Well, they’ve backed down from paintball and laser tag, but Germany seems set to demand a halt on the sales and production of “Killerspielen” – violent video games – in the wake of a recent high school massacre. No English-language stories on this yet, but Der Spiegel, a German tabloid, has this (apologies for the mangling of my bad high school German and worse Google translation):
The interior ministers of 16 federal states, at a conference on Friday in Bremerhaven, took a far-reaching decision against so-called “killer games”, with the department heads requesting "an explicit production and sales ban as soon as possible."
Under consideration for prohibition by the interior ministries are games in which realistic killing is an integral part of the plot – or even "other cruel acts of violence against human or human-like beings."
"Playing ‘killer games’ reduces one’s inhibitions to violence," said Lower Saxony Interior Minister Uwe Schünemann in an online message. "Repeatedly, people who have committed these sorts of crimes have played such games." The CDU politician called on the Bundestag to put forward a ban on the production and dissemination on these games as soon as possible.
If I read this correctly, to cast into US political terms, this is essentially a group of state agencies demanding that Congress take action. The CDU is the chief right-wing conservative party in Germany, but it’s unclear from the story if this initiative has multi-party support.
Germany had, until now anyway, a thriving video game production industry, including leading FPS developer Crytek.
Game Politics has more (well, a bit more).
#1 by Ges on June 8th, 2009
Well, in absolute fear of Goodwins Law I have skipped all comments, so please do forgive if this point was raised.
Germany has ‘a thing’ with violence.
We’re told to avoid bullies at school, we’re punished heavily for any form of violence. We discourage it in movies and games and we have in the past indexed games.
Now, everyone crying foul, may I say the words: Jackson, Timberlake, Super Bowl.
The FCC has since then hunted down anything that shows nudity or any form of sexuality. I am still not convinced that I find keeping violence in check worse then crying out ‘Shame!’ when someone shows a curve.
#2 by Stabs on June 9th, 2009
In the end I suspect it’s a vote loser to enact such legislation. It may also be counter to someone’s human rights which means they could take the government to the European Court of Justice which is a higher legislature.
I strongly suspect it’s political posturing by people who want to appear “tough on crime” without simply raising taxes to hire more police.
#3 by Wanderer on June 9th, 2009
Miso sad, nobody got my Judge Dredd reference.
#4 by Tmon on June 10th, 2009
I would like to point out that the CDU may be considered a right wing party in Germany but compared to US parties it would be slightly to the left of the Democrats.
#5 by Poe on June 16th, 2009
Well, finally it’s sad reality…
http://netzpolitik.org/2009/the-dawning-of-internet-censorship-in-germany/