Violent video games look set to be banned throughout Germany. Ministers of the country's 16 states, Deutscher Bundesrat, has just agreed to ban the so-called 'killer games'. Now all that's needed to ban such games is a regulation drafted and ratified in parliament.Such a law would not only ban the sale of violent games in Germany, but also their creation. Crysis developer CryTek has already promised to move production out of Germany if the law becomes reality.
Germany's current moral panic of videogames stems from an incident in March where a mentally ill teenager shot 16 people in Winnenden.
It is claimed that German ministers have today agreed to ban the production and distribution of all violent video games, with the law only having to go through parliament in the next few weeks.
Ministers of all sixteen German federal states came together for a conference in Bremerhaven where it was agreed to forbid the production and distribution of all video games “where the main part is to realistically play the killing of people or other cruel or unhuman acts of violence against humans or manlike characters.”
The country has been hard on video games in the past with bans on Manhunt & DeadRising taking place, but an outright ban on every potentially violent game would result in a huge loss for the video games industry in one of its most successful European countries. The law would result in no Call of Duty, no World of Warcraft, no BioShock, no Uncharted, and no Grand Theft Auto. Any development firm based in Germany would have to outsource future project developments on a violent game since it would now be banned to even create any such content in that country!
Ministers are hoping the for the law to come into effect before the German federal elections this September, The minister of the interior of Lower Saxony commented:
“Violent games lower the inhibition level for real violence and spree killers always played such games before they did the crime.”
However for violent games and the developments of such games to become illegal, the law must be passed through parliament in which an outcome will be decided within a couple of weeks.
Source: Various websites...