December 6, 2006 -
According to a report in Spiegel, a bloody school shooting in Germany last month has led to renewed calls for action against violent games.As reported by GamePolitics, an 18-year-old Counter-strike player assaulted his former middle school in November, wounding a reported 37 people before taking his own life.
The rampage led Minister of the Interior Gunther Beckstein to propose amendments to German law which would authorize prison sentences for those who create or distribute game content which features "cruel or otherwise inhumane acts of violence against humans or humanlike creatures."
The real shocker is that Beckstein would lock up violent game players as well.
Penalties proposed by Beckstein include up to one year in jail and/or fines.
GP: The translation of original web page was accomplished via Google, so it's rather imprecise. I have made small edits to the Beckstein quotes which seem contextually correct.
UPDATE: MSNBC has more, including a quote from Frank Sliwka, head of the Deutsche E-Sport Bund, which coordinates online gaming competitions:
Now we are being labelled as a breeding ground for unstable, dysfunctional and violent youngsters.
MSNBC also reports that Interior Minister Beckstein has reached his own conclusions about violent games:
It is absolutely beyond any doubt that such killer games desensitise unstable characters and can have a stimulating effect.
The article further speculates on what such a ban might mean for the March, 2007 PlayStation 3 launch in Europe. Top titles for the beleagured system include shooter Resistance: Fall of Man and Call of Duty 3.
Comments
On a side note: The age of the average gamer is approaching 30 (it may have already reached it recently, I'm not sure). The age of the average politician is approximately 60. Out of touch with the world much?
So, if by inhumane violence he means "play a game that exaggeratedly simulates what our country's special forces do" then, maybe we should think about what inhumane is.
Where did this guy get these guns anyway?
Oh wait, he just means video games. Well I guess it's ok then... /sarcasm
okay calm down calm down....... erk...
Now I wonder what Daniel will have to say on the subject.
France: just launch a pre-emptive strike now before it's too late!
http://bundesrecht.juris.de/stgb/__131.html
Screw him.
http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/0,1518,452713,00.html
Poor Germany
Why? It's not like we don't already know there's no merit to "games incite violence".
Die Fahne hoch! Die Reihen fest geschlossen!
SA marschiert mit mutig-festem Schritt...
/sarkasmus
Maybe he's just pissed off about all the WW2 games.
He doesn't even have much support, as that article linked by Lazy said.
Seriously, though. I want to know where these people get the idea that video games are mind control devices for destruction. I'm sorry, I spent most of my high school years playing Counter-Strike, and I hate guns. I almost refuse to touch them. I've never been especially violent as it is, but I have become even less violent because of what I have seen in the media. Not more.
I'm not saying that there are no people that become more aggressive and violent because of video games, but claiming video games as the primary factor is beyond absurd, and I'm getting pretty tired of these politicians and bureaucrats pretending that they understand the cure to all the world's ills.
(please note that "writings" here does not only apply to written media, but all kinds of media like movies or video games)
---
§ 131 Representation of Violence
(1) Whoever, in relation to writings (Section 11 subsection (3)), which describe cruel or otherwise inhuman acts of violence against human beings in a manner which expresses a glorification or rendering harmless of such acts of violence or which represents the cruel or inhuman aspects of the event in a manner which injures human dignity:
1. disseminates them;
2. publicly displays, posts, presents, or otherwise makes them accessible;
3. offers, gives or makes them accessible to a person under eighteen years; or
4. produces, obtains, supplies, stocks, offers, announces, commends, undertakes to import or export them, in order to use them or copies obtained from them within the meaning of numbers 1 through 3 or facilitate such use by another,
shall be punished with imprisonment for not more than one year or a fine.
(2) Whoever disseminates a presentation of the content indicated in subsection (1) by radio, shall be similarly punished.
(3) Subsections (1) and (2) shall not apply if the act serves as reporting about current or historical events.
(4) Subsection (1), number 3 shall not be applicable if the person authorized to care for the person acts.
---
Still, relatively few games get banned, mostly because they aren't even released in Germany or are toned down by the publisher or developers.
This seems to be yet another representation of an older generation being scared of anything new, full of 60 year old politcians who think they know what's best for everyone, In spite of the fact that they have never bothered to research the medium/never thought about what anyone else thinks/never looked out the window. Only this time, It's in Germany. I predict that as soon as a new entertainment medium comes out, people will look back at this and shake their heads, just like when we look back at the whole Elvis Presley debacle.
Could one of you give us a brief summary of what the link you posted says... i doubt many poeple here speak german
It basically says the the reactions were to Beckstein's proposal were mixed then lists a few statements.
Monika Griefahn (SPD) said that the current legislation is sufficient and she doesn't really understand what Beckstein wants to add to it. She also says that the shop assistants should be better educated about the ratings system.
Bodo Ramelow (not sure who he is, but I guess he's from some Counterstrike clan) says that the politician have in most cases no clue what they're talking about when it comes to video games and that they themselves lack the "media competence" they often demand from the parents.
Dieter Wiefelspütz (SPD) says that the existing laws should be checked again, but a discussion about bans would be a sign of helplessnes. He suggests that reasons for violence should be looked for at schools and homes.
Grietje Bettin wants to know where the weapons came from. She thinks that a ban on violent games wouldn't solve anything and asks for better methods to detect people who are socially isolated.
Hans-Joachim Otto (FDP) calls Becksteins ideas naive and says this would criminalize the developers and large parts of the video gaming community. He also warned of the dangers of censorship.
Joachim Herrmann (CSU) says something urgently needs to be done about those "killergames" and says he even wants to censor TV too. Because of the children or something.
Course, I don't look to them for the best ideas on preventing violence. What a bunch of whak-a-doos.
Look out, it's the post from ETC! Anyone remember when I was posting from Germany about five months ago and how I said that at least the German government wasn't entirely strohdumm(empty-headed)? I shall now proceed to retract that statement.
I suppose they forgot about hitlers Book burnings, his domination of the airwaves, and blood shed it led to.
Ah how easily some people forget.
Say what you will, I'd rather be here in the USA then over there, our politicans maybe scumbags, but they aren't this crazy.
Not to mention when it comes to game laws, our Poli's are incompetent!
Germany needs a new slogan. I got one.
"Come to the new Germany, for a Fuzzy kind of facism"
Seriously though, I'm not surprised by this. An old man over in Germany is bound to be as out of touch with the today's youth as the old men over here are out of touch with today's youth. This has nothing to do with his ancestry, it's got everything to do with a hot button issue.
"Protect the children" will always work, no matter what country it's in.
More to the point, after a shooting like this people WANT something or someone to blame. All too often the shooter decides to take his own life, leaving the populace with no single person to shove the blame on. They can't watch his life deteriorate around him because he's taken it. They won't take it out on parents who are in grief at the loss of their own child, or at least the media won't.
Claiming poor parenting and the need for therapy doesn't sell ad space on TV. Saying videogames are destroying our youth does.
Reading these kinds of things makes me furious at the lies of Jack Thompson and David Grossman. The people who do things like this are crazy and they need to be put into mental institutions instead of being allowed to roam the streets. Also many people, who have never played video games, have gone on killing sprees. Video games have nothing to do with it at all and they are innocent and must be vindicated and seen as what they are. An innocent form of entertainment. Say it with me. Violent video games do NOT make people violent!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Not all of Germany is endorsing this plan of action you know...
@Daniel
Don't use so many exclamation marks and don't get so excited.
I don't think "Germany" wants to ban violent games, just two politicians want to ban them - more or less. And the one mentioned in the article isn't the "prime minister" of Germany, he's the interior minister of Bavaria.
Germany doesn't even have a prime minister. We have a chancellor. Mrs Merkel.
Heil Gunther! Heil Gunther!
He deserves the title 'Minister of INFERIOR' (Clockwork Orange references FTW)
Germany claims have parted themselves from their fascist past, but its quite obvious that they haven't learned a bit
I swear to god if this spreads to America, there is going to be an uprising at hand
Crytek, makers of Far Cry and the upcoming Crysis are from Germany. Far Cry had to be censored before release, I believe.