Ah those pesky Germans. Love to blame video games for all their misbehaving criminals. German tabloid Bild-Zeitung (equals to Murdoch's The Sun) is putting the blame squarely (no pun intended) on Square's horrid Final Fantasy VII, dubbing it a killer game, after police arrested two teenagers who killed a mother and father.Video gaming persecution seems to be on the rise, isn't it? Quite a nice coincidence too. EU lawmakers in Brussels has recently agreed on a set of rules limiting the sale of 'violent' video games to minors, which is all fine and dandy, except that they are also planning for more stringent banning orders.
Do take comfort in knowing that while Germany is keen on imposing bans, they realised that each member state will be able to decide which games are violent and so on. Or so insists Franco Frattini, the EU Justice and Security Commissioner. If I remember correctly this guy (whom I dubbed EU twit) insisted on a blanket ban on Rule of Rose.
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I wrote a nice article that some how relates Final Fantasy last night before I had the chance to read about the EU debacle. I will probably post it later. I am not a FF freak, but with the release of Final Fantasy XII next month, you can forgive me if I appear to be. Ta.
Technorati tags: Final Fantasy Final Fantasy VII Killerspiele Germany Video Games
3 comments:
You know, I've always believed that despite the fact that despite being a multi-billion dollar industry, frankly games as a medium... sucks.
I mean, to a lot of people, games are one-dimensional, cliched copies of each other, fit only for the consumption of the socially maladjusted and children. The whole "ban this game" mentality, IMO, comes from that.
Really, games aren't seen as an art medium for mature people, which would defuse a lot of the accusations that games are poisoning the minds of our youth, because then you could say that children aren't supposed to be looking at them in the first place.
I see your point. Games as a medium has yet to mature. I blame the industry as a whole for not taking itself seriously enough, at least not by widening the industry to include everybody. Films took time before it was finally accepted by moralistic crusaders, so did TV, so was books and music.
It will get there but every now and then you will get a politician trying to win the moral vote.
People have different passions in life. Some like games. Some like movies. Some like skiing. Some like sex. Nothing wrong with anything, as long as it isn't illegal.
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