Germany To Ban ALL Violent Video Games

I spotted this on another site, and thought that it warranted some serious discussion here... So discuss!

Quote:
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.

According to german website Chip Online and supported by Spiegel Online, ministers of the interior of all sixteen German federal states came together for a conference today in Bremerhaven where they 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 infamously hard on violent video games before now, but an outright ban 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 God of War, no Crysis, no World of Warcraft, no BioShock, no Uncharted, and no Grand Theft Auto.

Moreover, since a ban on the production of violent games would also be included in the law, German studios, such as Crytek, would have to outsource development to other countries.

The law is hoped to come into effect before the country's federal elections in 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."

Note the second part of that sentence: "spree killers always played such games before they did the crime." That's quite a statement; one we expect they'd like to support with the German school shootings on March 11th, which were linked to Counterstrike and Far Cry 2.

For the law to become a reality it must go through parliament in the next few weeks or months. We'll keep you posted and hope the ministers are just blowing smoke.

Alot of people will think this is a bad idea.. but look on the upside.
no more servers full of crazy Germans shouting down there mic every time you kill them.
Now all we need to do is ban Russians from the internet and the virtual clean up will be almost over...

I blame Angry German Kid from youtube, lol.

Seriously though, a complete ban on all violent video games is absolutely absurd. Allowing folks to play only what the government wants them to play is an insane way of keeping the general public under control. They have been doing this forever, but not to this extreme a level. And, like all good plagues, insanity is highly contagious. If this takes off in Germany, how long will it take before the rest of the world follows suit, issuing a global ban on violent gaming?