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German Interior Ministers Seek Ban On Violent Games
GamePolitics reports that "Germany's 16 Interior Ministers have banded together to ask the Bundestag (Germany's equivalent of Parliament) to ban the production and distribution of violent video games. Moreover, the ministers hope to see this accomplished before Germany's new elections take place on September 27th." Violent games became a national issue in Germany earlier this year after Far Cry 2 was scapegoated for a shooting. Germany-based game developer Crytek could be forced to move or outsource if the ban goes through. Spiegel Online has the original story (Google translation).
And first to say, the government hatred on freedom of any type has gone too far, and this is a perfect example.
we're supposed to respect for their opinions on Scientology?
If this keeps Crytek from making games it has become the worst kind of tragedy.
The kind that affects me!
Or a ban on violently bad singers. That could kill off their Hasselhoff hassle.
crappy triceratops
Hopefully they do leave Germany one of the things that annoyed me about Crysis is that the Koreans didn't respond to dead bodies. In Crysis you can't move dead bodies because it is against the law or some foolishness in Germany. Instead the bodies just disappeared after a little while
FUD - there is no word in TFA about Crytek being forced to outsource or similar - you know, banning sales != banning development.
(Also, Germany produces lots of real world weapons for export only... )
Just got proven again with the tags. Is 10 min a new record? Anyway, what do they mean by violent? "Violent" could be twisted into a lot of things.
Hey we're really hurting on the economy, let's ban the idiots that dare run a successful business and bring needed tax revenue in! That'l fix the situation! How dare you try and run a business that may offend people in some way!
While I admire everyone's knee jerk reaction to defend video games via free speech I think this method of defense is inherently idiotic.
If someone came up to me and accused me of murder I wouldn't base my case on freedom of privacy. I would hope my lawyer could simply disprove the actual charges against me.
Fighting these sorts of things largely on free speech seems to imply that that video games are actually responsible for some sort of mayhem but should be protected anyway. They aren't dangerous. They don't pose a public threat and they shouldn't even be charged as such let alone 'allowed' to exist in spite of these accusations.
People need to educate the voting public that the 12 year old next to them on the laughing and bragging about how he shot a rifle through someone's head yesterday and made it explode isn't a deraged lunatic.
Video games out of context sound insane and dangerous. This is largely an educational problem which needs a good PR campaign. It's easier to defend something which people understand and like than it is to fight an abstract constitutional battle about the conflict between freedom and public well being.
People don't want to believe in bad people. Lets face it, some people are just rotten. It wasn't video games, it wasn't the comic books, or the rock music. Maybe something caused it other then nature, but if that's the case, I'm sure it was exposure to a lot of lead or a head injury that damaged a specific portion of the head during early childhood.
Until we realize that some people are rotten, and everybody is responsible for themselves, we're going to continue to creating stupid laws that make the word a worse place to live in.
In exchange for some pre-election posturing they're willing to eliminate jobs in one of the few growing industries. Not only does it discourage today's game publishers from investing in Germany, they also lose out on the new companies that spring up around the talent they're forcing out of the country.
> Video games out of context sound insane and dangerous
Mod parent up.
I've been dealing with this for years and didn't even realize it... 0_o
You know who else destroyed civil liberties by taking advantage of the paranoid fears of the citizenry?
I'm referring to the Bush Administration, of course.
Rob
Pretty much any game made now days could be considered violent, any game that you use a gun or weapon to attack something else. Hell even C&C could and games in that area since they have you trin to destroy the enemy.
I have to wonder how this idea makes sense to any rational person who stops and thinks about it. Ban violent videogames to eliminate violence.
It's nothing but election-year grandstanding. You see it just about everywhere, and it likely won't be long until politicians in other countries take up equally extreme/ridiculous measures in order to keep their seats.
as in freedom: http://metagovernment.org/
for something. ooooh yeah, that.
... BUT the if there is another shooting, they have remburse the video game industry for lost sales and revoke the law. after all you can' throw down that video games cause shootings and claim otherwise when another one happens.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
Guess what - what you think does matter... Unfortunately, as carnivores, extreme violence is normal.. Should ultra-violent video games be banned? no.. regulated, yes. Like p*rn is, er or was..
Basically, there is nothing to say that our current way of doing things now is stable or leads to desirable results..
After all where did the shooters get their illegal ideas? Must have been from the evil interwebz ... queue lockdown in 3 .. 2 .. 1 ...
Not for the violent tv-shows, movies etc ...
No, I'm not going to go along those lines - that's just adding to the fire of "ban violent [something]", and we haven't seen any good studies showing a link between virtual and real violence.
However, we HAVE seen how effective TV, radio and movie theaters are in turning a population against others, raising support for horrible behaviour, war ... lots of other stuff.
It's actually documented in Germany's own history. Yes, I almost Godwin'ed myself, but in this case it's quite relevant, even though it is slightly trollish.
Because they always get their asses kicked and all the doublya-doublya-two shooters keep reminding them about it. THEY WERE ALL ON VACATION!
Really, this is supposed to be the fabled "democracy" ancient greeks thought up? Oh no, wait. We've transformed that into a PR farce that every four years proves how rotten the people at the top are. Your votes don't matter. They are merely a numeral representation of how much you "don't" have to say. Lies, populism and ignorant phrase flinging wherever you look. None of this will matter AFTER the election that's why everything they tried to introduce lately was meant to be established before voters aren't important again. Look at our ministry of family and health. They neglected their resort for 3 1/2 years and all of a sudden when the election goes into the confrontation phase they start tossing around stuff like "DNS filters" and "address filtering" against alleged child pornography. All of which could be removed through application of existing laws but since they chose to balance the budget by cutting funds to investigators and connecting departments they now have to start flapping their arms REAALLY fast.
Politicians are lying pricks that are always a couple of decades behind when it comes to reality. Unfortunately this generalization stands to be disproven for all of the major parties in my country. They can't stop anyone from selling these games to me and if they do I'll personally book a cheap ticket to one of our less ridiculous neighboring countries. Other than that I or someone else will sue at the surpreme court that no government can tell an adult tax payer what to watch or what to play. Not unless they give up all their ludicrous make-belief jobs. This will all die down when these shit elections are finally over. Remember: Vote Pirate!
They can't control the production and sales of games OUTSIDE of Germany. People who want them will just order them from elsewhere. What are they going to do, make it ILLEGAL to own games like that? Stupid and pointless. They should spend their time and energy solving REAL problems.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
Germany is not a computer games-fixated country. More kids here would rather play football than computer games, and the computer gamers don't play violent games exclusively. This proposal therefore affects only a very small minority.
I guess it's the principle of the matter that's getting into the nerves of many. If they ban violent computer games now, who says they won't ban other things in the future? But really, banning one thing doesn't always lead to a ban on others. As an example, doing the Hitler salute is banned here in Munich since like forever, and that restriction of freedom has not led to other restrictions of freedom.
in a related story, jack thompson has allegedly begun studying german.
Hey we're really hurting on the economy, let's ban the idiots that dare run a successful business and bring needed tax revenue in!
The economic argument is a boneheaded tactical blunder.
It is the argument the tobacco company makes. The pornographer.
There is no business practice so corrupt and debased that hasn't been defended the same way.
The economic argument fails on the facts.
The Wii is the best selling console platform.
The Wii could all its M rated titles - and it would remain the best selling console platform. The most popular items in Wii. Updated hourly.
The ultra violent action game doesn't hold that strong a position even in the PC market. The most popular items in PC Games. Updated hourly.
German law is full of such bizarre restrictions on freedom.
For example, in addition to the usual laws against slander and libel (which have some justification), Germany has laws and penalties for insulting someone, even in private and even if you don't state anything factually wrong.
Germany also has laws against any speech which might "disturb the public peace" or offend. What's the point of having free speech if you can't offend anybody? Didn't opposition to the monarchy or Hitler offend someone? Didn't Luther's 100 theses nailed to the Catholic church door offend the church?
There is essentially no anonymous speech, since all communications ports need to be registered and all electronic communications are tracked and logged. Registration, tracking, and surveillance of citizens in Germany seems to be so widespread that people don't even care anymore and just think it's the same way everywhere. People have the attitude that "as long as the government does it, it's OK, at least we aren't like the US, where Google tracks everybody", which is a bizarre view given Germany's history.
And it's not just the government that does it: some of Germany's biggest corporations have been illegally listening in on employees and customers and even forged communications.
It has to be said that Germany's government currently appears to be using its powers for benign purposes: policing, anti-terrorism, etc. But if parts of the government were abusing those powers, say to blackmail political opponents, who would know? And you only need to look at the 1930's to see how a progressive and liberal German government can turn into a genocidal regime bent on world conquest.
Somehow, the idea of "free speech" seems to have gotten lost in the translation after the Western allies laid the foundations for German democracy after WWII.
Wish I had some mod points.
"This message was brought to you by Sarcasm and Troll Feeders United (or STFU, for you un-hip people)."
His point was that people don't want to believe that some people are just rotten. Your godwinned example would then have to be "Some people just don't want to believe Hitler was just really a bad guy and keep looking for excuses for his actions and how he was so misunderstood and nobody gave him hugs".
This is roughly the problem in europe. We keep lowering jail sentences because punishing people don't work and keep giving hugs and finding excuses for peoples actions. It don't work either because the sad thing is, some people are just rotten. Rotten because they decided their needs are of more importance then anybody else. That they are entitled and nobody else is.
These german ministers are refusing to accept these shooters are just ammoral scum who would have killed no matter what because they simply don't care about anyone. No ban on anything (except guns) is going to stop them. You MIGHT be able to cure them, but only when you allow society to forcibly treat people who have not yet committed any crime. Kinda risky for a politician to suggest.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Like "Hunt for Wikileaks"?
Or do they mean only games they do not play themselves?
It's interesting how much of a cultural inversion Germany is from the United States. Here in the U.S. we practically cherish violence in our culture, while the Germans seem opposed to most violence we'd often consider "tame" by our standards. Yet, it's exactly opposite when it comes to sexually "explicit" content. We fear it so much, we actually fight among ourselves over whether or not we can safely discuss sex with our children outside of telling them "don't do it." In the meanwhile, you could practically go up to any magazine rack in Germany and find magazines for children featuring pictures of topless women that would only pass as pornography here in the U.S.
An interesting case in how differently we view violence as acceptable would be some past games like "Carmageddon", a title that was loosely based on the 70's movie "Death Race 2000". In the U.S., you could kill regular people in the streets with your car in the game. In the U.K., this was switched to zombies with green "blood". In Germany, this was replaced with robots.
8==8 Bones 8==8
... that the interior ministers conference rather base this ban on their personal opinion rather than any evidence, oh and these guys have strong ties with the German equivalent of the National Rifle Association, who trained all the guys who later went postal.
But what do you expect: the first censorship bill (internet DNS) is as good as passed so here comes the next (video games).
The 16 Interior Ministers are ministers of the 16 states. There is a seperate minister of the interior for germany. The states ministers control the police of their state. They have no legislative power. In theory they can ask the Bundestag as much as I can although they obviously make a bigger fuss...
This year is a year with a lot of elections in different states, european and communal votes (all on different dates). That makes idiotic statements by politicians more likely.
Also Spiegel Online noticed that there is a generation gap between those who 'understand' the internet/games and those who don't. As this gap is roughly at the age of 35-40 most of the people in the power are in the 'don't' category. But recently there has sprung up a movement to give those who do a public voice. An online petition to the Bundestag against censorship has recently gained over 100000 supporters.
And lastly theres very often that 'free speech' argument. Different to the USA free speech is not the number one in our constitution (Grundgesetz in Germany) - it is the dignity of the person. IMHO neither option is better than the other but it makes public discussions work different here than in the USA. You can't use the free speech thing as an argument against 'killer games' here - 'think of the children' comes first.
This is yet another slew of ultra-pointless pre-election gibberish. Extremely violent videogames such as Manhunt are allready factually banned for public sale and sale to minors in Germany, based on laws existing since the dawn of the republic.
The rubbish on Computers, Videogames and the Internet that the ruling class in Germany has been putting out in recent years has reached staggering heights that are compareable to the situation in the US.
I for one am going to send in my support signature for the Piratenpartei (German branch of the Pirate Party) and do an all out vote for them whenever the occasion arises. If all German INet savy people do that, we could have the 5% hurdle for the Bundestag in no time. That'll teach them.
And if you are german, how about pitching in? Your signature paves the way to the Bundestag. For once get off your fat lazy unpolitical geek ass and help roll Schäuble and Zensursula straight out of office. And screw the Greens (Grüne) on this one! Don't forget that Tritin and Fischer had a big hand in passing that Internet law a few years back ('Gesetz zum verbesserten Schutz des Urheberrechtes im Internet' aka 'German DMCA')!
Beweg' Deinen Arsch und tu' was! (visit links above)
My 2 Euros.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
First of all the case is about populism and elections. Second the interior minister likes to stake the demands a bit higher to negotiate something in between. Third that debate would be a fantastic recruitment tool for a gamer's rights campaign, So in the end Germans will get a a happy interior minister hated by everyone and and we would have a kind of CyberNRA e.V. Germany won't do it alone but on a European level. SchÃuble just tests the national debate.
This is just their way of getting Uwe Boll to stop making movies.
Your mother is gay!
Am I doing it right?
The Nazis are back in power except this time round they have the technology to stifle the opposition without the need for bloodshed.
Little by little, more and more is becoming illegal. What was once the realm of interpersonal relationships is slowly being taken over by the state. They will now tell you what you can say and what you cannot say, which game you can play and which you cannot. Soon they will tell you which flag you can wave and what you must think. It will be illegal to not like things which the state supports and to dislike things which the state dislikes - we're part way there already, and not only in Germany. There's not a lot I like about US politics, but one thing I do admire about the US is the freedom of speech enshrined in the constitution. Be glad you have it. It doesn't exist in Europe and I am not aware of any other country where it is protected.
yours is quite a good post but it kind of sets Germans apart from other nationalities and I don't think this is a distinction that can be made.
Germans are not really in a class of their own, abuse of power isn't unusual and particularly in hard economic times protectionism tends to become more open. Where ever you live buy --- (insert your country name here) and protect our jobs become a common rallying cry.
Theres no real difference between people fundamentally we all have the people we care about, some we don't much care for, all of us have some national pride. Once it gets to people outside of our national group we suddenly pretend that "other nation" is different and we have the right to treat them differently to our own kind.
We are all one kind human, mankind and fundamentally we want the same things. Politics sets us against each other and its a farce because all we really want is a safe comfortable environment to raise our families and what we get are stupid groupings of special interest groups , align with us and we will see you right unfortunately the reality is the politicians only take care of their own and damn the rest of us.
It's pretty much evident that most people can not see enough difference between the parties to even bother to cast a vote.
People are just people when it comes down to it, just when our leaders do evil things we justify it in the name of national interest.
Blarney Quality Restaurant, Plants
. . . like Poland or the Czech Republic, where Germans flock for bargains? What about buying something online in another country?
How will you really know that kids don't have ultra-violent games on their PCs? Maybe allow the Federal Police (Kripo) to plant trojans that snoop around on kids' computers?
I guess they'll need a federal department to decide what's ultra-violent, and what's not. And the Border Police and Customs will need to check travelers for this as well. What if you enter the country with a title that they have not rated yet?
This is just politicians abusing a tragic shooting incident, and trying to spin some political capital by trying to look like they are doing something about a complicated problem that has no trivial solutions.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Right, people just come out of the womb stabbing and biting everything in sight.
Straw man. The rest of your post is a giant non sequitor.
Stop blaming shit on genetics just because it frees you of responsibility for your community.
People aren't interested in violence and sex because of media, violent media are made because people are interested by violence and sex.
... the Bundestag (Germany's equivalent of Parliament)...
What is that supposed to mean? That sounds as if it were some weird, not-really-a-parliament thing.
...
It is Germany's parliament. Or would you call the US Congress "the US equivalent of parliament"?
It has just a non-generic name (in another language even!). See Knesset (Israel), Diet (Japan), Sansad (India),
Speigel is available in English so there is no need to use Google's hilarious language masher. http://www.spiegel.de/international/ This item will not appear for a few days since it is bit of electioneering to a very violence-sensitive nation and not really international news. You can read alternative German opinions on the subject in Thelocal http://www.thelocal.de/opinion/20090317-18073.html.
./ propagating ridiculous stereotypes about this country and its very open, liberal and democratic society, because it means fewer people with those daft opinions will come here and spoil it all for me. It's a beautiful part of the world as well and dare I mention how similar the Germans are to the ... Americans!
It probably comes as a surprise that Germany is a democracy and has many different opinions on a variety of subjects. The nation has a remarkable number of elderly people compared to the rest of the world and most of them think the internet comes in a box. This sort of thing appeals to them. They don't allow ordinary citizens to carry handguns either and they do provide healthcare for all of their citizens and even non-citizens who are employed. Abortion, contraception and education, including sex education, are available to all and their is a clear separation between what are considered religious ideas and what are scientific concepts.
They also have some of the fastest cars in the world and the safest roads on the planet where you can travel at sub-light speeds legally.
As slashdot's regular defender of all things German ( I have a Bavarian family) and rebutter of this sort of FUD, I am not too worried about
Posts, MyBio or Sig, may contain satire, sarcasm, bolded nouns be sardonic or even witty & be Church of SD
(and I'm dead serious here)
A group of people should dress up in Nazi uniforms, wearing swastikas, and start a bonfire in a safe area. When the media arrives, they should start throwing boxes of violent PC games, literature, and movies, shouting the German equivalent of "our society will be free of the things I hate!"
It's worth getting arrested for. This is important.
A government is a body of people notably ungoverned - AC
Jack Thompson is a member of the German Parliament now?
The universe is made of atoms and empty space. All else is speculation. --Democritus of Abdera, 435 BC
Warmongering neo-con ghoul detected...
Requiem for the American Dream
Jobs are BAD. We need to chase as many of them overseas as we possibly can!
(To me, the only bearable choice in the upcoming elections is the Pirate Party. We need someone who is not fucking stupid about technology.)
So,
Let's ban War.
Let's ban images of War.
Let's ban history textbooks of War.
Let's ban everything and anything related to human death caused by another human.
A game does not desensitize. Exposure, in general, desensitizes people. And even then does NOT create people who are easier and more likely to kill another person. If that were the case, the major cities would implode across the planet.
Banning games that have violence against humans is silly. They should address why these sell in the first place. They're not solving problems by banning games. They are just sweeping dirt under the carpet and ignoring the issue/problem. Games are not the problem. Violence is not the problem. The problem is the human condition, and we cannot ban that.
Very best,
One nation under God has turned into
one nation under the influence of one drug
[chorus:]
T.V., its satellite links our United States of Unconsciousness Apathetic therapeutic and extremely addictive The methadone metronome pumping out 150 channels 24 hours a day you can flip through all of them and still there's nothing worth watching T.V. is the reason why less than 10 per cent of our Nation reads books daily Why most people think Central America means Kansas Socialism means unamerican and Apartheid is a new headache remedy absorbed in it's world it's so hard to find us It shapes our mind the most maybe the mother of our Nation should remind us that we're sitting too close to...
[Chorus:]
T.V. is the stomping ground for political candidates Where bears in the woods are chased by Grecian Formula'd bald eagles T.V. is mechanized politic's remote control over the masses co-sponsored by environmentally safe gases watch for the PBS special It's the perpetuation of the two party system where image takes precedence over wisdom Where sound bite politics are served to the fastfood culture Where straight teeth in your mouth are more important than the words
that come out of it Race baiting is the way to get selected Willie Horton or Will he not get elected on...
[Chorus:]
T.V., is it the reflector or the director? Does it imitate us or do we imitate it? Because a child watches 1500 murders before he's twelve years old and we wonder why we've created a Jason generation that learns to laugh rather than to abhor the horror T.V. is the place where armchair generals and quarterbacks can experience first hand the excitement of warfare as the theme song is sung in the background. Sugar sweet sitcoms that leave us with a bad actor taste while pop stars metamorphosize into soda pop stars, You saw the video, You heard the soundtrack, Well now go buy the soft drink. Well, the onla cola that I support would be a union C.O.L.A.(Cost Of Living Allowance) On television
[Chorus:]
Back again, 'New and improved' We return to our irregularly programmed schedule hidden cleverly between heavy breasted beer and car commercials
CNNESPNABCTNT but mostly B.S. Where oxymoronic language like 'virtually spotless', 'fresh frozen'
'light yet filling' and 'military intelligence' have become standard T.V. is the place where phrases are redefined like 'recession' to 'necessary downturn' 'Crude oil' on a beach to 'mousse' 'Civilian death' to 'collateral damages' and being killed by your own Army is now called 'friendly fire' T.V. is the place where the pursuit of happiness has become the pursuit of
trivia Where toothpaste and cars have become
sex objects Where imagination is sucked out of children by a cathode ray nipple T.V. is the only wet nurse that would create a cripple
[Chorus:]
Television, the drug of the Nation, Breeding ignorance and feeding radiation
Anything to get voted into office. We tried it here. The best we got was stickers to say this game has life like violence. Why dont we take care of the root cause of the issue. Parenting. If we try being a parent sometimes instead of plopping our kids infront of the TV and game systems all day this type of crap would not happen. I have a 6yr old son and he only watches maybe 10hours of tv a week (including sat and sun) He playes video games even less. I make him go outside and play with friends (real flesh and blood people) I disapline him. (We all know this is severly lacking here in america) He knows right from wrong and he accepts responsabilty for his own actions. This is a ploy by the politicians to get and stay in office. If they do ban these games what are they going to do when that does not work. What or who are they going to blame next.
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