Germany to forbid the production of violent games?

[-HP-]

Quoted from a thread over at NeoGaf:

The ministers of the interior of all 16 German federal state came together in Bremerhaven for a conference today and agreed to forbid the production and distribution of all games "where the main part is to realistically play the killing of people or other cruel or unhuman acts of violence against humans or manlike characters".

It's supposed to come into effect prior to the federal elections in September. According to the minister of the interior of Lower Saxony "violent games lower the inhibition level for real violence and spree killers always played such games before they did the crime".

To make this law become effective it has to go through the parliament in the next weeks or months.

http://www.chip.de/news/Innenminister-K ... 91376.html

Source: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=364265

If you ask me, that law will never pass and even if it does the German constitutional court will not let it become true! I mean, Germany is becoming the leading country in shooter games in this industry, at least here in Europe. if they approved such thing, they're economy might get even worst than already is.

Here we go again...

[Jetsetlemming]

Hitler was a gamer.

[e-freak]

Well, it's election-year (EU and German Parliament) so it's no surprise politicians trying to goof around for as many grand-ma votes as possible. We had these discussions before and we will have them for a good while to go, but a) they will forget it anyways or b) if they manage to push this law far enough there's still the option of a petition (as have been for the censor-ship of internet-sites) which, if it reaches more than 50.000 votes will force the parlament to reconsider the law and last but not least as you already pointed out correctly, there's the constitutional-court which is most likely to give all of the involved ministers a big "go-fuck-yourself".

[kleinluka]

This will surely prevent one or the other school shooting in the future :roll: :roll: :roll:

retards... so glad i'm no longer living there!!!

[Warby]

who needs "killerspiele" anyway !

... as long as i will still be able to buy god of war 3 !

[Deathy]

Wait.. where's Dr. Christian Pfeiffer.. he has always something to say in this debate. :roll:

[D3ads]

":klvojraf]Here we go again...

Round and round and round she goes, where she stops, no one knows :roll: Can't believe that people are so stupid, if that actually gets the OK then it's a sad day for the gaming community, especially German ones.

[2d-chris]

How many other devs make violent shooter games in germany? Crytek and ...

[e-freak]

Acony for example and there are a few more although they don't have AAA titles or didn't ship anything yet.

[-HP-]

... as long as i will still be able to buy god of war 3 !

<3

[Jetsetlemming]

How many other devs make violent shooter games in germany? Crytek and ...

Didn't Crytek get raided for using pirated copies of photoshop or something a few years ago? I'm sure you guys are used to developing... outside teh law

[-HP-]

I heard that, that raid was because an ex-employee that decided tell the authorities that crytek was using pirated copies of dev software. Not sure the results of that raid tho...

[FrieChamp]

I was going to open a thread about this and then I remembered for how long this topic is being brought up by politicians and nothing actually happens. Take the paintball ban for example (to non-germans reading this: yes german politicians actually decided to ban paintball for the same reasons as they want to ban violent videogames) - big agenda setting by the press, huge uproar in the paintball community (for obvious reasons) and the result? They silently scrapped the ban under the table again.

[2d-chris]

":2oxm2d1t]I heard that, that raid was because an ex-employee that decided tell the authorities that crytek was using pirated copies of dev software. Not sure the results of that raid tho...

Nothing happened after - was a giant waste of time ;(

[kleinluka]

I was going to open a thread about this and then I remembered for how long this topic is being brought up by politicians and nothing actually happens. Take the paintball ban for example (to non-germans reading this: yes german politicians actually decided to ban paintball for the same reasons as they want to ban violent videogames) - big agenda setting by the press, huge uproar in the paintball community (for obvious reasons) and the result? They silently scrapped the ban under the table again.

yeah but it never got to the point were all 16 ministers agreed on the ban and were this close to making it a law. it might actually become a reality this time around