Germans pounce on video games
p2pnet.net News:- Players and creators of video games in Germany may soon be hoist in a petard similar to that being suffered by independent companies making p2p applications; that they’re responsible for what users do with their software.
Sebastian Bosse, an 18-year-old with a liking for real weapons, broke into a school, and then killed four students, a school janitor and himself.
“Back in 2002, another German student shot 13 people at his school,” says GWN. “The German media is blaming video games such as Counter-Strike for the shootings, despite there being no known link.”
Now, “Politicians in Bavaria and Lower Saxony have proposed a new offence that will punish ‘cruel violence on humans or human-looking characters’ inside games,” says the Guardian Online, quoted on Buzzle.com.
“Early drafts suggest that infringers should face fines or up to 12 months’ jail for promoting or enacting in-game violence,” it states, going on:
“The scheme comes in response to a shooting last month in the town of Emsdetten on the Dutch border, where Sebastian Bosse, an 18-year-old games fan, stormed into his former school and wounded 37 people before killing himself.
“The incident caused outrage and the bill’s sponsor, the Bavarian interior minister G�nther Beckstein, claimed there was a direct connection between Bosse’s actions and his love of the game Counter Strike. “It is absolutely beyond any doubt that such killer games desensitise unstable characters and can have a stimulating effect,” he said.
“It should be noted that Crytek, developer of first-person shooters such as Far Cry and the recently delayed Crysis, currently reside in Germany,” says GWN. “It is unknown at this time exactly how Crytek would fare if this legislation would come to pass, although the developer has already hinted at possibly relocating to a different country.”
If your Net access is blocked by government restrictions, try Psiphon from the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto’s Munk Centre for International Studies. Go here for the official download, here for the p2pnet download, and here for details. And if you’re Chinese and you’re looking for a way to access independent Internet news sources, try Freegate, the DIT program written to help Chinese citizens circumvent web site blocking outside of China. Download it here.
Also See:
liking for real weapons – German school killer sites vanish, November 23, 2006
GWN – Germans To Send Gamers To Jail?, December 12, 2006
Buzzle.com – German Gamers Face Jail for Acts of Virtual Violence, December 12, 2006
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December 15th, 2006 at 2:29 pm
last time I checked he only killed himself, no one else.
the others were wounded with non sophisticated guns and most people reproted injured suffered from smokeinhaleing problems