All violent video games to be banned in Germany

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/02/us/02sanford.html?_r=1

This is stupid. What better than to keep people from letting their aggressions out in a virtual world.

Have we not learned anything? people who are going to commit violent crimes are going to commit violent crimes regardless of their influences. However, people of a more sane nature are going to use these games as a release.

Please people.

Eh. Germany has been talking about this for ages. I'm very doubtful that they'll actually pull through and ban all violent games. Even if they do, they'll still have the internet to get all the bloody disgusting games they could want.

I would like to file this under John Stewart's "Shit that's never gonna happen!"

Germany already has a hefty list of banned games. Nothing tops Saudi Arabia's banned video game though: Pokemon is banned for promoting gambling and Zionism.

How the hell does Pokemon promote zionism?

You gotta love government involvement in people's private lives. You know, because humans are naturally stupid and violent and need to have their feeble minds "protected."

I'm being sarcastic of course.

In other news Austrian video game stores show record profits... It's the EU! Germany hasn't had solid national borders for like 15 years

I notice the fourth of July is coming up. Anybody in fireworks controlled states maybe have something extra special in your trunk for the big day? How hard would it be to keep illegal fireworks out of people's hands if they could simply download them?

People are going to be evil little bastards with or with out video games. But if the U.S. follows suit... people are going to be law breaking evil little bastards.

How gay is that?

I'm pretty sure this will never be passed in parliament. There are elections for the European Union parliament this Sunday and the 15 interior ministers of German states came out with this resolution assuming that would make them look tough on crime, i.e. potential gunmen on a rampage, and bring in a few votes. But it's a whole different story to introduce this in parliament and make it into law.
Also, since there is no evidence of a link between playing violent games and acting violently this would be immediately contested at the Supreme Court and probably struck down anyways.
Judging from the readers' comments on a German newspaper site this initiative will backfire big time.
File this story under "empty campaign 'promises'".

It is usually the case that many of these politicians have not a single clue about anything that has to do with gaming.

I hate when people make on a decison on something they think they know about, which they actually have no fucking clue about...

Well... i guess this is a good thing and bad thing.

A violent videogame does not create a violent person...

I would go on a dietribe about videogames being used as a scapegoat for blame of all violent acts carried out by young people... but it's not something that anyone hasn't heard before.

At the end of the day, I don't agree with it... but there's not really a lot I can do about it other than bitch & moan.

in that case if we r to protect our kids from violence and bad influence we should shut down most of the TV channels including the NEWS where u can c war destruction killings slaughtering
action movies
what about reality shows how educational r they
we r raising bunch of retards
you cant play violent video games but you can go to the ARMY (yeeeaaaay) and go to the war
give me a brake
wake up people

The world is having an "identitiy crisis". What influences a person? Nature vs nurture. Who knows because bad seeds have come from good people and vice versa.

With that said. My sons who are now grown played video games but not like those of today but some I refused to buy. We were lucky and our kids turned out to be good citizens, husbands and fathers. I have seen a lot in my years and I truly believe that I was influenced greatly by television. Now don't laugh. Hard to believe but this was a short 45 years ago that I was a teen and loved watching such horrible shows as I Love Lucy, Father knows best, and now love old movies. Cannot stand movies with a lot of terror in them.

People see as they age that we are getting more and more desensitized to rage and violence. After you see things over and over in your mind, it doesn't bother you to see someone beheaded or burned alive.Its just "another day in the neighborhood".

This generation is very different. Certainly much smarter, more technical savy, more raw and realistic.
But they are missing so many of the values and morales of yesterday. I did not want my children to see horror or terror. There is enough of it in this world everyday to see happen on any device you want without making it into a game.Remember Ted Bundy, the serial college co-ed killer? His last words before they burned him were "keep your kids away from porn". There is no point there except that some want no limits on anything, some want to limit everything. I real identity crisis is that we need to learn to live with each other in the middle and care about someone other than yourself.

Videos games are a waste of time anyways...They are good when you are a kid, I grew up playing Mortal Kombat, a pretty violent game in the early 90's my friends and I all played the bloody game and neither one of us turned into killers...So I don't know what the big deal is with banning video game violence in a country that has mass murdering in its history. A little ironic isn't in it?

This is impossible!
Oh well. They would somehow see that and stop allow it again.

Some video games do increase the likelihood of violent behaviour, especially f*!king impossible ones like Bubble Bobble!

http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13726738

What do they think is going to happen? No one's ever going to get murdered again?

Obviously right? I mean no one ever was murdered before video games were invented! That's just fact, sorry folks.

Hitler was always said to have played Call of Duty 4 daily as a kid...

Yeah, Im from Germany myself and I think, the politics in my country are overacting. We have one of the strictest youth protection laws in the world. Instead of blaming the games, for making students run into their schools with a gun and shooting everything that moves, they should see the responsibility of the milieu or the parents. Or why nobody talks about why the school shoters were so furiouse with their classmates and teachers? Thats where the german gouvernment has to act.
(sorry for eventual grammar or spelling mistakes)

Who decides what's violent? I mean Disney movies have characters dieing untimely deaths are they going to ban lion king and bambi now?

will they ban katamari damacy? i mean, rolling up people and pets and clothes pins into a neat sticky ball, then on to buildings and clouds... destruction of the world. evil, i say! ;P

See People!! This is the sort of problems we have to deal with everyday, why is that some THICK NO BRAIN CHILD has to imitate various events from violent video games. I mean if parents can't bring their children up in a civlised way then there is no point but to obay this law.

Man that sucks. last time i was in germany they were all about about the bloodshed in there games.