Germany forbids violent games

[MU]

The ministery of propaganda, ahem, sorry, the conference of inner ministers has decided, to forbid games, where violence is done against humans, or human-like creatures.
As fast as possible, a new law shall be established.

It will be forbidden, not only to create or sell such games, but even to spread them.

german:
http://www.welt.de/politik/article38667 ... ielen.html

At moment, I'm on the safe side I hope, as quake and doom and the "hurt me plenty" iso are just announced in the english forums.

In case it also should be a problem, that they are hosted on a german domain, I would remove them there, so they would just appear on the canadian mirror.
But I think, this will not be required so quickly.
I think the government will first concentrate on german sites, that exclusively deal with 3rd person shooters.

Mark

[Lobster]

[Lobster faints]

Personally I go running in Grand Theft Auto
My proudest moment came when I discovered a bunch of flowers

I consider frozen bubble (my favourite game) a little hard on the bubbles.

However many findi virtual killing cathartic - keeps them from slaughtering their neighbors.

Violent sports are a wonderful substitute for aggression.
I have personally enjoyed many martial arts . . . which are closest to
the real nature of sport. I look forward to systems like 'Natal'
from Microsoft, which will be far more interactive . . .

This is a mark of great ignorance by the German government.
- it will have an opposite effect to what they expect . . .

They ban music, games, food and drugs -
Is what is needed more proactive activities?
For example most Western games are competitive and confrontational
Does anyone play World of Warcraft - is that more co-operative?

I think I will go into Second Life for a while
- not a game but great fun . . .

What do you think about this?

[MU]

well we have several 100.000 onlinegamers playing counter strike and others.
The 3-4 guys that ran amok in the last 5(?) years also played it (some, not all).
But it also was shown, that those guys had massive psychic problems, were isolated, one was refused by a girl, what was a huge problem for him.

It is obvious, that their agressions were not caused by the games, but by the problems, they had.
If the games were the cause, we would have several more of such agressive acts.
We currently face in addition, that many youngsters fear the future - unstable economics, bad opportunities to find a job they like, discrimination of people, who find no job.
And agressions often are caused in other situations - guys are drunken at weekend, but nobody plans to forbid alcoholics.

Finally, the people were not killed with the cover of a game - but with a weapon, that was taken from the parents.
But shooting clubs have a old tradition here, so no plans, to handle weapons more restrictive.

The new laws are a bad joke, and just a symptom of a more profound tendency here.
Since the "enemy", the eastern, socialist part of germany (GDR) no longer exists, we miss the "corrective factor".
Before, the western part was emphasizing "freedom of the individual", in contrast to the collective idealogy of the east.

Now that we don't need to emphasize it any longer, to a frightening degree, bad habits from the former eastern part take influence in our government.

Restrictive laws, we just had the case, where people without work should be observed by a new police like group organized by the state agency of work.
It was planned to give them rights, that even the normal police does not have, like a secret agency.
Luckily, these plans now were stopped after massive protests.
But this is just one example of the bad laws we encountered in the last years.

The philosophy of surveying the people is very strong meanwhile, individual rights count less.

Mark

[aarf]

two things kill more people than games, alcohol or guns.
the first is political parties, the second is organised religion, if they banned both of those they would be out of business so they have to have a scapegoat which is for now, violent games.

[MU]

Not to forget:
Germany is the worlds third largest exporteur of weapons.
Hundrets of thousands, maybe millions of people get killed with german technology
Mark

[mcewanw]

Before, the western part was emphasizing "freedom of the individual", in contrast to the collective idealogy of the east.

Though I always had the impression that Germany was very bureaucratic when it came to official regional and local government dealings with the public, most young Germans have always come across as activists for peace and liberty generally (certainly in the former West part of the country). Owing to that latter attribute I'm surprised the government is able to take away so many freedoms without mass demonstration.

The French, on the other hand, seem to be masters of mass demonstration and are able to bring their country to a standstill if they don't like something their government is doing.

[PaulBx1]

The French, on the other hand, seem to be masters of mass demonstration...

It's because the French pave their streets with cobblestones. When it's time to riot, those stones make handy missiles.

Never fear, Mark. Where governments prohibit, the black market provides.

It does point out your government is filled with idiots though, just like all others. That is some nanny-state crap...

Germany is the worlds third largest exporteur of weapons.
Hundrets of thousands, maybe millions of people get killed with german technology

I'd put it differently. Hundreds of thousands are protected by German technology.

[ttuuxxx]

So does that mean my collectors tin of "Return to Castle Wolfenstein" would be illegal now in Germany? I only bought it because of the cool looking tin and the passport etc. Well and it reminds me of my youth, on the c-64. Haven't even played it yet on my wifes XP pc. lol. Really it should be a enforced over the counter sales of M or A-rated games with big fines if sold to minors, No need to get all "We the Government know best for you, but eat some of that Asian Fruits with 7000 Times the legal limit of fertilizer in it, lol. Thats what gets me, about 2 yrs ago in Australia the national news station took all different fruits and vegetables from Asia and had them clinically tested for the amounts toxins in them, they all were at a minimum of double the allowable amount in Australia and the worst ones were 7000 times the legal limit, fresh or canned goods were all the same. All these toxins cause cancers etc, Do you think the government would ban that, nope, there response was, well we get too many ships in a day to monitor all the health and safety for the produce landing in Australia.
I have nothing against Asian people what so ever, but I do have a issue with slowly poisoning my family. Ever since I watched that show, I read the produce from where it comes from, The worst place to shop for food quality in Australia is the main larger supermarkets and the best is the local farmers shops and if you can't find one of them shop at Aldi because "That's why 100% of our fresh meat, 97% of our dairy products and 95% of our fruit and vegetables in our Australian stores is sourced from Australian farmers".
Thats why I find disturbing when a government places a ban on games, compared to people eating poison, it makes me scratch my head and think, Maybe its time to start a political party. hmmm
ttuuxxx

[MU]

So does that mean my collectors tin of "Return to Castle Wolfenstein" would be illegal now in Germany?

yes - not yet, but as soon, as the law is finished.

It already is - the international version, because it includes symbols like the swastika (Hakenkreuz).
Symbols representing the 3rd Reich are prohibited.
For this reason a "german" release was sold, with different symbols.

That version is not prohibited, but indexed.
The index is a register of software, that may be sold only to adults, and it is not allowed to advertise it.

Doom and quake also fall into this category, you just may buy them, if you request them in a shop, and show your passport.

This has lead to the situation, that many shops meanwhile no longer sell such games.

Mark

[Lobster]

It is even worse than scary Asian fruit - which may indeed have high levels of pesticides etc.

In some countries for example Germany and Australia it is legal to drink a class A narcotic that kills millions (aka alcohol) and smoke a noxious poison (aka tobacco)

I will be eating the dangerous fruit before they ban it. Playing games and watching violent Tom and Jerry cartoons. In this country kat (a narcotic leaf) and Betel Nut are still legal - may have to try kat before it is kat-nipped.

In Spain, it is legal to torture bulls (a game) and despite the real suffering involved, personally I would not ban it.
In the UK I would not have banned fox hunting, I would have developed a new sport of 'hunt saboteuring' in which you get points for dressing as a fox and kidnapping people dressed in red jackets before they can mount their ponies.

Sadly that would be a minority sport.
Hunting foxes with a whole band of horses and dogs is now illegal.

Here is Borat, before the ban:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlCx1tD-lKY

Should we ban the stock exchange? Is that a violent game?

[ttuuxxx]

hey mark just a bit off topic, but I downloaded your utf8 full package for series 4, the reason why is because Flash complains about it in series 2, that it isn't set, well series 2.14 didn't have utf that I know of. So I figured I could maybe reuse your utf package from series 4 since I updated glib and gtk on series 2, but nope it changed back to regular english, its because of the glibc I would think, still using the older glibc, I search all over for a some sort of older sources for utf8, but most want gconf2 which as you know is a whole lot of extra gnome packages, and it still didn't compile right, really an ideal utf8 with older a glib 2.35 etc would be perfect. If you can't think of anything its ok, I'll plug away with it.
ttuuxxx

[MU]

ttuuxx,
you had to comple glibc on your own, I fear.
Or look in the repositories of Debian or Slackware, if you find a version close to yours, and then copy the folders from it (you could use my/wows sfs as a template to see, what is required).

Myself I'll be offline from tomorrow until wednesday next week, visiting my mom in the northern countryside, so I have no time to test new things. I just plan to update some Genie based programs, if the time permits it, and if there is a lot of rain.
If we have no rain, I will walk around in the forrest where I played as child, and visit some small villages and lakes.
Mark

[ttuuxxx]

Sounds nice mark, I can't wait till I go back to Canada, maybe this year near Christmas, its been almost 8 years, since I've been back. It will be nice when we do go back and I can show my wife my old stomping grounds. Well have a great week and try to leave your pc at home
ttuuxxx