German politicians are pushing forward with an all-out ban on what they consider, "Violent VideoGames". Sixteen Interior Ministers have proposed legislation via a petition to the German parliament to ban both the production and distribution of violent games.
Moves to ban paintball, airsoft guns, restrict the memberships of marksman clubs, require gunowners to deposit their ammunition at local police stations all follow in the wake of the tragedy in Winnenden, Germany.
*The Albertville-Realschule massacre occurred on the morning of 11 March 2009 at a secondary school in Winnenden, Baden-Württemberg, in southwestern Germany, followed by a shootout at a car dealership in nearby Wendlingen. The shooting spree resulted in 16 deaths, including the suicide of the perpetrator, 17-year-old Tim Kretschmer, who had graduated from the school one year earlier. Several people were also injured during the incident.
What happened in Winnenden is a tragedy, and there is no one more concerned than I when I hear of violence (from hair-pulling to gunfire) at schools. To bring more focus upon what I refer to as "knee-jerk" reactions whenever violence of such a magnitude occurs, look at the big picture and what it may eventually mean globally for gamers and the non-gaming public.
Already, you have to really dig to find a decent broadcast of an Olympic Event that involves marksmanship. This is because shooting at inanimate targets has received criticism as promoting violence and eventually, marksman type events will be removed from the Olympics. Greco-Roman wrestling, in my opinion, so much higher in legitimacy than whatever tripe is being broadcast on Pay-Per-View, obviously promotes violent actions against your opponent. Get rid of that quickly, one of the original sports of the Olympics, axe it, now, before it infects the world with it's terrible violence.
Fencing, Tae Kwon Do, and heaven's forbid some chess player actually move one step forward right or left when he decides to go off the deep end and "Castle" his College Adviser, all these things are violent.
The typical move, of a knight chesspiece forward and right or left, to capture your opponent's piece, for all the non-chessy pansies out there is brought up for good reason. During another violent tragedy, reports were circulated that the shooter used techniques he learned from playing a videogame, in how he walked, stalked down his victim, and corraled them into a corner, with his partner. So let's be sure and blame chess the next time someone shoots someone else and steps "knight-like". Chess is so violent it makes my eyes bleed.
The act of typing out on this keyboard, is violent. Not in the way that the keys will be scarred and require hours of counseling when I am done, but the act of using "Free Speech" is force, and a violent act.
Now, politicians being what they are, politicians, and German elections coming up in September, we've not heard the last of making video games out to be the albatross around societies neck. I'm surprised that someone hasn't blamed Parker Brothers for the global recession, after all they make the boardgame Monopoly, and are therefore responsible for this games detrimental effects upon the stock exchanges and real estate markets.
Crysis developers
Crytek, happen to be based in Germany. If I were them, I'd be worried, especially since the proposed bans are against developer's of violent videogames. If CryTek picks up it's studio and hauls ass to LA, good for them, and for LA. German politicians obviously don't need the revenue from the games industry to fuel their agendas, so let's see how they do without it.
*This article uses material from the Wikipedia article
Albertville Realschule massacre and is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
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