Slashdot Mirror
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.
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.
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.
Is that you, Jack? I didn't know you posted on /.!
Peace sells, but who's buying?
No we weren't.
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.
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.
...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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
Would somebody please think of the Tetris blocks? Every year, millions of blocks that make up a Tetris piece are senselessly killed when people of all ages complete a row horizontally. Many justify this atrocity by saying the blocks are now complete, are going to a better place, and that it adds to their score. We at the Unjust Treatment of Tetris Pieces Foundation implore you to stop killing these defenceless sprites. Please also consider making a donation to our foundation, or participating in our Adopt-a-Brick program, where you can sponsor a Tetris piece, and ensure it lives a full life, with plenty of food, access to clean water, and decent education. Call 1-800-555-TRIS today.
Unlike porn, which yada yada rimshot hey-ooh!
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."
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