Video game repression has surged in Thailand following last month's killing of a taxi driver by a 19-year-old man who told police he was re-enacting Grand Theft Auto.
Jesada Chandraprasert (left), who pens Cnet's Technology Thailand blog, reports this morning that five games have been officially banned by the Ministry of Culture:
- Hitman
- 300
- Killer Seven
- Hitman: Blood Money
- Fifty Cent: Bullet Proof
In a story broken by GamePolitics, Thailand stole its list of "dangerous" games from an outdated list offered by Detroit prosecutor Kym Worthy during the 2007 holiday season. The five banned games constitute half of the list.
Chandraprasert writes:
To say that Thailand's ministries are conservative is like saying the Pacific Ocean is a puddle. In their efforts to maintain a level of control and conformity... they issue laws and regulations faster than a geek can whip out his credit card at a Pantip going-out-of-business sale. Such is the case with video games and Internet cafes...
Their official press release at the Government's Web site clearly states that they see gaming as "a problem which is obsessive and has an (adverse) effect on the behavior of children and teens...".
Chandraprasert also reports on a recent government and law enforcement conference which was held to discuss the video game issue - with ominous overtones:
The conference, held at the Queen Sirikit Convention Center on August 21, had an audience of over 1,500 people, mostly public officials and the police. The main focus of this conference was to find solutions to unregistered gaming stores (basically an Internet cafe like a setup where people can go in and game all day long on computers, not the traditional arcade) and "dangerous games". Their aim is to eliminate the "dangers" associated with said problem within 90 days of the conference.
Comments
Re: Thai Government Turns Against Video Games
oh come on everybody knows thai cabbies are rip offs! and the worse are tuk tuk drivers! come on stop blaming videogames puh leaseeee :O
Re: Thai Government Turns Against Video Games
That's a shame. I hear all those sex tourists like to relax with Killer 7 after sleeping with 8 year olds.
Re: Thai Government Turns Against Video Games
It's been addressed already, but let me just reiterate that Thailand is indeed Jack's version of paradise. They're banning video games, but child rape is still ok.
Re: Thai Government Turns Against Video Games
Cracking down child porn is not at easy as banning video games. Child porn is NOT ok but you hear about it less often because news about it is harder to come by...
Re: Thai Government Turns Against Video Games
So let me get this straight. One man committs a murder and the whole Thai government goes crazy and wants to ban video games?
Also, why the heck is the first Hitman on there? Do these idiots even know which video games are popular these days?
Re: Thai Government Turns Against Video Games
Yeah seems they were all prepared and were waiting for a violent crime to occur to move into action. No government will act on a ban or a want to ban, unless Thailand has the most efficient government in history! (*chortle*)
Re: Thai Government Turns Against Video Games
There was a case of a shootout between the police and a guy with an AK74 a while back, makes you wonder why they didn't ban the game back then eh?
Re: Thai Government Turns Against Video Games
Get back to me when they finally decide it's not okay to fuck kids.
Re: Thai Government Turns Against Video Games
oooh epic kudos to you!
but everyone knows its because of the evil child molesting video games making them do it. they need to ban them too
Re: Thai Government Turns Against Video Games
Holy crap. Sir you win teh internets.
--
OOOOOOOOhhhhhh! SNAP, SON! SNAP!!!!!!!
-Remember kids, personal responsibility is for losers! For information on games and psychology, look up: Jonathan Freedman(2002)Block & Crain(2007) Just to name a few...
Re: Thai Government Turns Against Video Games
I find the trolls views and JT are all wrong in this
When Life gives you lemons, you find a new god.
Re: Thai Government Turns Against Video Games
GP: deleted the trolling
Re: Thai Government Turns Against Video Games
Hey!!! Spike Seigel is not fat or moronic....Vash the Stampede, yes, he's moronic.
Re: Thai Government Turns Against Video Games
hate to break it to you, but the Andy Griffin show was on TV, which according to you, gave rise to the "corrupt rebels"
many American shows portray Americans as fat, moronic, and violent. Also, "animé" is simply an abbreviation of the word "animation"
No media is more violent than the Bible, which Jack Thompson ironically promotes in his "crusade against violence".
Check, and mate
岩「…Ace beats Jack」
岩「…I can see why Hasselbeck's worried about fake guns killing fake people. afterall, she's a fake journalist on a fake news channel」
Re: Thai Government Turns Against Video Games
"many American shows portray Americans as fat, moronic, and violent"
Alot of things come to mind now.
VNS, GG.
Re: Thai Government Turns Against Video Games
Hello, nameless troll no one cares about that i'm talking to because i'm bored out of my skull.
Learn to spell. That is all.
Re: Thai Government Turns Against Video Games
What the fuck? Was that a single sentence?
Re: Thai Government Turns Against Video Games
I noticed that too, someone managed to use a comma as a full-stop and still capitalise 'and' repeatedly.
If this is the level of the people who oppose us, no wonder they fail so spectacuarly ;)
Re: Thai Government Turns Against Video Games
Hmm, re read that. Truthful ways? Hah, that's even funnier than crime in Thailand suddenly going down.
Re: Thai Government Turns Against Video Games
Something's going down in Thailand.....and it's not crime....
Re: Thai Government Turns Against Video Games
Censoring and destroying media isn't "restoring America", it's destroying it.
And I believe the french revoluition, a rather messy rebellion, happened cat least close to a century before television, as well as the Aemerican Revolutionary War and the American Civil War.
Explain this connection.
Also, not ONCE in my years of watching Japanese animation have I see n Americans portrayed as fat and stpid unless it was as a JOKE. Most of the time Americans in there are portrayed as just normal people.
Also, a troll is someone who posts comments liek your's o nthe internet to incite a reaction, and you are makign such posts to incite negative reactions so you can log the posts and show them to peopel to prove your point, making you a troll.
You lose, good day sir.
Re: Thai Government Turns Against Video Games
Please do not feed the trolls...
Re: Thai Government Turns Against Video Games
Seconded. It's getting tedious and the signal to noise ratio is dropping :(
Re: Thai Government Turns Against Video Games
No no, keep feeding them! This one was even less intelligble than the first one, so the next one will probably type complete gibberish. Not that they've said anything intelligent so far anyway--you kinda need to have some evidence to make claims--but at least their posts resembled English.
Re: Thai Government Turns Against Video Games
I think the country is doing its good on the ban..let alone there is more to moral panic than to put the blame of human hands,thoughts or actions,LET alone since the country itself did have problems before with a storm,The rationality of Thailand had never ceased to amaze me to their ban,This youth instead should have been sutdying and joining to help the poor, But NO he spent playing "serial killer in a box" and mock muay-thai martial arts and kill an innocent man, Let alone crimes in thailand are slowly coming at a halt as we speak with the nation doing a good job on the ban, And this ban will even stop the "guerrulla fighters" that is the thai youth whose mind is poisoned and destablizied by video games and violent entertainment, from terrorizing the country.
And welcome back Mr.Thompson, Im very happy to see you for the first time.
Re: Thai Government Turns Against Video Games
Actually, I hope that Jack falls for this guy and it becomes a ploy to lead him to believe he has some online support here. And then it will blow up in his face when it's revealed to be all fake. Like the way the MAMAV organization is fake.
Re: Thai Government Turns Against Video Games
This facade of yours stopped being funny... umm...
wait... it was never funny.
Re: Thai Government Turns Against Video Games
Muay-thai is a tradition, it's their version of "Boxing" but involves kicks, knees, elbows, and much more head trauma.
"And this ban will even stop the 'guerrulla fighters' that is the thai youth whose mind is poisoned and destablizied by video games and violent entertainment, from terrorizing the country."
Stop the "guerrulla fighers"? Please, try stopping the protesters outside the Prime Minister's Office. Also, the "thai youth" are just disposable pawns in that playing field.
"Let alone crimes in thailand are slowly coming at a halt as we speak with the nation"
Where have you been?
The youth has been studying academics, much more than most Americans. At least, the ones who can afford it that is.
Check.
I know you're being sarcastic, but for giggles...
I don't mean to be rude, but your grammar makes it incredibly difficult to understand what you're saying. You've left out entire words from sentences, y'know?
Anyway though, the guerilla fighters have been around since before there was even television. They're fighting to knock out the corrupt Thai government because of it's encroachments on freedom (like this).
Also, if this 19 year old cabbie killer was playing the game and practicing Muay Thai martial arts specifically so he could rob people, how is that the games fault? After all, he's the one who chose to use the game and his martial arts training for that purpose.
-Remember kids, personal responsibility is for losers! For information on games and psychology, look up: Jonathan Freedman(2002)Block & Crain(2007) Just to name a few...
Re: Thai Government Turns Against Video Games
PLease do not feed the trolls...especially when one follows the biggest troll in human history...
Re: Thai Government Turns Against Video Games
Kudos to you, I don't think I could write a more stupid post if I tried.
Re: Thai Government Turns Against Video Games
Earth to Idiot: Not all videogames are violent.
岩「…Ace beats Jack」
岩「…I can see why Hasselbeck's worried about fake guns killing fake people. afterall, she's a fake journalist on a fake news channel」
Re: Thai Government Turns Against Video Games
Hilarious post.
The bit about this ban suddenly stopping violent crime really had me in stitches
Re: Thai Government Turns Against Video Games
he may be right on that one... if forced prostitution isn't illegal there.
岩「…Ace beats Jack」
岩「…I can see why Hasselbeck's worried about fake guns killing fake people. afterall, she's a fake journalist on a fake news channel」
Re: Thai Government Turns Against Video Games
Go away troll...
Re: Thai Government Turns Against Video Games
BAN CURRENCY! It's money's fault that that cab driver got killed!
-Remember kids, personal responsibility is for losers!
For information on games and psychology, look up: Jonathan Freedman(2002)Block & Crain(2007) Just to name a few...
Re: Thai Government Turns Against Video Games
So if the cabbie killings continue, is the Thai government going to add more violent games to their blacklist? What happens when they run out of violent games? Do they go for sports and puzzle games?
The fact that Thailand has a Culture-related body in its government shows how much of a police state it really is. It's very contrived for a government to direct the future course of a country's culture when culture is the collective result of the entire population.
Re: Thai Government Turns Against Video Games
Dennis, every time you delete one of my rebuttal posts, as you did in this thread today, the ESA's hole gets deeper. Jack Thompson
Re: Thai Government Turns Against Video Games
Fake or real, admins?
Re: Thai Government Turns Against Video Games
Wait, there is a law against off topic drivel being deleted from an internet blog?
Wait! There isn't. Maybe if you knew better you wouldn't be losing your license to practice law now would you love?
Re: Thai Government Turns Against Video Games
looks like you failed English, Jack. Dennis is with the ECA, not the ESA.
岩「…Ace beats Jack」
岩「…I can see why Hasselbeck's worried about fake guns killing fake people. afterall, she's a fake journalist on a fake news channel」
Re: Thai Government Turns Against Video Games
What does Dennis have to do with the ESA again?
If you don't answer by tomorrow I'll know your answer.
Then again even fi you do answer it won't be true.
Also ,some websites have soemthign called a spam filter, meant to make sure peopel can't come in here advertising porn sites. Oh, wait, yo uhad a gay porn link to share? That may explain it.
Re: Thai Government Turns Against Video Games
First gay porn, now an obsession with how deep the ESA's hole is....
Re: Thai Government Turns Against Video Games
He should know about deep holes...he's dug himself into one
Re: Thai Government Turns Against Video Games
LOL
Re: Thai Government Turns Against Video Games
Hey John, I just finished browsing every filing you've done as an attorney and as a party in the SCOFL. Isn't it funny how, even when you involve yourself in other people's cases you can't seem to get it correct? Everything I saw was either denied because you didn't get someone else to sign it or denied because you didn't do it right. Read that last part again. YOU DIDN'T DO IT RIGHT. Story of your life man.
Re: Thai Government Turns Against Video Games
I haven't seen anything. Also, we delete quite a few of your posts because they are simply you spamming letters and court documents. But I haven't seen andy of those today either.
If you would like, you could repost your rebuttal. But if I know you, you are simply lying like you did about the misspelling of grammar.
E. Zachary Knight
http://www.editorialgames.com
Oklahoma City Chapter of the ECA
MySpace Page: http://www.myspace.com/okceca
Facebook Page: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1325674091
E. Zachary Knight
Divine Knight Gaming
OK Game Devs
Random Tower
Re: Thai Government Turns Against Video Games
This post is classed POINTLESS
Re: Thai Government Turns Against Video Games
Tick Tock Jack. Almost time to grab yourself an application for Wal-Mart.
That said, the ESA was wrong about you. They said you were in their rearview mirror. You are in fact, so far out of any SERIOUS video game scope that it's no wonder that you manage to fail so often and so brutally. Enjoy your disbarment. Maybe it'll give you time to reflect on the general waste your career has been.