with occasional mandatory BBFC ratings for more "realistic" games (GTA3 and beyond are all released with an 18 cert). As well as that, you'll find that a lot of stores here will abide by PEGI ratings, which detail exactly why the game has the rating it has (sex, violence, drugs and gambling amongst the reasons) supposedly so parents can make a more informed decision. I don't see how introducing more centralised bureaucracy is going to work any better than the current systems in place in European Union member states. Whatever ratings system you put in, you'll still get 45 year olds coming into the shop with a 12 year old waiting outside and swearing blind that the copy of Bloody Chainsaw Revenge IV they are buying is for their own personal use.
This stuff happens every time some psychopath decides to go on a rampage. Banning violent video games won't work, and is completely bloody stupid when you consider where half of your so-called "traditional" games come from. Chess is a war game. If you think British Bulldog is innocent, try thinking of it as a bunch of people trying to rush a gun platform. "Ring-a-roses" is a warning poem describing the symptoms of bubonic plague. The only difference between these games and video games is the fact that for the first time in history, a war game or zombie horror story can be rendered on a screen in real-time with precise detail.
You can only take a psycho down before they kill too many people. Sometimes you're lucky and someone will spot that a person is acting strangely or getting unstable. Banning violent video games will just mean that the next time someone decides to start dishing out mass lead injections, we'll have slingshots or some other item banned because, well, he started by firing marbles at cats and it progressed from there. Something Must Be Done, Think Of The Children, you catch my drift.
I hope the justice ministers discussing this have a sudden attack of common sense and declare that any mature, sensible adult should be able to engage in as much of an orgy of virtual destruction as they like. Fact is, taking some geek out with a headshot is fun, dammit. It's the old equation of "(fear - danger) == excitement".
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Look back in history and realize that there's always been something that drives our kids nuts. First it was the "bad book" (ok, first is maybe wrong, but it's the first thing I know), where reading Marc Twain was putting bad ideas into your head and those books were to blame. Then the readers grew up and rather few of them turned out to be idiots, so it can't be those bad books.
... but computer games! Ok, that's gotta be it then....
Along came radio. So it was the radio telling our kids all the wrong things. Radio listeners grew up and behold, again being a loonie wasn't the next big thing.
Swing music. It has to be that dreaded swing music with all those odd wiggling dances that drives the youth nuts. Well, guess what, the swingers grew up...
Ok, television. That flashy crap, it's the bane of youth and rots their brains. Hmm... nope, the TV generation grew up (not to mention that the TV lobby is strong enough that even though TV did rot their brains...).
Heavy metal! The devil's music and all those hidden messages twisting our kids minds and making their hair grow! Well, the metalheads grew up and cut their hairs, the beheading of chickens by biting their heads off isn't the new fad, so... nope, not either.
RPGs. That's it. Dungeons and Dragons, the devil spawn itself! Look at all those false gods and whatnot and our kids getting lost in that fantasy world. Well, the D&D generation grew up and still no temples of Bane and human sacrifices.
But
See a pattern? It's always whatever the teenage group is interested in that the parent generation does not understand. The current generation of teenager parents is in the area of their 40s, born around or just before 1970, grown up in the mid/late 80s. Some might even know computer games, but those games were anything but realistic. They know all about TV, radio, books, music (hey, especially music!), but usually know precious little about computer games.
So who's gonna get the blame?
I predict in 5 years it's gonna be trading card games and Animes.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
That's amusing because that's more of a conservative position in Europe and...
..assimilation/integration would be more of a left-wing/socialist position.
"Two reasons why politicians want to scrap goat-violent videos games for the perceived demise of society:"
That put a nasty image in my head.
Fakt: ALL shootings, no matter where on this planet, were conducted in schools. The youths who went on a killing spree didn't just grab a gun and besiege the next mall where the body count could have been considerably higher. They invariably went to their school and many of them started the killing spree in their class and/or with certain hand picked teachers.
COULD there be a connection rather than with their choice of video games?
Fakt: ALL of those teenagers or young adults who went on a killing spree had rather poor grades and were generally not accepted members of their "society" (however you want to define it). Many of them have already dropped out or were forced to leave their schools.
COULD there be a connection rather than with their choice of video games?
Fakt: ALL of those who sought bloody "revenge" come from what is today labeled a "broken home", usually with negligent or abusive parents with few or no friends.
COULD there be a connection rather than with their choice of video games?
But no, let's blame games. It's less hassle than having to deal with the problems.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Last I checked, the most realistic "murder simulator" was the real thing. Do soldiers come back home and Rambo their communities?
When I see those all-day-long movies and TV sequels displaying murders, torture, sadism (including people beeing massacred with gallons of blood ejected) without anybody disturbed or questioned about that (look at PG "rating" details).
...
And when I see at the same time that one single nipple displayed on a show triggers a massive censorship on live TV shows, I am even more questioned.
Does this mean that a nipple is more obscene for child that a live murder ? Does it mean that a nipple is more abnormal and unnatural than to kill somebody ?
What kind of example is this for children ?
When born, children have no nudity problem, once fed with occidental culture, the trouble starts : nude = abnormal bad evil, violence = normal cool fun !
To me the real problem with occidental culture is violence addiction. Violence shocks nobody. But a single niple shows almost everybody.
Realy we should all go and consult a Psychologist, because we got a problem
Europe usually blames the Jews. Or as they call them via codeword now-a-days Zionists or Israel.
Thing is that plenty of Zionists arn't Jewish (notably the so called "Christian Zionists") and plenty of Jews arn't Zionists. Indeed some of the strongest critics of Zionism (and the state of Israel) are Rabbis.
Equating Jews and Zionists is actually Zionist propaganda to deflect any critique of Zionism and/or the state of Israel.
If Iran nukes Tel Aviv
How would Iran do that? The only country with nuclear weapons (and the ability to deliver them) in that part of the world is Israel... It would be more likely for the Israelis to blow up Tel Aviv and claim that Iran did it, remember Mossad's motto.
Two more:
1. They don't understand or play video games.
2. They don't believe a significant number of their voters or donors play violent video games.
You're way too late for trading cards, that was soooo 2003. :P Anime hasn't become widespread enough to really hit the spotlight, whether it will or not, time will tell.
:P ) that was unheard of. /rant-over :P
Right now (in Australia at least) it's the emo subculture that's destroying our youth. Two teenage girls commit suicide and it's front page news for weeks... if they'd been fugly instead of hot (in a goth-chick way), it woulda been mentioned once on page 17 then dropped. Damn media.
As for what *our* kids are going to be making us tut-tut about youth-of-today with... who knows? Probably something to do with mobile phones and either sex or violence. Kids are getting 'active' disturbingly young these days, apparently the average age in Britain is 13-14 and over here it's 15ish. Back in the 90s (when I were a lad
Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
This kind of proposed legislation sums up the European Union perfectly. In contrast to traditional liberalism (a strong tradition in the Western world) they feel that they can legislate their way towards their own private distopia.
For example, in the UK they have introduced 3000 new criminal offences since 1997, many coming from the EU.
For me, this is a quasi-democratic (soon to be despotic) body doing nothing more then limiting our freedom of expression through paternalistic and unneccessary legislation. It is the parents responsibility alone to make sure their kids aren't watching/playing anything that might be unsuitable.
I don't see a problem with kids playing violent games, and I don't see a connection to RL violence. Some might disagree, but it is their right to do so. It is not a government issue to enforce their twisted morality upon parents.
Oh - wait . . .
Just what multiplayer games are not about defeating the enemy? Does chess count as violent? Is Battle for Wesnoth violent? What about Lemmings (poor, little buggers), Liquid Wars, ... ? Are the kids going to be stuck with Tetris?
No they weren't. I just asked ten people sitting near me, of various ages, and not one of them even knew that some German had done a 'Postal'. Each of them, and myself, are Europeans.
If the Germans want to pass stupid laws to protect their idiotic citizenry, then that's for them to decide. Stop with this idiotic idea that all Europeans think and act European.
I'm not a fan of politicians who see fit to violate our personal freedom because they think they know better than we do, but I'm frankly not too concerned if these limitations stay true to European tradition. Because then it'll still be possibly for minors to play violent video games, though only if their parents take an interest in their childs hobby because they'll have to purchage the games.
If it ever takes an American style approach though, then it'll be absolutely horribly. Imagine going to jail for two and a half year because you let your son, or daughter, play fallout with their friends.
As we all know the people involved in starting the cursades and the the battle of Hastings all own tapastries that depicted war! Burn them all I says.
In the not too distant future, next Sunday A.D.
It can get more stupid than that.
E.g., take "No One Lives Forever 2". The original game tweaked the AI a lot, so the enemies would notice a fallen comrade, see if he's dead, etc. Except the German version came and replaced all corpses with backpacks.
So for a start you ended up hiding and/or disposing of backpacks instead of corpses. I mean, wth? Why would someone sound the alarm for seeing a backpack near a bed in the barracks? Don't all soldiers have one of those anyway?
But it gets better. Picture this: A patrol comes by and starts shaking the backpack and saying stuff like "Oh no! Are you still alive? Say something!"
I mean, WTF? Since when was a backpack alive in the first place?
All that clever scripting and trying to make it believable in the original game... just made it look stupid in the censored version.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
So basically you're just telling me that the EU works as it is? So one group might try to push an unreasonable law, the others vote it down, and that's it. Sounds to me no worse than the USA or than the parliament of any of the EU members.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
While I'll agree that the law probably won't do much, and a kid isn't really influenced unless there was already something awfully wrong in their education... exactly what would such a law mandate? No, step down from the "loss of rights", "censorship", "evil politicians" soapbox for a moment, please. No, it didn't propose to outright ban those games. All it would actually do is require a parent to be present when a kid buys a violent game.
Frankly, I don't see anything wrong with that. We all rant and rave about how parents should take more responsibility, blah, blah, blah, so what's fundamentally wrong with asking that a parent actually approves such purchases? If it's the parent's responsibility, then exactly what's wrong with saying, basically, "ok, then the parent must take that decision?"
Yes, education is more complex than just looking over the kid's shoulder all the time. But here's the flip side: if you can't even be arsed to go with your kid to the games/toys/whatever shop a couple of times per year, chances are you just don't spend enough time with that kid anyway. Noone mandated that you keep your finger on a fingerprint reader all the time while the kid plays that game, noone said they'll throw you in jail if your kid plays those games, nor anything similar. Just that once every couple of months you go with the kid to the shop, if you're ok with purchasing violent games for that kid.
Exactly what's so horrible about that?
Losing your rights... how?
1. I'm sorry, kids don't have most of the rights of an adult in the first place. Maybe they should, but here and now they don't. They're the parent's responsibility. So exactly what right did they lose if mommy and daddy have to see what violent games Junior purchases?
2. You didn't lose much either, as a parent. You _do_ occasionally go out with the kid, right? Well, then exactly what's the problem to also take a detour to the game store with him once in a while. Most kids don't even get more than 2-3 games per years. And excuse me if I don't think it's some horribly unreasonable waste of your time to take a detour to the game shop every 4 months to nod and hand the game to the cashier yourself?
It's not even a big detour, since Germany didn't go for the "huge mall outside the town" kind of planning. The shops tend to be all over the place, and especially in the centre of all towns. So whether you took the kid to a park, or to McDonalds, or to a movie, chances are it's a really short detour to the games shop. Exactly what's so oppressive about taking that detour, if you approve of buying violent games for the kid?
Chances are the kid won't mind it too much either, if you have the kind of relationship where it would work without that parental surveillance anyway. If you're that good a parent that the kid would have freely told you what they did and where, they probably won't mind you going to the game shop anyway. You can even talk a bit about those games while you're there. And if you're that good a parent that you taught the kid to make the right choices even without you around (which should be the case), then it won't be that oppressive to have you around either. He just won't make the kind of choices where he'd have to whine and bitch to convince you, right?
And is it really that big a change, anyway? I go to the games shops quite often, and let me tell you, I already see plenty of parents coming there with their children or even teenagers.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Actually, when you put it that way, getting rid of the countless Counter-strike zombies doesn't seem like such a bad idea.
Do folks see this type of regulation as a slippery slope? What could it lead to?
If parents want their kids to be able to play violent games, they can just buy them. Not allowing the children themselves to purchase the games isn't really a problem IMO. If publishers are concerned that their marketing efforts to children will be wasted, then maybe they need to change their marketing. If adults won't buy these games for their kids, it's a different problem.
When the axe came to the forest, the trees said, "Look out - the handle was once one of us."
I thought it already was regulated? I know that the few times I've been in video game stores, they don't sell the most violent games to kids under 15 (just like movies). Maybe it's just on a national level though, or even done by the retailers themselves.
They can't hire Random Guy to buy their cigs because Random Guy would in effect be selling to the minors (a crime).
It's already a crime to supply minors with cigarettes (in Norway anyways). The same goes for selling or giving them items that can encourage tobacco use, as well as sale from vending machines.
We're thinking of the children.
There is no consistent set of studies showing a causal link between violence in video games and in real life. There are conflicting studies all over the place. This is just another example of government over-regulation.
"rape and murder are not caused by pornography, video games, rock and roll, Drugs"
But can be triggered by them.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
There is always some scapegoat. The school shootings are always the fault of video games, TV/movies, poverty, global warming, guns, fluoride in the tap water, hormones in beef, inorganic preservatives in our food, dioxins, religion, secularism, etc.
Would be nice if people started providing solid evidence before legislating. but such is the flaw in democracy. it enables rule by the [ignorant] masses, or at least allows politicians to justify their own [warped] agenda by claiming they are serving the interests of their constituency.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
I can't read your mind, so I don't know whether you are trying to be Funny, a Troll, or if you are in fact serious. My first guess would be Funny. I suppose Trolling could be a trigger for rape and murder as well.
Germany loves regulating everything you can and cant do. Whats appropriate for you etc. Sweden & Norway is in the same boat, hell you cant even buy alcohol outside of state owned shops there.
On the other hand, this type of thinking just doesn't fly with other members of the European union, where you're expected to be smart enough to tell your kids what they can play, watch and do. And supervise them if you feel thats necessary.
I think a German friend of mine explained how some videoshops work, please do correct me if im wrong, but it went like this:
The store, like say, Blockbuster - would have all the typical movies out, but all horror movies, adult movies, and violent movies etc. would be on display, available for browsing, but you would have to go ask for it directly in the shop. And it would be sortof "under the counter" thing.
Example, Denmark is a member of the EU. But Danes are generally don't hold high regards to authority - theres "recommendations" on videos/games like this:
A: All, can be watched by all. 7: Might contain scenes unappropriate for kids under 7, like peoply dying. (Even disney movies contain characters dying etc.) 11: "Children ages 11 to 14 is generally good to understand the different between fiction and reality, and can relate to many things, movies with suspense and action are therefore suitable" - rough translation from the official site. 15: "Children and adults above 15 are expected to have a solid genre understanding, and to know the difference between fiction and reality". Also rough translation from the official site.
15 is the last age these recommendations target. But these are recommendations, they have no legal standing. Of course most parents would probably decide for themselves what their kids can see/play. And i think, 99.99% of all parents have sense enough not to show the chainsaw massacre to their 7 year olds.
Authorities shouldn't regulate this, parents should. Recommendations like above, is a good guideline, but enforcing it, wouldn't stop anything. These people shooting other people don't have good parenting to begin with, and they'll find a way to get the games regardless. Hello, Bittorrent.
Its not the politicians business to tell people how-to be parents.
Quite a few of them do grow up to be bloodthirsty psychopaths. More than in suburbia, anyway.
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Of course video games can't be blamed for all of these shootings. If they were, it's a wonder there's still kids alive, given the amount of copies of, say, GTA sold. The real reason for most, if not all, shootings is something going wrong too many times for a person. Not because the guy's crazy, not because he played Counter-Strike, not because he read Mark Twain, but because he was human. Today, we are all raised on the assumption that we are special. Take a look at children's movies these days, take a look at (ok, maybe this hurts my cause a bit, but still) video games, take a look at movies designed for older children, take a look at books... By watching, reading and playing, we get the idea that everyone's special and everything works out in the end. But what happens when your boy-/girlfriend dumps you, you get horrible grades, your family isn't doing all that great, and your friends are imaginary and don't have time to hang out with you? Some people become hikikomoris, other people just goes on living, and some people snap and tries to get some sort of revenge on society. What we need to do is basically just be nicer to people around us, make sure they realize that they are part of a population of individuals, and don't leave guns lying around as a means to extract revenge.
At least that's what I think.
the really guilty person here is the parent who didn't educate that kid about games and firearms and not strictly restricting access to the firearm in the house that kid got to owner only,by any means, and punishing the real owner of the weapon for involuntary killing, his negligence being the main cause of incident, rather than a game who steamed maybe too much a young, uneducated mind to such an outrageous outcome.
Oh, I'm pretty sure Anime/Manga will sooner or later become the scapegoat. And it will reunite America. Gramps who remembers '41-'45 side by side with Pa who lost his job due to Japanese cars being more reliable and chaper than Detroit's products.
Maybe 5 years was a bit early. But it's certainly gonna be some very suitable scapegoat for the 2010 to 2020 years. After that, who knows what's the next fad for teenagers. But it's certainly going to twist their minds, ruin their lives and turn them into monsters.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
that pornography decreases rape, that violent videogames/ violent movies decreases real violence. they do this by providing a harmless release, a catharsis, for impulses that might otherwise be expressed in real life
the truth is that violence and rape have actually been going down in areas of the world where media saturation with sexual/ violent content is allowed. that instead of desensitizing people to sex/ violence, pornography and violent media provide for a harmless release that would otherwise happen in the "real world"
it all boils down to how you view the social development of children. are we born vessels of purity and innocence that are corrupted by society? or are we born raging no impulse control demons that are tamed by society? i don't know about you, but i've been around some 3 year olds recently, and a 3 year old human being is basically a feces slinging monster. Scale up a 3 year old to a teenager or young adult, without any proper social development, and you have your basic madman killer/ rapist. so social development channels our sexual and violent impulses into more appropriate channels, and violent and sexual media are merely an extension of this ability to tame our negative and natural impulses into harmless release
anyone who played a lot of violent videogames/ watched a lot of violent movies/ indulged in a lot of pornography and then went out and killed/ raped is someone who is psychologically already damaged, and it wasn't the media that made him or her commit crime, and it would have been some other stimulus that would have precipitated their behavior if they were never exposed to violent/ sexual media. blaming the media is a red herring
some of you may consider me bizarre, but i actually think we should expose children to MORE violent and MORE sexual media, in GREATER quantity, at a YOUNGER age. and this will result in less real life rape and violence
i am not in any way joking. i seriously and firmly believe that
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I don't see Swiss regulation much different from the rest of Europe. You are allowed to own weapons for hunting, sport and collection. Same in Denmark. And the "home guard" (part of the military) store military owned weapons at home. Same in Denmark.
There are strict regulation for how the weapons are stored, the weapons needs to be safely locked aways, and the ammunitions needs to be stored separately from the guns. This makes them inefficient for self defense, which anyway isn't a legal reason to own weapons. Like in Denmark.
So the only real difference seems to be that the army (and home guard) is larger in Switzerland. Otherwise, Switzerland is much more similar to the rest of EU than to US with regard to weapon regulation.
Of course, I might be misinformed about Swiss weapon laws.
umm no 'we' weren't.
Most people have no idea what they are doing, and are silently panicking on the inside.
But can be triggered by them.
No, it can't. Unless maybe it came in a particularly heavy box.
Crank-out the gasoline and lets start-up book burnings again too!
gun-free zones. Or violence free zones. Because, you know, those zones work so well in real life.
damaged by dogma
I'm not for the banning of frankly any form of art/entertainment that doesn't hurt someone or break a given law. But, at the same time I don't see it as that big a deal that they are suggesting a ratings system for video games that needs to be upheld. In the U.S. do we not have a rating system for movies. Other than the level of interaction how is a video game different? They both create a visual element that is portrayed to the player/viewer. I'm all for a fair and impartial rating system for Video games that mimics that of Film. Of course the difficulty lies in fair and impartial.
Just a quick point...
The age of majority in the US is 18; not 21 as you indicated. Alcohol and the ability to run for certain governmental offices are the only things withheld beyond the age of 21. Children may voluntarily (and with no recourse from their parents) drop out of school at 16 (which is also generally the age of consent for minor-minor consensual sex. Persons as young as 14 have been tried as adults for their crimes.
And yes, a drinking age of 21 is pretty stupid. But what do you expect? We tried to ban it altogether...
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But, my God man. How would all the poor companies of the world make money if they couldn't market their products to people that have parents to beg for stuff. At least in the US, the tween to 20 market is HUGE for music, games, and retail-based entertainment.
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I don't think adults have a problem with Anime or trading cards as those have been around awhile in different forms. It is probably going to be the social networking sites like youtube/facebook/site of the week. Or maybe podcasts...heck, I am 29 and I don't even get why people bother downloading that crap. Surely, it causes them to be violent or plants bad ideas in their heads.
Support a great indie game: http://www.abaddon360.com
You wouldn't happen to be one of the ones who complains about parents that "spy" on their kids or have some control over what their kids watch are you? Just wondering.
Parents. When will they take responsibility for their kids? Sheesh, "It takes a village.." is crap. Sure, give up your rights to make sure your kids turn out ok to the government.
Even if we suppose some kid kills someone and blames it on a videogame in court, the videogame will merely be the drop of water that makes the glass overflow.
But politicians are of course focusing on that drop of water, instead of all the other drops that made the glass full in the first place.
Don't forget that Anime aren't really mainstream yet. Most parents still associate Sailor Moon and Pokemon with Anime and consider them (based on their own childhood experience with "cartoons") innocent, harmless funny kiddy movies. Disney and pals. I doubt that it has become general knowledge that there are quite a few Anime that I wouldn't consider playing before midnight (and no, I'm not talking about Hentai). When it comes to blood and gore, some Anime outshine a lot of movies that are actually banned here for excessive violence.
Just wait and see. Give it a few years and it'll be the culprit of the year.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Hit the nail on the head there didn't you? Heh, I have a parent who was one of those "bad kids" who listened to rock and watched TV and was having his mind rotted out and HE believes video games are bad for you. You'd think someone, someday would pick up on the progression and realize that you can't judge an entire subculture based on 2 or three people.
I'd argue that anime, while soon to be blamed for some stuff, simply has bad timing to become the next horrible thing, it's around at the same time as video games. Rather I predict that in 10-15 years, when the current generation are adults, holographic videos/tv will be the big thing rotting brains, I'm sure someone will point out how before what you saw was distanced because it was 2D but now that it's 3D is obviously affecting people or some nonsense like that...
There are two kinds of fool One says 'This is old therefore good' Another says 'This is new therefore better'- Dean Ing
"I predict in 5 years it's gonna be trading card games and Animes."
Magic: The Gathering and Hentai are nothing new. You're getting old, my friend.
just wanting to avoid a religion debate ... because to me this is a religion problem (and in some religious country there is no difference with the ambient culture).
Actually, the odd difference of treatment between nudity and violence is coming from the "religion books" themselves, just read them. Nudity is Sin, but violence can be right.
People trust those books for some odd reason . Who wrote this, in which context ? Those things have a so complex history, various versions, addendum, doctrines, interpretations, that nobody knows at the end what is coming from where !
Just look at Odyssey book (another very old book), is there anybody here thinking that those things have happened ? I mean, really ? So why, are there people 100% trusting other 100% some of the other books of almost the same period ?
If you trust in a god, lord, whatever... please read the book from A to Z then give you a break and think of it. Are you 100% okay with it ?
Are you okay with stoning for instance as written in old testament (hence ok for the 3 monoteic religion) ?
Example: Your wife had intercourse with another guy, according to those books you have the right to stone her. No, this is not violence, it is granted by your religion !
If those books have to be 100% trusted then, you should not have problem with stoning here. But if you hae problem with stoning (and simply think you should look for a good lawyer), then this is maybe that this book should not be 100% trusted. Maybe that this books hold mixed things. Good things, things that used to be good at some ancient time, things that used to better than the practices at those times ... namely, maybe that those books are just a "human digest's" book (human version of "reader's digest" book for post-prehistorical people).
Do we need religion ? Let's quote a famous sond : "All we need is love" :o)
why not blame everything on videogames? Is there any actual proof that this school shooting was even realted to video games?
What about Star Wars idiots with names such as LordVader717 who don't even know where the word 'jedi' stems from?
Lemme guess, you know the sentence "Oh that's something completely different!" very well.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Goats with machine guns? (I refuse to say anything else goat related)
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
Even if you are right about most people finding this cathartic, we need to be concerned with statistically abnormal people. If we find that a non-zero fraction of the population will snap and resort to deadly violence, what should we do as a society? I certainly do not want to 'blame society' when an individual acts unethically. But, if we have reason to believe (for the sake of argument) 1 person in a million will snap and kill an average of 4 people, shouldn't we balance that risk of death against the value of the game? If being able to play games is worth a risk of 4 deaths per million, then we should allow games. If the will of society is that this small but quantifiable risk is not with the enjoyment of playing games, then it seems reasonable to ban games.
If we can significantly reduce the risk of violence by preventing children from playing the games, then adults can still enjoy the games. I don't know if you or the American Psychological Association is correct, but I don't understand the nearly reflexive action of slashdotters to condemn any attempt to prevent children from playing some truly disturbing games. I hope that you are right, but it doesn't seem like the evidence supports you.
Think global, act loco
No, neither is new. But they're not mainstream yet. Or do you want to claim that computer games are new? They've been around for decades, but only recently (less than 10 years ago, from my perspective) they have become mainstream. Think about it. The PS1 was maybe the first "mainstream" console that didn't just make teenager eyes sparkle. And today the PS3 is bought mostly by people who are more than a hint older than 15. 600 bucks isn't necessarily something the average teenager can shell out easily.
The amount of people above 20 (at least outside Japan) who know and watch Anime is still rather small. And will maybe not grow considerably within the next decade. Anime is still Pokemon, Digimon and Dragonball for most "Westeners".
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
The reason it's easy for them is that people in power want more power. This is Euro-socialist, nanny-government silliness. A government shouldn't be stepping in to regulate content that is up to the public to regulate for themselves.
"Sufferin' succotash."
I think you left out recreational drugs, although that's a controversial enough example of your point that I can understand why.
In Repressive Burma, it's not just your connection that dies. slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=314547&cid=20819199
""But can be triggered by them."
No, it can't."
Of course it can, long since proved (no I'm not going to do your research for you)
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
I never troll, even though opponents of free speech often think so.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
It is definately illegal in Denmark
Since English isn't your first language you should be warned that you are picking up poor spelling habits here. "Definately," if used by a native English speaker, is a marker of poor education OR low intelligence.
finite
infinite
definite
I really wasn't sure. Thanks for clarifying that.
Of course it can, long since proved (no I'm not going to do your research for you)
*yawn*
No it can't. Long since proved (no I'm not going to do your research for you).
And if you can't be bothered to research it, then no one's going to be bothered to believe your claims that pictures make people murder.
There ain't much I can say about drugs. I don't know if it was "mainstream" enough to be considered. How many people actually did smoke pot in the 60s? How many tried LSD? How many "didn't return"? Was it a hype as usual, was the threat real, I can't judge it.
I limited myself to hypes that I can debunk easily.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
A few years ago, they finally got around to regulating child pornography. Now this. Is there no end to this slippery slope?!?!?
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
"No it can't"
Aren't you supposed to burn some crosses somewhere? Or convince people that God created the world a couple of thousands of years ago?
"then no one's going to be bothered to believe your claims that pictures make people murder."
Handy, since I haven't made such claims, that's just something the voices in your mind made up.
And since you are someone who just invents crap and then attacks people its the ignore file for you. Do try and grow up.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating