Sunday, June 7, 2009

Lawmakers & Games

It is a curious phenomenon that people like the lawmakers who have no extensive knowledge of games, often want to impose their views and opinions on those who play games. Just a couple of days ago Germany news announced that 16 Interior Ministers have banded together to ask their Parliament to ban the production and distribution of violent video games.

What is violent video games? If 'violent' is the main concern, then should video movies be banned as well? What is violent is the first place? Isn't violence linked to a society's norms? If so, that is a changing norm which cannot be defined clearly enough to be put into law, right?

I wonder why would intelligent people like lawmakers want to define ever changing boundaries into hard set laws. Perhaps the industry would be in a better position to have self imposed rating systems, and encourage the parents to be more vigilant about the games their kids play. Afterall, scoping the social norms for children is part and parcel of the responsibilities of their parents isn't it?

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