Topic: The angst towards video game violence

[ThePerm]

i live in a heavily Spanish speaking community, if i heard a couple of phrases i might get suddenly alert. ¡Mátalo! ...although that would be a problem to hear even if people didn't have Las Plagas

[NovaQ]

Now all you need is a 90s haircut and a leather jacket with fur trim. You'll be able to live "in a small village in Europe" all of the time!

[Djunknown]

Somewhat related.

[KDR_11k]

Pfft, these guys have been mismanaging their videogame sections for many years already. All games are priced above MSRP, pricedrops happen very rarely, the selection sucks, they have a second gaming section in the toy section with all consoles except the Nintendo ones being scattered across both the computer gaming and toy gaming section (Nintendo only appears in the toy area while PC games only appear in the computer area), you can even find some ancient games (I'm talking late nineties here) there still selling at full price.

In short, they're so much fail they really have to work hard to fail any harder.

As for the school shooting, pathologically depressed kid + unsafely kept firearms + gun training = The videogames did it? The prosecution is actually investigating the father for manslaughter just for keeping a gun unsafe (illegal by itself) with a kid like that in the house.

Stephan Reichart, managing director at German video game developers association G.A.M.E. told Reuters that this move by the retailer is an overreaction and that it would do better to make sure that its cashiers don’t sell mature rated products to people under the age of 18.

Er, they better do that already because selling a game like that to a minor gets the store and the employee fined heavily and I think can even result in jailtime.

[Morari]

No one is fined. No one would ever serve jailtime. Such restrictions on selling games is generally imposed by the store itself. It's just as stupid as Wal-Mart refusing to sell model paint to anyone under the age of eighteen.

[KDR_11k]

No one is fined. No one would ever serve jailtime. Such restrictions on selling games is generally imposed by the store itself. It's just as stupid as Wal-Mart refusing to sell model paint to anyone under the age of eighteen.

We aren't talking about the US there. We have legally buinding age restrictions and no Wal-Mart.

[Morari]

Fair enough. I didn't look at the link provided by Djunknown. I always found it ironic that Germany goes to almost totalitarian extremes to insure that no one thinks them fascist.

User has been warned for making statements that are no more political than any others throughout said thread. ~Flames_of_chaos (a.k.a. That Cowardly Dickhead)

[KDR_11k]

Nah, I think the youth protection bullshit doesn't come from that. Total bans, yes but usually games only get strong restrictions and blocked by the console maker, not actually banned by the law. Not sure where it actually comes from, since it's part of the Basic Law (constitution) it must've been around pretty early (1949), possibly influenced by the western Allies who might have been annoyed by their own laws that put free speech over youth protection and thus block any laws that try to restrict sales to minors. Isn't that also where Japan got its pornography laws from? "Youth protection" is mostly founded in FUD, not anti-Nazi policies.

(sorry but this whole thread is pretty much politics, law and politics are pretty much inseparable and this is about the law)

[Djunknown]

Hmmmm...

[KDR_11k]

Well, the game IS rated 18. That kind of stuff doesn't belong in school libraries (then again do gaming mags belong there at all? Ours only had school-related material).

[Djunknown]

When I went to middle school in the suburbs, our Library had a magazine section to rival the supermarkets. It had Rolling Stone, Time, National Geographic, Seventeen and other magazines for girls, and EGM/Nintendo Power for the boys, to name a few. Not unheard of, so it does come off as peculiar...

[Morari]

How is National Geographic for the girls?

[NWR_insanolord]

I think the "for girls" part was only in reference to Seventeen.