Germany getting ready to ban all violent video games

There’s nothing like a few rounds of Doom 3 or a bit of mayhem in GTA to ease the stress of the day. Sure there’s a lot of nonsense about violent video games being responsible for people committing violent acts but to date there has been no (reputable) conclusive studies that have proven that argument.

This fact apparently hasn’t stopped the German government from moving forward with a plan to ban all violent video games, which they define as “where the main part is to realistically play the killing of people or other cruel or inhuman acts of violence against humans or manlike characters”. Not only that but the ban would be applicable to video game companies operating in Germany making it illegal to even create such games.

Well that pretty well means about 90% of the games on the market today as well as the majority of games that are created every year. Plus let’s not forget that Crysis from Crytek – a German based company – would no longer be able to see any future versions being created.

The government’s reasoning for this ban? As usual it stems from some teenager going on a killing spree and blaming on playing some video game for hours on end prior to thinking they could do it for real.

Why all the panic over video games? The usual stuff, really: Their potential link to violence, particularly among youths. Earlier this year a German teenager killed more than a dozen people while dressed in black camouflage, purportedly copying moves learned in the terrorism-focused Counter-Strike. Such links are extremely controversial, but Germany has been at the forefront of lambasting violent games for years as causing these incidents.

Source: Yahoo Tech News