How long before we all get arrested?

[Scrib]

QUOTE
German virtual hitmen, among the most feared in the world, could soon find themselves behind real bars if the regional governments of Bavaria and Lower Saxony have their way.

The two states have drafted a bill that would subject developers, distributors and players of video games whose goal is to inflict "cruel violence on humans or human-looking characters" to a fine and a maximum of one year in jail.

The draft law, a reaction to a school shooting that shook German public opinion last month, will come before the upper house of parliament next year. But it is already sending shockwaves through the 2m-strong German online gaming community.

"We have among the most drastic censorship rules for games," said Frank Sliwka, head of the Deutsche E-Sport Bund, an umbrella federation for German online gaming teams. "Now we are being labelled as a breeding ground for unstable, dysfunctional and violent youngsters."

The discussion in the world's third largest video games market also comes at an awkward time for Sony, which has delayed the European launch of its Playstation 3 videogame console from last month to next March because of component shortages and technical glitches.

Call of Duty 3 and Resistance: Fall of Man, the two best-selling PS3 titles on Amazon.com's ranking list are both first-person shooters, which would fall under the mulled ban. Sony Computer Entertainment Germany refused to comment.

Germany has 40,000 active online gaming teams, the best of which regularly take part in worldwide tournaments where victories bring lucrative sponsoring contracts and prize money in the hundreds of thousands dollars.

In the past decade, online gaming has become increasingly professional, with a rising number of players making a living out of their skills and teams acquiring renowned gamers for hefty transfer fees.

Even if the ban does not make it through parliament, all this could be at risk, says Holger Scherff, leader of the German a-Losers.MSI team, if the discussion leads corporate sponsors to review their endorsement of professional gamers.

German joystick virtuosos finished first at the annual electronic version of the Fifa football world tournament in the past two years, a feat that eluded the real-world national team at this year's World Cup in Germany.

Though the Fifa game would be unaffected by the proposed ban, it would almost certainly hit Counter Strike, the world's most popular first-person shooter and most played online video game.

Under German rules amended in 2003 after a previous schoolground shooting, developers routinely have to excise violent content from the German versions of their games.

Unlike the game played in the US or the UK, the German version of Counter Strike, for instance, does not feature blood spurting from gunshot wounds and when shot, victims dissipate instead of collapsing to the ground.

Despite such restrictions, German Counter Strike teams regularly rank in the top five positions of international tournament league tables. Germany also hosts the world's third largest computer games trade fair, the Leipzig Games Convention.

By putting forward their bill, regional politicians led by Günther Beckstein, the Bavarian interior minister, are surfing a wave of disgust at increasingly violent video games, mirroring recent debates in the US.

An opinion poll taken after the latest shooting at a secondary school in Emsdetten last month, showed 72 per cent of respondents blaming such incidents on violent computer games and 59 per cent supporting a ban.

"It is absolutely beyond any doubt that such killer games desensitise unstable characters and can have a stimulating effect," Mr Beckstein said on Monday.

The 18-year Emsdetten shooter, who killed himself with a rifle after storming his school and injuring 11 people, was an avid Counter Strike player and self-avowed internet nerd according to local newspaper reports.
[END QUOTE]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16070177/

[PinkRose]

That's why you need to move, Scrib.
That won't happen here.
In the good old USA.

We've got too many Right to free speech lawyers to have that happen here.
And Germany has been amazing rigid in their Video Game censorship since the beginning.
So I'm not surprised.

[Jezerai]

Hurrah for stimulation!   :boogie:

[Peri]

Hmmm... the clerk at the bank annoyed me.

Where is my axe?

[Mimiel]

I have nothing against violence and bloodshed in a fantasy game where you usually play the hero defending something, but all the games about a simulation of you killing people in real life or being a thug etc. I am totally against and don't even understand how come they let them on the market. Yay am entering school and shooting everyone... whee am beating a guy and stealing his car... that kinda game make me sick, there is enough violence in the world. People hate those actions when they see them on the news how come they become ok in games? Fantasy game gives, imho, a safer way to realease agressivity, maybe more moral way (nothing related to real life in WoW or EQ) ? But yes I see the point, it can soon become all violence in games = bad and we'll end up with playing Animal Crossing kinda games  (even if it's a fun game lol).

[Peri]

What is up with Germany anymore?

They used to be so... Haltbar Krieger

(ok my german is terrible)

The French doped the beer didnt they?

[Namae Nai]

This is a Free Speech issue, really.

You have to protect speech you despise in order that your own right to express yourself is never compromised.

Do I like Grand Theft Auto: Vice City? Nope. Never played it, and never will play it. But I'll support Rockstar games putting out whatever trash they want if it means that when I sit down to play, I don't have some government guy telling me how much blood/violence/strong emotional content is ok for me to see.

But I won't buy Rockstars stuff. If companies want my money, they gotta make me stuff I like.

[Gwenae]

/agree Namae!!

[PinkRose]

Mimi, in EQ2 you kill other humans, right?
And if you play Freeport, you are evil, right?

Most "games" come from War strategy games way back in the 60s and 70s.
Where Grown Men played War against each other. That's where the military games came from.
They've just got more realistic as technology got better.

[Sagacity]

I'm with Mimi.  There's a  big difference between some of these games and a fighter in EverQuest throwing around some fancy looking kicks and swings and an orc falling over flat on his face with no blood, no gore, and in a clearly unrealistic setting.  To me, that is worlds different than some of these first person shooters where there is graphic and permanent violence to fellow humans promoted as a positive thing to be rewarded.  Now, I won't go so far as to say that these games CAUSE violence in RL, but I do find them personally repulsive and morally wrong. 

I think that dismissing it a free speech issue is oversimplifying the issue.  I believe it's a question of morals and standards, and what images the society we live in wants to consider acceptable.  Censorship isn't necessarily a good answer, but complete freedom of speech, no matter how hate-filled, offensive, and vile, isn't always either.  There's a mighty fuzzy line somewhere between the two that every country and society has to tread, and if Germany wants to put that line a bit closer to the censorship line than America does, that doesn't mean one is right and one is wrong.

[Namae Nai]

I'm with Mimi.  There's a  big difference between some of these games and a fighter in EverQuest throwing around some fancy looking kicks and swings and an orc falling over flat on his face with no blood, no gore, and in a clearly unrealistic setting.  To me, that is worlds different than some of these first person shooters where there is graphic and permanent violence to fellow humans promoted as a positive thing to be rewarded.  Now, I won't go so far as to say that these games CAUSE violence in RL, but I do find them personally repulsive and morally wrong. 

I think that dismissing it a free speech issue is oversimplifying the issue.  I believe it's a question of morals and standards, and what images the society we live in wants to consider acceptable.  Censorship isn't necessarily a good answer, but complete freedom of speech, no matter how hate-filled, offensive, and vile, isn't always either.  There's a mighty fuzzy line somewhere between the two that every country and society has to tread, and if Germany wants to put that line a bit closer to the censorship line than America does, that doesn't mean one is right and one is wrong.

The problem I have is, who do you trust to determine what is and isn't acceptable for you?

"Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." - Benjamin Franklin

Freedom of speech will always include elements that are hate-filled, offensive, and vile. No moral person could defend them, except to say that they can serve as a reminder of why it's important not to hate, not to be offensive, and why vile acts are repugnant. In a way they can confirm to you that you are free, for if they are not censored you can be sure that you will not be. So despite the speeches intent, something positive is accomplished.

[Peri]

It is a slippery slope, and it has nothing to do with governing.

There is no moderation in these things.

Namae is right

[Sagacity]

I respectfully continue to entirely disagree that the issue is so simple or so black-and-white.

[Imeriel]

Let's push the boundary a bit ... because I do see what Adeste is saying.

If we are equating the right to develop and code violent games as an expression of free speech / art ...

Then you can apply the same to  child pornography.  The filming/photography of an underage person involved in a sexual act or simply naked is .. well, illegal, even if the person filming isn't doing the act.   There have been many a person that has tried the defense of free speech / expression.  It was art, you see.  Very very very rarely does that defense ever fly.  Even if the minor lies about their age.

Why is this?  Because society has determined that child pornography is, rightfully, a repugnant thing, and that it needs be censored / actioned against / etc. 

In a black and white world, idealistic world, all speech ... all expression ... even that which we think of as completely repugnant and wrongful (from calling people names to writing nasty things about people to writing code for games to taking pictures to painting pictures and so on ... is allowed.  In the real world, in the real ol USA ... this is not the case.  It simply can't be.

The struggle then ... is to decide what should or should not be actioned against.  A healthy society is the one that constantly reviews and checks and balances itself.  It would be ~easy~ to say "Everything is allowed!" ... It is also very easy to say "Nothing is allowed!"  Neither is very healthy, nor right.

[Peri]

I still say every time anyone tries to legislate morality they destroy it.

It doesnt work on any level.

It will be a weak law that people will either ignore or ciircumvent. Any time that you make one weak law it weakens all others.

Governments should not be in the business of teaching morals. That is what parents are for.

I agree that child pornography is utterly wrong, but yet again has any law ever really made a dent in the market?

Is there anyone that thinks the war on drugs is in any way being won?

These are just areas that the government does not really belong in.

instead of lowering violence it will create yet another black market to allow real criminals to make even more money to use in truly criminal enterprises.

What it will do is make criminals out of normal people and encourage a certain type of person to push the law past any original intent.

Here ya go

The two states have drafted a bill that would subject developers, distributors and players of video games whose goal is to inflict "cruel violence on humans or human-looking characters" to a fine and a maximum of one year in jail.


Orcs are pretty human looking if you ask me so no more orc killing or gnolls or any biped.

Then there are the animal rights activists so no more killing animals or nearly animals

Dear lord we are horrible we actually kill and encourage the killing of trees and plants how unenvironmental  (treants) so there go all the plants including slime types as that is obviously teaching us to not respect the plankton/algaes/fungus who are so very important to life on earth.

They use of swords/maces/bows/daggers obviously encourages the world's youth to cut/smash/impale their friends so that is out.

Little johnny set the cat on fire so no more fire spells

Little Jenny put the dog in the freezer.. no more Ice spells

dear lord what about poison and disease..we are encouraging biological terrorism

So we can just pretty much forget any offensive magic.

Ok now The neighbors kid jumped off the house to practice safe fall.. there go the skills.

Some kid in sunnydale killed his pet gopher so he could see if he could revive it after he had cut off its leg to see if he could heal it.

there goes the rest of the magic.

I think you see my point.

Games should be policed by the market. If you don't want your son blowing up other virtual people DON'T BUY HIM THE STINKIN GAME!

And before you say the market won't police itself

Why do you think dark elves are blue?

[Peri]

Here is a wonderful example of censorship

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3766023.stm

We can't discriminate against paranoid governments after all

[Imeriel]

I would agree, Peri, that video games should be legislated by the market.  That wasn't, exactly, my point, as I was neither arguring for or against Germany's (or China's) actions on banning/limiting video game use.    When I do comment on threads like these its more as me pondering out loud as opposed to arguing for or against something

My point that I was pondering was that whereas I do believe that complete freedom of expression is an ideal to strive toward, in practice it is extremely hard to implement. 

Should it ~not~ be implemented or strived toward just because it is difficult?  No.  That's the whole point of an ideal.

A given society must be careful, however, not to completely dive into the whole "slippery slope syndrome" however, an example of which  you gave.  Almost any act can be argued to be an act of expression.  Here in the USA, we do a pretty good job of implementing and striving toward that ideal.  We don't, however, have it "perfect".

I will say as an aisde that I don't see video game production and use as a "freedom of speech/ expression" thing.  Rather, I see it more as a "freedom to pursue happiness" thing.  Both, perhaps similar, as I think about it.

[PinkRose]

a fighter in EverQuest throwing around some fancy looking kicks and swings and an orc falling over flat on his face with no blood, no gore, and in a clearly unrealistic setting. 

But we don't just fight Orcs. We fight humans. And what's the difference between a crossbow and an AK47?
More RPGs are adding Gore and Blood and extra violence.

I'm a police yourself kinda person. I know what is right and wrong. For myself. And those I am entrusted to watch over.
I use the swear filter inGame. I'm an adult and I use it. And I don't swear in RL. I don't think it's right.
And I teach my nieces and nephews not to swear. And we don't play violent games and we don't watch violent TV with blood and Gore.

So like absolutely everything, I think, it comes down to personal responsibility and teaching the next generation the same.
If I don't play Socom and I don't teach my kids to play Socom and we don't buy it, then they go out of business.

As a side note,
Did you know that in some schools in the US have banned Tag and dodgeball on recess?
Tag because it's too violent and Dodgeball because some people get picked on and it builds low self-esteem.

[Peri]

Looking back I sounded alot more emphatic than I really meant to.

I get caught up

I pretty much agree with you Ime, except that I think regulation of almost any kind is pretty much just a bad idea.

I am also anticipating the arival of the barbarians coming to tear Rome (western Civ) apart 

[Imeriel]

personal responsibility and teaching the next generation the same

QFE