German Gov't Considering Game Ban

im from germany.
some comments about the situation.
the plans of the grand coalition which will be finally formes next week (the two biggest parties in germany) are plans.
there is no law yet, not even a law initiative.
the things discussed are written in a coalition contract , the basic for what the gouverment might want to do in the next years.
former chancellor schröder a few days ago admits that he even didnt read the last coalition contract.
my opinion about this; a cheap populistic trick to get media attention and not to have to talk about the hard topics that germany is really worry about at the moment. the money cut for social institutions and citiziens , after years of missmanagment of both parties who make a coalition right now.
germany already has strong laws to protect the youth , you cant buy certain shooters if you arent 18 , so this discussion is pretty useless.
as usually ( i guess its the same everywhere in the world) politicians try to
blame someone else (in this case games) for society problems they are responsible for themselfs by not investing enough money in schools , education and other social matters.

i hate this "protection" bullshit

Man. I know another group of people who banned questional media - AND THEY WERE CALLED NAZIS!

Oh wait.

Perhaps less violent videogames would be a good thing.

It does not suprise me that these are conservative Christians pushing this, though it does suprise me it's happening in Germany. Ignorance and irrational fears drive religion as much as they do politics it appears.

who is in charge of youth protection

Well, there's your problem right there. Once again, government attempting to be better parents than actual parents. I'm glad the U.S. isn't the only country churning out a generation of pansies that are "protected" every step of the way.

less media-competent adults

ahahahahahahahaahahahaha <gasp>

I'm going to start using this. No, you're not retarded, you're just media-incompetent!

Don't expect this to happen... it's just the regular "omg bad games" talk which comes up whenever the politicians decide something unpopular (in this month they decided to increase the VAT for 3% and reduce the public investment ratio).

That won't happen in Germany, trust me.

It was just uttered during heated coallition discussions.

16:1 K:D ratio? That obviously had nothing to do with Counter Strike

At first: please finally realize Hitler wasn't from germany, but austria (not to confuse with australia.) They get games uncensored lol

Second, about CS. It started all the discussion here in germany because of that crazy guy who happened to play it (not that there weren't some REAL serious problems he had, leading to go crazy.. but it's easier to blame a simple game than society's problems) Well, basicly CS "won" and is freely available.

If games here get on the index, they can't be sold in public, not even game magazines are alowed to talk about them. (Quake was called "Beben", the german translation i.e. -.- ) But we got a better law instead now, if games are marked 18+ they usually don't land on the index, kids just aren't allowed to purchase them.

A JFYI brought to you by a guy who thinks the CSU really sucks (like most everyone in germany who doesn't live in Bavaria ;) )

Wouldn't it be great if they actually showed a causal connection before banning games? Yeah, that would be nice, but it makes sense so it will never happen because politics never deals in the currency of the rational.

\m/ malaysia on the shack front page \m/

i should mention that the curfew is limited to a specific sub urban commercial district area

Yeah go Germany, because banning worked so well with your Nazi history rite guys??

Just food for thaught, what kind of violent computer games did hitler play? Must have played soldier of fortune cos he turned out a right bastard. Games or not, maniacs will still go out and do these crazy things. And have you ever thaught that maby playing these games actally give alot of people who would go out and do these things an alternative way to vent there anger without actually killing people...

So im afriad to say that actually banning violent games (espesually in a society that is used to playing them) could very well have the oposite effect and put more of these idiots in a position where they go on a killing rampage.

Does this have any hope of passing? Or is this just fluff, similar to news stories about US congressmen introducing bills that they have no hope of passing i.e the draft?

so, who's the victim of this stupid shit among us? I seriously feel sorry for them.

That guy's name is really close to the newt's name from http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0810114682/102-1422464-1908166?v=glance&n=283155&v=glance

i love how about 50% of laws in the world revolve around protecting stupid people from themselves

This will be the end of Mario in Germany as we know it. Surely his tyrannical reign over the Goombas and KoopaTroopers will be at an end.

Your days of violence peddling are over Mario! Except Luigi is Missing... that can still be sold. It's Edumatainment.

Just friggin' great. Now Germany has it's very own version of Jack Thompson. It's times like this that make me regret my deicision to move here. And there have been lots of them lately.

Robots were offended by all the oil being shown in game violence.

So there is still no counter-strike availble in Germany?

I'm think I'm just going to accept that measures like these will be put forward, some will fail and some will succeed. The ones that succeed will "succeed well" and only encourage more laws to do the same thing in other countries. It's just how things are going and in the end there will be more stringent laws than what we have now, but they'll never destroy the industry. A balance will be reached, compromises will be made adopting extremes from both sides and that's the only way this stuff will ever settle down.

Send in the Russians!

That sucks, it's too bad the ignorant conresvatives who don't understand what they are lobbying agains't have that kind of power in Germany...

This is the most stupid idea I have ever heard.

Not to be a smartass but it's actually "Deutsche Welle" not "Duetsche Welle".

Well, at least they state that parents have a responsibility.

This world never ceases to amaze me

wow good replies so far ...

Nothing would bring out the little Hitler in all of us like taking away our games.