Since there is no thread about this hear yet, I open one.

There have been some school-shootings in Germany in the last years, three to be more exact:
Erfurt

[url=http://translate.google.de/translate?hl=de&sl=de&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fde.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FAmoklauf_von_Emsdetten]Emsdetten
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winnenden_school_shooting


Every time videogames got the fault for that because the perpetrators had FPS-games like Counterstrike or Quake on their computers (actually no surprise at that age).


Several things have been done since those shootings, for example was the German game-ratingsystem, the USK, aggravated.

Populistic and also some newspapers that were expected to be more reputable created a real wave of agitation against our beloved games, often only showing the most cruel scenes of games, or even scenes that are actually not present in the German version of the games.
For example they used a bloodpatch in Counterstrike and wrote that the player would use a joystick to run through a school with the goal to shoot as many children, old grannies and policemen as possible. Or they used the hot-coffee-mod in GTA or showed only scenes where the player randomly attacks the passersby with a chainsaw and such stuff.


Many arch-conservative politicians wanted a total prohibition for all games in which "the defeating of an enemy is rewarded in any way, for example with levelup".

It was really sad to see how every gamer was defamed and put on the same level as pedophiles and murderers.


Now we got at least some politicians that know a bit about the subject, videogames were even declared to be a culture artifact.

But still there are people that wants to forbid them.
For example the Coalition of Winnenden, where the last shooting took place asked all parents and gamers to throw their killergames into a container as a symbol to forbid the games. You can see the result here (German, ignore the language), they even tried to fake the video to show that there were some people who really would have done that. In the end there were only three games.


It's all sad, I'll look forward to see how it continues. Do you have similar problems in your countries?

Those people have a severe problem in general, which is, in my opinion, NOT enhanced by FPS-games in any way... What is more striking is that many of the assassins had a membership in some sort of gun club / shooting club. Of course not all of them, but many... Some even stole the weapons from those clubs which they used for the cruel shooting later on.

If I were in charge, I would not allow anyone below age 21 to enter or become a member of gun clubs. Since I went to the army myself I know how "exciting" it is to actually shoot different kind of weapons (for fun) I also know that it can become a sort of addiction...
Thus, never ever do I wish to be in a situation where I actually am in the (urgent) need to use a weapon... I just wish weapon development would not exist.. No gunpowder... no bombs... no mines... the world would look a lot different now.

But coming back to the assassins and their psychological problems... What is also striking is that almost anyone announces what they are about to do or at least leave a couple of hints, be it in chat rooms, forums etc.... We should teach kids from an early age on to be extra-attentive for classmates / chat users who write sentences like "I am going to my entire class" and stuff like that, even if they pretend to mean it in a funny way. Quite often a real deliberation lies behind that. And even if it does not, the kid most likely has a problem at home.

It can happen to any social stratum... It can occur in your neighbourhood. Don't look away - act. Get help. Make it public. Before it is too late. Hopefully we won't see your home town in the news tomorrow.



Since I got away from the topic a bit, I will try to come back to it.
Videogames in general are more than hobby... They can even alleviate stress!
There is no reason to ban them. At all...

On the one hand, I clearly pledge for not showing an unnecessary amount of blood or brutality in video games. Let's take "Soldier of Fortune" for example... Back then it was fightingly realistic (you shot a man in the foot and he limped, you could even shoot of a dude's d!ck at one point at the game when he took a piss...) Totally unnecessary.
That's why I find the "German" versions of shooting games often more appealing... One fights against robots instead of humans, you see green mechanical oil instead of blood. But is the gameplay any different? NO! And nobody can tell me there is a weaker "atmosphere" with robots...

On the other hand, why treat video games any different than films? It's sooo pathetic that german politicians want to proscribe counterstrike, the so called BPjM (a federal department which is dealing with media that could be harmful to young persons) puts music with offensive lyrics on the index - but films like SAW and even more bloody ones are openly available. And the images which are depict there are WAY more suggestive and realistic if you'd ask me.

To put in a nutshell, it is a difficult topic and there is still a lot of misunderstanding and especially many biased opinions against gamers in general. I hope there will be more communication and discussion round with guests that really know that they are talking about and are not just a talking parrot repeating the tabloid's stupid headlines like "Killer games are the reason for school massacres" ...

Personally I don't need blood in games to be happy, I just don't like the fact that games are cut for the German market. I use uncut-patches, but no patches to add even more blood than in the original version of the game.


The worst kind of censor is such a censor, that somehow has impact on the game itself.
Ok, for UT that would be that it's just more fun to see all the blood and splatter, but it's way too unrealistic and UT also has some kind of comic-look to clearly distinguish it from reality.
That's why I reenabled the blood in the German version (a simple change in the engine.det-file), but changed to the English version later where it's enabled by default because I liked the English sounds more. Sometimes it can also be a tactical advantage to see a fontain of blood coming around the edge infront of you, because it shows you that there must be something that killed either your teammate or your enemy.

But back to the gameplay-censors: In GTA Vice City I took a bloodpatch because I wanted the blood as from the developer intended.
What I also noticed then was, that the German version was lacking some gameplay-elements, like gaining money from dead passersby (ok, not nice, but it get's you much more money in the beginning when you need it and have to kill some people because of a mission, who also leave the money) and the blood-patch also restored the missing amok-missions in which you have to kill members of a certain gang in a certain time.
Of course that was too hard for the German market, but it's also a (self)cut in the gameplay which the developers did to get a lower rating, resulting in more people buying the game.


Another example: The German Call of Duty 4 is missing the whole "Arcade"-mode after finishing the game. In this mode you fight through the campaign again, but now with limited number of lifes and you gain points for multikills, headshots, etc... that would have doubled the singleplayer-time for the gamers, but it was removed. The game is rated for 18 year old players, that's adult in Germany and still you don't get the full content?!



And I wouldn't say that censors are not affecting the atmosphere. Ok, in the Team Fortress 2 it somehow improved* the atmosphere, but the civilians in Half-Life 1 are just sitting on the ground and shake the head when they are "killed". Soldiers are replaced with robots, right. -.-



*http://translate.google.de/translate?js=y&prev=_t&hl=de&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.schnittberichte.com%2Fschnittbericht.php%3FID%3D4539&sl=de&tl=en&history_state0=de|en|schnittbericht%2520team%2520fortress%25202

please remove this post. (grr why it can't be removed by me)