Jail time for German Gamers

mortiz

mortiz

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http://uk.gamespot.com/news/6163059.html

Sucks for the Germans, I guess they'll just have to content themselves with Barbie Horse Adventures whilst we're all playing the next Half-Life episode or the next Unreal Tournament.

In all honesty surely they'd be infringing on a number of freedom's by doing this? The E.U. shouldn't allow it, but the E.U. is heavily funded and supported by the Germans. It sucks enough that German censors hate video-games but to arrest people for killing "human-looking characters"...what!?
 
wow I wonder if they'll arrest actors who kill people in movies or is it just video games ...oh ya right

what about the audience ..will they be arrested as accomplises?


and why dont they just ban all guns? much less death cuz it's rare that someone stabs and kills 13 people in one sitting
 
Journalism at its best. Or, should I say, worst.

Okay, Germany has pretty strict laws on violent content in games. For historical and other reasons, they want to have this censorship, particularly on violence against human characters. That's even understandable.

However, what we have here is merely proposed legislation. Proposing legislation is really easy in just about any democratic country. Doesn't mean it has any chance of passing - I don't think this legislation has, either. Heck, a bill to impeach Bush was proposed last week in the US House of Representatives, which isn't big news because it has no chance of passing. This is simply reporters latching on to a good headline.
 
That is one of, no THE most ridiculous thing I have ever read. WTF is wrong with these people? ZOMG she looks like a human if I kill her I'll be a murdereerzz lolz!
 
Yeah well, my threads better. More descriptive title too.
 
hmm..that article is not entirely correct. that guy hurt more than 37 people.

but honestly if that thing passes its just another reason to leave the country and relocate.
 
The article is more than a little sensationalist. Even still, censorship laws are ridiculous. For as much as Europeans like to go on about how Americans are repressed and uptight, at least our government doesn't tell us what we are and are not allowed to watch/play/read/hear. From what I can tell Germany and Australia are the worst governments when it comes to this, but even England has government issued ratings that can effectively block the release of media to consumers.

You would think there'd be a little more outrage over this, but no.
 
I suggest we all chip in so slinter can run for president and sort things out
 
smwScott said:
The article is more than a little sensationalist. Even still, censorship laws are ridiculous. For as much as Europeans like to go on about how Americans are repressed and uptight, at least our government doesn't tell us what we are and are not allowed to watch/play/read/hear. From what I can tell Germany and Australia are the worst governments when it comes to this, but even England has government issued ratings that can effectively block the release of media to consumers.

You would think there'd be a little more outrage over this, but no.
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Well, with Germany, it is somewhat understandable. With the war and whatnot, they're probably more intent than any other country on limiting violence. Of course, fines or jail for FPS games would be really over the limit, but then again, it doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell of passing.

By the way, our (European) comments about American censorship usually mean the treatment of curse words and nudity in the US. For example, how TV series can't easily show nude breasts, or how people can react to someone saying 'fu*k'. It's a different thing, really.
 
Ahem it's "proposed legislation", it's never going to pass. I bet the Germans have their own Jack Thompson running around writing up these dumb ass bills.
 
Solver said:
By the way, our (European) comments about American censorship usually mean the treatment of curse words and nudity in the US. For example, how TV series can't easily show nude breasts, or how people can react to someone saying 'fu*k'. It's a different thing, really.
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The thing is that the FCC only has jurisdiction over FM radio and the network channels (ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX), everything else on American TV/radio is completely uncensored. There is a lot of self censorship, but the only government censorship that occurs is with signals that travel over public airwaves, which kinda makes sense. You're right that Americans themselves can be very uptight, but at least our government doesn't censor us. That means that those of us that don't have sticks lodged up our asses can view whatever we want regardless of what anyone else thinks about it.

As far as the Germans trying to keep violence levels as low as possible due to cultural history ... I don't think that's an adequate argument. The principals of censorship and attempting to control the way people think are far more representative of what went wrong in that country than just the most basic level of cultural violence (which exists in every country, and repressing it will only make it worse). Which is really all besides the point anyway, the issue is purely a matter of principle and human rights, your government should not be allowed to dictate what you can and cannot view.
 
Germans: always oppressing something.
 
As far as the Germans trying to keep violence levels as low as possible due to cultural history ... I don't think that's an adequate argument. The principals of censorship and attempting to control the way people think are far more representative of what went wrong in that country than just the most basic level of cultural violence (which exists in every country, and repressing it will only make it worse). Which is really all besides the point anyway, the issue is purely a matter of principle and human rights, your government should not be allowed to dictate what you can and cannot view.
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I wasn't justifying their censorship with their cultural history, I gave it as the reason why it's done and what many Germans themselves cite as the reason. I myself have very liberal views when it comes to personal right and governments, and believe that governments should have control of even less than they do.

However, I am starting to think that it might be a good idea to actually restrict certain games to an 18+ audience. Sometimes the whole 'being of age' thing is ridiculous, but maybe the very violent games should be restricted to that. Then again, 18 is too old. 16 is probably better. In a way, that's what the M rating does, but as far as I'm aware, it's not being really enforced, seems like anyone can buy a M-rated game.

Then again, I also see a problem with that, too. The ratings system is, IMO, wacky. I think that games like FEAR or Doom3 should be getting an M rating (gibbing, lots of gore). Not games like HL2 or definitely not Oblivion.
 
The thing is that it isn't the governments place to decide whether people under the age of 18 should be able to purchase it. That responsibility lies with the parents. That being said, the industry has in large part made it harder for children to buy M-rated games voluntarily, which is really going above and beyond the call. The inescapable fact is that the buck stops with parental responsibility ... unfortunately this world is filled with a bunch of whiny idiots that always look to blame their mistakes on others or who want others (ie., the government) to take care of their responsibilities for them.

I agree with what you said about the M-rating being thrown around way too liberally. HL2 really is not a game unsuitable for 13+ year olds, for instance. I think if the ESRB only handed out the rating to games that were truly "obscene" then it would be respected far more and therefore stores would actually enforce it.
 
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