"THE GERMAN government is considering fining or jailing gamers for committing violent acts upon computer characters."

http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=36326

Well, coupled with Germany's implementation of "univeral jurisdiction", I'd say I'm fucked.

Only thing you could do now is correct the number, maybe embelish it a bit ;)

The German government sees violent games as something of a trainer to do violent acts.

The media has a field day with bashing the gaming industry and blaming them for any mass shooting.

"Since most games involve violence with guns and shooting many pixels that look like humans then of course the games are to blame for any occurrence of someone shooting someone."

"Not like that said someone that shot people had some mental problem or was just really fucked up."

That is pretty much my general gathering of what their train of thought is about violent games.

I wonder how far over the border will they reach to dish out their punishment on gaming companies.

I would expect Pac-Man to be slammed over the eating of ghosts which represent the human soul or something along the lines of that and then have the media link it to some weird cult that steals peoples souls.

God, I need to get off this rock.

Alright USA! We're looking relatively sane!

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/12/12/MNG8TMU1KQ1.DTL&hw=convert+die&sn=002&sc=981

That didn't last long.

Thats a two sided fight over a game that shows one side of Christian interpretation of Revelations.

No government involved, just 2 sides of the Christian point of view about a game that may or may not be that great.

Ya for laissez faire!

The article I posted is on the topic of perceptions of violence, the assumption that simulated violence will spill into real life, corporate support of religious agendas, political pressure to change corporate behavior, political pressure to thwart perceived undue influence of the religious right, and was not intended to support your post prior to my posting Surbius. I'll thank you not to inadequately summarize and thereby appear to be discounting my additions to the thread.

When influential political groups get all worked up over this sort of thing we start seeing weird local legislation. As our federal government becomes saturated with people who share the same views there is a loss of objectivity: "Everyone we know thinks alike and surely everyone will agree that our beliefs must be legislated!"

In the case of Germany, they've been squeamish about violence against humans since the end of WWII. I can't really fault them for that, but I think they may have gone off the deep end here.

If we'd put our resources into caring for the REAL people suffering in the world we might have less violence overall.

This is one of those things that is hilarious and at the same time sad because they're serious. This is the same kind of thing as fining a gun company or retailer, because someone shot someone, and that's where the bought the gun. What's missing is accountability. Serbius is right, it usually turns out theres something else going on, "mental problems or was just really fucked up." No one wants to blame the criminal, but the blame has to fall somewhere.

I hadn't heard of that Left Behind game (I agree it's relevant, if not exactly the same as the German thing, Whistler), but that sounds hilarious. I agree the game sends a wrong message, but it's not my right to tell someone not to play it. Who are they kidding though, "you lose spirit points, you have to pray to get more?" If there's a violent option, even if it loses the game, that's what people will do because it's more fun. I'm still addicted to Goldeneye007 and Perfect Dark for N64. After you beat the games, the next most fun thing to do is find everything you can to blow up on each level. I even found a Perfect Dark walkthrough whose whole purpose was to point out all the ways to fail a mission by killing/blowing up the wrong thing. After getting frustrated with the stupid submarine level, I spent about ten minutes starting it over and over again and shooting the lame alien (named Elvis, with a stupid fake Yoda voice, terribly annoying) because he makes a funny noise (especially if you hit him in the throat with a well-placed bullet). The other wrong message the game sends is that you can keep killing, but it's okay, because if you pray enough you get your spirit points back and it's all good.

Here's what's next after this German decision: Cruelty to video game animals is real animal cruelty. (Remember South Park's "Make Love, not Warcraft?" How many boars did they kill? Did they use any of that meat?) Will actors in action movies be arrested because their movie character killed someone?

silly germans... what will they do next?

shitting on people's chests? rounding up entire races and eliminating them?

we'll never know....

What most of you failed to perceive is that this is merely a ploy to get more votes. It is nothing more. The problem is that if they stay the current course, they criminalize about 30-40% of the entire german nation.

The chance that this will be adopted in other nations close to or bordering on germany is relatively slim, I think, because we're not like the silly germans.
Seriously though, this isn't a laughable matter. If I played Gears of War in germany with these laws, I could get the same treatment as a person who makes and sells/distributes kid porn. WTF.

the first lady is trying to bring this law to the USA now.

Please tell me that you're serious, Bean, and that there's a link to the story...