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German Social Affairs Minister wants WoW classified 'Adults Only'
We've been reporting more and more lately on MMO censorship and legislation abroad, most recently with the troubles World of Warcraft faces in China. The latest news that we've come across comes to us from Germany where the Minister for Social Affairs in Lower Saxony, Mechtchild Ross-Luttman, wants to restrict sales of violent video games to minors in general, imposing fines of up to €50,000 for those caught selling these titles. She also wants to give MMO titles like World of Warcraft an "adults only" rating. This reaction to violence in video games comes in the wake of the tragic school shootings which occurred recently in Germany. GameCulture reports: "The proposals come on the heels of a survey by the Kriminologischen Forschuginstituts Nidersachsen (the criminal research institute of Lower Saxony), which reported that 14,000 9th graders in Germany are addicted to videogames, particularly World of Warcraft and first-person shooters."
German legislation would jail FPS gamers
Late last month, an 18-year-old man went on a shooting spree at his former junior high school in western Germany, killing himself and injuring 11 others. According to reports on the German news site Tagesschau, the man spent a fair bit of time playing "Counter-Strike," which some say may have led to his inspiration to conduct the killing. As a result of this tragedy, two state governments in Bavaria and Lower Saxony have drafted legislation which, according to the Financial Times, would "subject developers, distributors and players of video games whose goal is to inflict 'cruel violence on humans or human-looking characters' to a fine and a maximum of one year in jail." If the measures pass, German gamers, amateur and pro alike, will have to lay off the FPS games for quite a long while and stick to more traditional non-violent games, like, you know, "Pac-Man."[Via Slashdot]
