Germany Considering Banning violent games, jailing gamers

[Chipper173]

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6163059.html

Jeez.

Apparantly they had a couple school shootings over there and the German lawmakers are considering banning violent games completely over there? And putting gamers in jail for killing in a game?

Knee-jerk response much?

[Archbio]

Those found guilty of "cruel violence on humans or human-looking characters" could face fines, or jail time of up to 12 months--and those it applies to include developers, retailers, and consumers, reports UK newspaper The Guardian.

Does that mean that playing Hangman would be a crime?

Cretins.

[greed]

My anger is actually hurting my brain. Just when you think your faith in humanity can't be any lower, thanks Germany!

[Krylo]

I, personally, would like to wait and see what Meister has to say about this, being as he's actually, yanno, German. See what the likiehood of this passing really is, things like that.

[Sir Pinkleton]

My anger is actually hurting my brain. Just when you think your faith in humanity can't be any lower, thanks Germany!

I would suggest breathing deeply and drinking some water. Either that or play a violent videogame. which brings me on-topic...

"The Reuters (http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/fun.games/11/28/video.games.brain.reut/index.html) story making the rounds claims scientists were able to show that violent games trigger the "fight or flight" mechanism and it apparently stays triggered for some time after playing the game. Now, since I own a great many of these games and enjoy them, I have a knee-jerk reaction to call bullshit. And there's lots of ways to do it, beginning with the question of why a violent video game would have such an effect while a violent movie or TV show or novel doesn't.

But... in the theory that you can make yourself wiser only by thinking about things you hate to think about, maybe a better question to ask is what should be done if they're right.

Say, hypothetically, they go on to do study after study after study and time and time again it comes down that violent games lower impulse control (or whatever) and eat up the reasonable part of your brain. What then? If they can prove a cause-effect link, parents can go right to court on it, right? How much evidence would it take for you to back the anti-gaming activists' side, even if it mean't giving up your hobby? Could you ever be convinced? What would it take?

The first thing somebody's going to say is that the vast majority of violent game players commit no violent crimes. Case closed.

But remember, the vast majority of smokers don't get lung cancer. They never had to prove all smokers got sick; they just had to prove that more smokers get sick than non-smokers. And they do. You may go from having a 5% chance of getting lung cancer up to 20% if you smoke. But there's still the 80% who don't get sick. Same here, they only need to show that gaming has an effect, not that the effect shows up every time. That's important because the latter won't be proven, the former might be."

When I read this, I started understanding where these people were coming from in their objections. Keeps me from losing my head and ranting on nothing. Not that I agree with banning all violent video games, but I understand why they're worried. It's like the media, they only talk about the bad, but never the good.

(BTW, that was from a news update at pointlesswasteoftime.com. totally not in my words, but wise nonetheless.)

[Krylo]

As a counter point I present this: Ten Things Wrong with the Media Effects Model (or why it's impossible to prove anything about violent video games with the current way studies are done) (http://www.theory.org.uk/david/effects.htm)

Of particular note is this: Criminologists, in their professional attempts to explain crime and violence, consistently turn for explanations not to the mass media but to social factors such as poverty, unemployment, housing, and the behaviour of family and peers. In a study which did start at what I would recognise as the correct end - by interviewing 78 violent teenage offenders and then tracing their behaviour back towards media usage, in comparison with a group of over 500 'ordinary' school pupils of the same age - Hagell & Newburn (1994) found only that the young offenders watched less television and video than their counterparts, had less access to the technology in the first place, had no particular interest in specifically violent programmes, and either enjoyed the same material as non-offending teenagers or were simply uninterested.

P.S. That means people who don't play video games are more violent.

[Sir Pinkleton]

P.S. That means people who don't play video games are more violent.

well hell, I coulda' told ya' that one!

[Mirai Gen]

Indeed. And as gamers, we're so incredibly violent and chaotic and just cannot restrain our urges to slaughter and kill, that nobody will take our viewpoints or counter-arguements seriously.

We're too violent to possibly have unique viewpoints.

[greed]

I, personally, would like to wait and see what Meister has to say about this, being as he's actually, yanno, German. See what the likiehood of this passing really is, things like that.

Good point, every democracy has crazies that throw out bizarre legislation to get publicity or just cause they're lunatics. Most never go anywhere.

[Tydeus]

I know for a fact that when I'm regularly playing GoW, I think fewer violent thoughts, am generally nicer and cheerier, etc. Me. The Token Nutcase! The more I play, the less violent I am.

And, as to that study that mentions the triggered "fight or flight" response -- tell me playing football (american) doesn't activate that same damn response, and then I'll listen to you.

Please.

But, yeah, it's probably just a publicity stunt by those particular German politicians. And you can understand how they might be somewhat more sensitive to violence in Germany. Kind of a whole legacy always in the back of the national consciousness.

[IHateMakingNames]

And you all complain about Jack Thompson.

[Karrrrrrrrrrrresche]

I have to say this left me laughing, the idea of cops breaking down a door on a guy playing a round of halo 2 shouting "Put the controller on the ground and step away from the console!" because he was about to snipe someone.

[Toast]

Stating that video games activate the flight or fight response is one of the newer buzzwords on the subject. The flight or fight response is activated any time your sympathetic nervous system is activated, which in our society is basically all the time. Any activity from sports to driving to sex to working 40 hours a week all activate the sympathetic system. It's why the rate of heart attacks is so high, diet has little to do with it.

Also, what were those numbers in the study? 44(Reuters), 78 and 500? Hardly graduated samples. That's the major flaw with most of these anti-game/ media violence studies is they employ less than 1000 subjects, which is the bare minimum any study should have to be considered reliable. Studies that use 2000 or more subjects should be the norm, but they aren't. Also most of these studies are correlational, not causal.

[Meister]

But, yeah, it's probably just a publicity stunt by those particular German politicians.
Well, yeah. See, this is the work of right-wing politicians in their sixties who have no competence in modern media and don't particularly want to. The likelihood of this bill actually passing is very, very slim - a first draft went to the Department of Justice, and they basically said, well, something like this is already in place. That's the truth - excessively violent media can be banned, whether it's a game, a movie or a CD with violent lyrics. Many think this is already going to far, but fact is it's already there.

By the way, that student who went on a rampage left a letter. He gave reasons for his hatred for humanity, which had a lot to do with social issues, the values of modern society and how it judges people by the money and status symbols they have, things like that. You don't see many politicians answering to that.

[Mirai Gen]

I had hoped as much. Bills get pushed forward all the time - likelyhood of passing them is slim to none.