In the wake of the recent shooting rampage in South Germany, there have been calls to raise the age rating of World of Warcraft, a game known for its extreme promotion of gun crime and simulation of school shootings. Restricting the sale of a fantasy MMO will definitely stop people from wanting to put bullets in children. Obviously.
"Parents must know what danger potential exists in their children’s bedrooms," claims German politician Mechthild Ross-Luttmann, who seems to believe that twelve-year-olds are too young to be playing WoW, and that banning them from the role-player will stop crime because of reasons.
Author Andreas Rosenfelder contests this amazing kneejerk reaction: "I don’t see a connection between digital role playing games like World of Warcraft and shooting sprees. In heated debates there can easily be some confusion."
Of course, Herr Rosenfelder is being far too reasonable to see the excellent logic at work. Everybody knows that banning or restricting something completely unrelated to a certain crime will make sure that crime never happens again. Even a lamb knows that. The connection is there, if you simply close your eyes and imagine real, real hard.
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Contest:
2:20 PM on 03.18.2009
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Which is clearly a euphemism for "shoot kids". It's all there!
Oh, and WoW doesn't make me want to shoot people in the face. People make me want to shoot people in the face, usually of the ignorant, finger-pointing, scapegoating politician kind!
Are they referring to the porn stash under the kids mattress, or the gun in the closet? Oh, wait, neither - they mean WoW, how could I have been mistaken.
A) The school shooting - where Family minister Urusula von der Leyen said that blaming video games would be too easy an answer -but of course, politicians, police people and "experts" have jumped on the issue like it is a bandwagon pulled by a dead horse. Unsurprisingly, 2009 is an election year here.
Tighter gun control ? Yes.
Ban violent video games ? Up the rating maybe, or follow interior minister Schäuble and teach children morals and educate parents to be less of idiots (holy shit, a politician appearing competent ! No, wait, two ! It must be a chilly day in hell.)
Ironically enough, whilst first everyone was like "OMG he played Far Cry 2 before the shooting !" it's come to light that they can't prove that, and he might not have done that at all. Hooray for mass media parrots.
What you were mashing together is this:
[quote]The head of the CRI, Christian Pfeiffer, singled out one online role-playing game, "World of Warcraft" as being particularly addictive and suggested upping the age at which people are permitted to play from 12 to 18 years.
Pfeiffer told news magazine Der Spiegel that it was unacceptable that the rate of addiction was not a criteria examined when a game is assigned an age limit.
There's been a renewed focus on the detrimental effects of excessive video gaming in the wake of last week's school shooting in the town of Winnenden in southwestern Germany.
Investigators have since said that the 17-year-old gunman, Tim K., played "Far Cry 2," a shooter video game in which players hunt arms traffickers in the jungle, the night before he went on a rampage at his former school, killing 15 people before shooting himself.
[/quote]
Correlation does not imply causation. Geez. That is the largest leap of topic I've seen in a while.
Sources:
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,4101062,00.html
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,4093541,00.html
I guess games are to blame, for that nutcase that held is daughter in his cellar for years too. Clearly too much pong playing.
These government types still don't have a clue, and continue to show how out of touch with society they are. Truth is the majority of people play games now, all of varying ages, so painting this tragedy with 'games are evil', isn't a good idea.
I'd so love it if WoW gamers came out and protested against this action. Its about time gamers stood up for themselves and stopped being any dumb politician's whipping boy.
Please ban this game.
Oops. Too soon?
Note to self:
Got to be careful. I don't play games.
REASONS.
It hasn't happened again yet, touch wood.
The next Step of our goverment will be a fullsize USK Logo Cover for all games ^^
Most media ignores the fact that, that little boy was brainsick and had several therapies, also his father did not stored his "hunting" weapons properly. They lay on the living room table.
Keep having a good week
Greetings from Germany, ja! :D