Last time Germany came under the rule of an iron fist, everything turned out fine, didnt it?

It's almost like shooting virtual people in a game is evil, but killing millions of Jews is just a bit of bad judgement.

C'mon Germany, you of all countries should be a little bit less sensitive to a bit of the old ultra-violence!

When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.

Then they came for the Jews,
I did not speak out;
I was not a Jew.

Then they came for the Gamers,
Now I'm fucking pissed off;
Screw you Germany.

Doesn't anybody remember the harm video games did in world war 2?

Time to mod the name to Reaction Assault, then!

I don't understand how can anyone really think that banning video games can help stop violence? Is anyone objecting to these insane laws in Germany, or are they all afraid that they'll be sent to the camps?

@n1k0l4:
I got a response to you:
All politicians in Germany are either too stupid or aren't important enough to object. For example recently a politician has written an article about the fact that video games aren't bad. A few days later they found child porn on his computer... Yeah.
Also, those who protest are simply ignored. It is sad, but true...

Hmm very strange, the last time they had a cunning plan to take over the world I'm pretty sure there were no games were out.
Ironic that they let people drive as fast as they want on parts of the atuobahn but they think sitting on your ass - or standing waggling - playing games is dangerous.
I'm definitely going over for a trip to drive on the autobahn and get pissed at the beer festivals before they get banned too.

I seriously need to get some money and then get out of this country. It's getting more and more ridiculous over here every day and with no alternative to vote for at the end of this year there's no end in sight.

@Jim

If you're going to report about it I beg you as a German citizen. At least get a viable source.

First of all. It's true that WoW got some attention from our officials because of it's addictive potential, where they basically said that addictive potential should be factored into the age rating and therefore WoW should get an 18 rating. A step that doesn't seem that stupid to me.

In this case however the game in question was Warcraft 3. Stupid as our officials are they labeled Warcraft 3 (of all games) a "Killer-Game".

It should also be noted that usually the city does not have the right to cancel any events. Our constitution grants us the right to gather freely. You only need a permit if your event is going to happen in the open. (e.g. a demo or something similar) They can however forbid you to use their premises for that event. Just like every other landowner could.

Unfortunately the companies managing those LAN-parties continue to be stupid enough to rent halls that are owned by the cities. All they would need to do is to move on to privately held locations and nobody could forbid them to hold their LAN-parties.

The company in this case was especially stupid because those dumbasses didn't even have a signed contract with the city. They just had a vocal agreement so they can't even sue for contract violation.

Oh and while this is tragic and absolutely stupid, this definatley doesn't affect us more than anything else our stupid officials have done lately. German gamers have been fucked up the ass far worse than this and most of us are no longer willing to take it. There have been demos against this stupid policy and they're getting more frequent every month.

As far as I know, the games are not officially banned, but there is a lot of pressure going on because of the "Killerspiel" debates. And yes, I did some research...

I say they ban settlers of catan! Damn there isometric tomfoolery!!

Nazis.

Germany is in danger of banning... Themselves! But serously, were the fuck is the public? They should be protesting the shit out of this thing!

I don't understand how the people can accept this... how could they elect officials that would bring in this form of censorship?? Given their history, how could they sit idly by and watch this happen.

@Elsa
The reason for that is simple. Germany has an aging population. By now 42.5 % of all people in Germany are above the age of 60. Subtract the 19 % of peole below the age of 18 and you have 51 % of the voting public older than 60 . And these people usually all go to vote. If you have so many old coots voting you can expect to have the most conservative and reactionary parties in the ruling position. Or in other words, we are ruled by the stupid old fucks who can't get a hang of the digital "mumbo jumbo". Our justice minister was asked what a "browser" is and of course she didn't know the answer, but you can bet your ass that she was for banning parts of the web.


It's really frustrating and I can understand all the Germans here on Detructoid that say that they want to get the hell out of Germany. I'm actually planning to do this myself as soon as I've finished university. Who knows maybe I'll shake Jim's hand as a newly employed games-developer in a few years. Now I just have to get my hand on one of those bloody greencards.

Sorry, no lame joke here about Nazis, or fascists.

This is purely an embarrassing move by politicians who are catering to the knee-jerk whims and moral panic of the frightened masses who are willfully out-of-touch with reality.

There's no point in bothering to build a reasonable, logical, or sound argument with folks who think that way - ultimately it will fall on deaf ears. Scared people will always need a "them" to blame for their own insecurities. It's us against "them" and if you're not with us, you're against us, amiright???

"They" include perceived threats such as the youth, gamers, pornographers, drug users, hedonists, anarchists, communists, terrorists, homosexuals, Muslims, foreigners, the internet, the poor, enemies of the state - anybody who might upset the imaginary status-quo and threaten TEH CHILDRENS.

Social control through fear.

I hope this doesn't come over to the states. Rules like this are so lame.

Take it easy boys.
2009 is a election year and so most politicians are going crazy with suggestions about banning stuff in order to please their voting puplic.

I cant give any examples right now, because im too lazy to search, but american politicians also does many crazy stuff when the elcetion draws near, arent they?

Germany doesnt like violence ^^
But America doesnt like tits

So who wins :D

Also nice text jim.

@dgschrei: That's awesome. I like Germany even more now.

Here on Brazil CS also is officially banned , yet you see a CyberCafe with CS around every corner (CS is THE most popular game here) ;still , maybe germans aren't as incompetent as brazilians and the ban may actually happen ...

I saw the idea earlier...

http://img106.imageshack.us/i/ps3controllert.tif/

We will see, but I agree with Echtzeit, it is election time, nobody cares about the truth right now. Why should they? The only people who object are the opposition and they will never vote for them, so it doesn´t matter.

I just think it is sad...

Germany is evidently almost as quick on the uptake as Keith Vaz is. Watch out Bungie, you've only got another four years in the German market before they discover Halo