German gov't considers jail time for gamers

<ankh> · Post by **<ankh>** » Wed Dec 13, 2006 11:21 am

German gov't considers jail time for gamers
Proposed legislation targets pixelated mayhem and virtual violence; legislators consider acts of cruelty against "human-looking characters" as reason enough to fine, imprison.

Games in Germany already face strict censorship laws--titles such as Gears of War are deemed to be too violent, and the German board of classification (the Unterhaltungssoftware Selbskontrolle) refuses to give them a rating, effectively meaning that the games can be sold only at adults-only retailers.

Nazi symbols are also banned in the country, except for art and educational purposes--so games which use them, including the Wolfenstein series, are also banned from being released in Germany. Even games such as Dead Rising are regarded as crossing a threshold of acceptability since violence towards zombies is considered to be too close to violence towards real people.

Legislation currently being drafted would take these standards a step further. The bill, which was introduced last week by the states of Bavaria and Lower Saxony, proposes a new offence. Those found guilty of "cruel violence on humans or human-looking characters" could face fines, or jail time of up to 12 months--and those it applies to include developers, retailers, and consumers, reports UK newspaper The Guardian.

The proposed legislation comes on the heels of a shooting on November 20 where an 18-year-old student went on a shooting rampage and wounded six people in his school before killing himself. Backers of the bill also point to the 2002 Erfurt massacre where another German student shot 13 people, according to the paper. Both incidents have been blamed in the media on violent games and much has been written about the two shooters' fascination with games such as Half-Life: Counter-Strike.

The proposed legislation makes the future for German game companies unclear. One company, Far Cry and Crysis developer Crytek, has already made known its plans to relocate to another country should the any legislation of this kind be made law.

Source:
http://www.gamespot.com/news/6163059.html

Post by **Lieva** » Wed Dec 13, 2006 12:27 pm

oh lordie

yknow

eventually will be like an underground movement where games are passed illicitly

Monk · Post by **Monk** » Wed Dec 13, 2006 12:37 pm

so instead of investing money into solving the problem of guncrime in germany, theyre just gonna ban violent games hmm.

i imagine it went like this:
what should we do now ?
well u could change gun laws?
NO are u crazy, then i cant go hunting!
ok ok we'll just ban videogames and see what happens....

most pathetic attempt i have ever seen, either make a reasonable effort at controlling what appears to be a rising tendancy for school children to have access to firearms, or completely get rid of guns in germany (xept for the authorities) like they have in the UK.

semi automatic pistols are arguably the most dangerous firearm to own, as it can be concealed incredibly easily and has a high magazine capacity.

im sure someone wouldve noticed if he was bringing a shotgun or a rifle ito school.

OohhoO · Post by **OohhoO** » Wed Dec 13, 2006 1:58 pm

iirc he had a sawn-off shotgun, a semi-automatic, several pistols + various other weapons ... or some similarly unlikely combination of weapons

They probably wouldn't have associated it so directly with violent computer games if it wasn't for the fact that he built a CounterStrike level of his school to practise the massacre in, & announced the massacre on a games forum in advance.

Monk · Post by **Monk** » Wed Dec 13, 2006 2:01 pm

fair enough, but had he not had access to the weapons, he couldve built as many maps as he wanted and still not be able to go thru with it

OohhoO · Post by **OohhoO** » Wed Dec 13, 2006 2:03 pm

ah here we go
"Armed with rifles, pistols, pipe bombs, a knife, smoke canisters and wearing an explosive belt"

http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1 ... 92,00.html

OohhoO · Post by **OohhoO** » Wed Dec 13, 2006 2:12 pm

Well...
I think it's a bad thing to blame & ban computer games for their violent influence when the same problem begins much earlier with kiddies cartoons on TV.
But at least they're trying to do something to improve & protect their society, even if it's not necessarily the way I would like to see them go about it.
The question we should maybe be asking ourselves is:- Why do such a large proportion of computer games contain such a huge amount of blatant & senseless violence?

<ankh> · Post by **<ankh>** » Wed Dec 13, 2006 2:15 pm

If you go on a rampage killing people you can ofc blame it on games - but its not really the games fault. People who kill other people would properbly have done it no matter if they played games or not, games doesnt screw up your mind that much unless you already had some psychical problem from the start.

/Ankh

OohhoO · Post by **OohhoO** » Wed Dec 13, 2006 3:26 pm

It does have rather far-reaching implications
for instance...
DAoC definately contains "cruel violence on humans or human-looking characters"
So GOA wouldn't be allowed to offer DAoC to people living in Germany, which is a rather high proportion of GOAs paying customers.
Would DAoC have been economically viable for GOA without their German servers?
How would this affect future MMORPGs, including WH?

Post by **Xest** » Wed Dec 13, 2006 4:48 pm

The arguments that games cause violent crimes are completely unfounded, there's still no proof for it, only half-assed propaganda attempts. What's more, the mainstream media seems to be extremely biased against games (in fact the internet in general), I can only guess this stems from their fear of becoming obsolete due to new internet media cutting their customer base, hence their willingness to defame it as often as possible.

When Stefan Pakeerah was killed, pretty much all media outlets reported that the killer had played the game Manhunt, this led to the banning of manhunt across the globe in many countries, however the police came forth and mentioned that the copy of manhunt that was taken for evidence was in fact owned by the victim and not the killer - the only news outlets to report this correction to their earlier stories were IT, Gaming and the few news sites capable of being impartial, unfortunately even the BBC haven't reported this correction, what's more they still continue the lie to this day when the argument of "computer game violence" arises. The BBC, as a public funded media outlet is meant to be accountable, however to this day I have had no response from them asking why they are unwilling to correct their misreporting - I have chased this up numerous times.

Personally I think things need to go the other way, companies like those behind Manhunt deserve the right to sue media outlets for millions in lost sales due to their misreporting and hence uneducated bannings of the product - not allowing this allows the media to get away with bias reporting whenever they feel like it (see the BBC's strong anti-Israeli bias and long history of anti-sematic reporters).

Since Grand Theft Auto was released, car crime across the whole of the US has dropped by a half. Now, that statement on the face of it suggests people can carry out their joyriding fantasies in game and hence are taken off the streets, their maybe some truth to this however there's no evidence either way - this selective use of facts to try and backup the unknowns is exactly the type of tactic the media uses.

On a side note, I've seen far more kids in the streets, drinking underage, joyriding, stealing, assaulting people trying to immitate R&B stars like tu-pac (if only they'd immitate his death too and do us all a favour

), does this mean we should ban music too? The problem isn't any form of media in particular, the problem is people who need something to latch onto because they have nothing else in their lives, whatever you ban they'll find something else - just help people out of this situation in the first place.