What about adults who want to try demo kiosks during the day? Oh, thats right- only children play games. Germany = teh genius.

Criminals breathed at one time or another too....

Like seriously, if kids are skipping school, why would they be playing game demos for hours at a time? Skipping school is either to cause mischief or to have fun, neither of which can be attained by playing a game demo at a store.

But otherwise, I don't know what kinds of rights retail stores in Deutschland have, so it's an iffy thing in the rights point of view

Are tey going to include turning off porn, music, all game related sites, My Space, Facebook, iTunes....You get the idea. Why just bash games?

Oh, thats right, its the hip, popular thing to do at the moment. It doesn't have to make a lick of sense. What was I thinking.

I used to ditch class to do homework for other classes. Maybe we should just ban school! :-P

But anyone who's ditching class to hang out at EB and play demos deserves to fail out and become a bum.

Someone didn't think things through. Let's say they get this through, and all game stores within whatever distance of a school turn off their demos during school hours. Obviously, the really game-crazy students - those who genuinely skipped school to play - will then not bother playing truant anymore, since the fun is gone. That's good. But what about those (in my estimation a lot more numerous) who skip school because, say, it's boring, or because all the cool kids are doing it? Why, they'll still skip school, only now they have one less source of harmless fun to choose from. That would, all else being equal, increase the risk that they'll start having fun in not-so-harmless ways. And that's the kind of fun that may eventually lead to crime.

That's my two cents, anyway.

That is no where near dealing with the problem...

When I was younger, I never skipped school just to play video games, it was because school is boring as all hell and they made almost absolutely no attempts to make it not boring, and most of their actual attempts failed.

@kurisu7885

Another point they left out is that some of the greatest criminal minds were great students who didn't skip school.

I, myself, never skipped school willingly. In mine, they DID made attempts to make it less boring (they worked). Guess some schools need to evolve.

WILL SOMEBODY PLEASE THINK OF THE GERMANS???

Maybe it's SCHOOL that makes kids want to skip. I don't know, just a thought.

You know when I skipped school I went straight home and played the full game...why muck around with a demo? That and school was useless, I'm still trying to figure out how knowing shakespeare is supposed to be useful in life.....

@ Freak4all

I would have loved to learn about important things. Credit cards, loans, how to change a tire, how to jump start a car, CPR, how to eat healthy. Apparently it was more important that I learn about World War II 5 years in a row.

He's going about this the wrong way, instead he should have checks for truant students around the stores.

Who would skip school so they can play 5 minutes of a game that's probably already out?

I think maybe they're looking in the wrong place for a cause.

turning off game demos will only make truant students harder to find, since they won't be concentrated in one area.

Criminals at one time drove on highways, so we need to shut those down too.

Criminals at one time drank water, so we should ban water.

@ Dick Ward

SO thats why they died
I thought it was Johnson

Making a decision based on a very loose and opinionated correlation is the reason why America is fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. Tactically, if you want to round up kids back to school then places like his loose example would be good "traps". Taking away these "traps" means kids will be scattered everywhere and in more potential harm then they were before. They are trying to solve one problem while creating another one. Plain stupidity it is.

Better idea, impose a rule that people cannot be a game demo station for more than an hour at a time (unless they work there). I'm sure it's a rule most game stores would be happy to obey.

Just what we need: Another bunch of Hitlers obsessed with world domination just because a bunch of moronic authorities wanted game demos off during school hours.

No offense to the german people intended in that last comment. But seriously, that sucks.

I'd like to point out that I am a criminal (non-violent) and I never skipped school.

I work at a game store and let me tell you. It's not to hard to monitor the demo stations. If someone even looks underage we can just ask for ID and if they don't have it we'll ask them to stop away from the machines. It's more of an inconvenience for our good customers who want to play demos and for employees to be monitoring what time it is so we can turn all of the demo stations on/off.

Another bunch of Hitlers obsessed with world domination just because a bunch of moronic authorities wanted game demos off during school hours.

Okay, seeing stuff like this just annoys me. What the hell's the point of making World War 2 references in regards to VIDEO GAMES for God's sake? I know my share of Germans and they're no different from us, they have stupid politicians and smart ones. Turning off game demos is hardly the same as slaughtering the Jews. You can't even get your metaphors right.

This is exactly the reason gamers are discriminated against and believed to be immature/irresponsible, because the most vocal of us are also the rudest, dumbest, and most intolerant. Congratulations on becoming the same as your enemy.

First off all: I am German and yes indeed we have very strict (and in addition: quite silly) laws regarding video games.

It is also indeed true that you see a lot of kids hanging out in shopping malls playing on public displays (which usally - by the way - offer you the FULL game to play and not just Demos... guess this is a translation error) during school time. Thus the idea behind this is not as far fetched as one might imagine.

Nevertheless it is just another sad attempt of.. lets say "blame and ban something totally not the reason for the problem" or basically just "ban what you do not understand". The conclusion that banning public displays will stop these kids from ditching school is just plain (I beg your pardon) fucking ridiculous. Instead of searching the real cause for this problem (e.g. obsolescent teaching methods and material in schools, misguided parenting... just to name a few) they just blame it on video games as it seems to be modern nowadays (like whenever something involing guns happens you can bet that there is going to be at least one newspaper asking "Did Counterstrike make them do it?"). Reason might be that it is of course a lot easier to pull a publicity stunt instead of really doing something that makes sense. In addition many politicians still seem to think video games are something just for kids...

But what annoys me the most is the fact that my generation had the same trouble and (most likely) for the same reason. Or in other words: 15 Years ago you might have seen me on one of those displays (in those days of course equipped with NES or Sega's Master System) during school time. Why? Because the "computer class" we had in school was not more than a complete joke and this was one way to get in contact with a new evolving technology instead of sitting in class hearing yet more about WW2 (not that this bad, but if you hear it more than twice a year it's enough). In fact I ditched school a lot and not because it was to hard (meaning I was an A-level student) more because it did not offer anything interesting to somebody interested in new media. So I went on and learned about that stuff on my own while ditching school.

And guess what: I graduated high school, I gratuated college and today I WORK in the gaming industry. Guess it was not that bad after all. Huh? ;)

Of course not all kids are like me, but what I am driving at is that nobody actually makes the affort to talk to these kids and find solutions based on the real problems.

The reaction to this relatively benign proposal seems blown out of proportion. As part of a wide-ranging series of programs to improve the German education system (which is already excellent) authorities want to remove temptations.

And while I understand a certain desire for freedom to run one's business without interference, as I see it, demo kiosks are increasingly unimportant. If lawmakers want to target something that's already on the downturn, who cares? Maybe it'll keep them out of important issues for a while.

Yeah, cuz you know, kids never skipped school before demo kiosks. Never skip school to smoke weed. Or drink beer. Or skate. Or play games at home. Or just hang out and do anything but school. Heck, I used to miss the school bus because I was watching GI Joe.