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http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/01/17/HNeurulesonvideogames_1.html (http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/01/17/HNeurulesonvideogames_1.html)


I guess we can declare the Wii the EU victor of the new console war right now.

Dear god, outright bans? I hope it fails miserably. I also hope that if it doesn't fail we won't see American congressmen using it as a basis for their own bills to ban video games.

Stop protecting people from themselves damn it!

I can't see an outright ban on videogames, violent or no, working here considering the First Amendment issues that would arise.  I'd see it getting struck down pretty quick.  At least I would hope so.  Who knows anymore. 

I don't know, might be a good idea.  Anything to keep those Germans from getting riled up again.  :-o

How about a ban on weapons instead of games? Or a ban on violence?

Fucking retards.

But a lot less linkage than between violence and lots of other factors.  Lack of good parenting, lack of discipline, lack of consequences on many levels(parental, governmental, cultural).  But that's more for the politics forum, and it's not just the EU.

Sky, banning violence is a Great idea.  And people thought the war on terror was idealistic....  8)

--
Alkiera

Gears of War is banned in Germany. Poor EU.

I don't think it will pass, at least I hope not hehe. Banning weapons wouldn't make any sense in the EU since they're not much of a problem over here. I know a total of 1 guy who owns a gun, and that's because he lives out in the woods and is intrested of hunting.

You fuckers seem to find 'em quick enough when it's time to start killing each other off.

I may be wrong, but I don't think Sweden (Sairon's country) has been in a war since the Napoleon days. Not even WWII.

Unless you want to count law enforcement and immigration.

Yes that's true, we pussied out in WW2  :-)

I don't know the details over every country in EU, but it's generaly pretty hard to get a gun over here and I haven't heard of the "let us all get guns to protect our selves" mentality applied to any country.

The Europe Union (you know?  The subject of the sentence that Sairon posted?  You do know what a subject is right?) happens to consist of more than just Sweden, I am pretty sure of this.

I'm just referring to the backwoods guy he mentioned that he knew personally.

And yes, I know what the subject is. I made the thread.

The European Union isn't a nation.  It is a confederation of nations.  There's quite a difference.  For instance, the EU's privacy regulations are implemented on a national level.  Many nations in the EU have divergent privacy laws, but they all conform to the standard set by the EU.

Just to put this into context, the commission wants to harmonize *everything*. That's the pretty much the function of the commission. Well, that and embezzling money.

The process is that they throw out these suggestions on a more or less weekly basis, if the proposal is especially stupid big-government protectionist nonsense like this, then some combination of Britain, Ireland, Italy, the Scandanavian countries, and eastern europe, all say 'Uh, no', then everyone forgets about it and goes back to working out how to claim even bigger expense allowances. Proposals only get through the council of ministers (where the real power is) if everyone is *really* tired, drunk, or just trying to get France to shut up for a minute.


This is a non-story.

Bite my typo bitch.  Also, thanks for the civics lesson but I didn't see anyone claiming that the European Union was a nation.

My claim was limited to pointing out that Europeans act all high and mighty about their gun laws but that doesn't seem to slow em down much when it comes to killing each other.

Times have changed, and Europe has become rapidly demilitarized mostly because they didn't need to be militarized.  With the combination of WWI/WWII war fatigue and America providing a comfortable, cozy umbrella of safety for the past 50 years there just hasn't been a need for a military.  Of course that'll change shortly because Russia is acting twitchy, we're overstretched (and frankly, our willingness to take a bullet for Europe isn't what it used to be), and the EU has plans to become the third tier of the great power structure between the US and China.

The problem is that you can have either guns or butter, and Europe's chosen butter for the past 50 years.  You can't remilitarize and still keep a full-blown social welfare state going, and scrapping the social welfare state isn't going to be too popular with the electorate.  Oh, and Europe's penchant for deciding what's best for their people is troubling when you consider that Europe will start rearming pretty soon.

Lol, just stop. Please. This whole preemptive asshole slash wannabe Boog thing you've got going on (here and elsewhere) is a joke. You sound like a squeaky, prepubescent turd in teamspeak. No one's intimidated by your tough guy board attitude. The 4th wall is down.

That shit is pointless.

Sairon was never acting high and mighty -- he just said he knew one guy with a gun -- a hunter -- and you called him a fucker for no good reason. Then pretty much blamed him for all of European military history (and he's Swedish at that!).

Just shut the fuck up. Or at the very least, pick your battles wisely. You don't have to fucking turn your rage on everything.

Did Murgos just make some weird connection between military weapons and civilian guns/riffles?

It's like how Germany will go to great lengths to stamp out any nazi symbolism and suchlike to distance themselves from their history, then go around enacting laws and suggesting laws for the EU that could easily be described as "nazi". They are pretty-much THE Game Nazis at this point in time.

Not an overly relevant point, but it has always struck me as amusing.

I've don't think I've ever been on teamspeak with you Stray.  The last time I was on TS with anyone here was when EQ2 came out 2 years ago.  If that was supposed to be some sort of clever analogy it was pretty damned lame.  The fourth wall is broken?  You drawing cartoons now?

In case you didn't notice though, through your fit of audible hallucinations, the 'you fuckers' term is a general comment.  It was never directed at anyone other than as the usual 'your country/system of government sucks' sort of thing.  Why you think Sairon's being a nice guy from Sweden has anything to do with me laughing at the EU's legal ramblings or their peoples penchant for pointing out their irrelevent lack of personal armament or how you even connected the dots from that to a personal attack is beyond me.

Anyway I'll curse if I damn well please and rage at whatever the fuck I feel like when ever I feel like.

Yeah, it was EQ2.

Fourth wall (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_wall).

Yeah, what the hell is that supposed to mean in the context of your post?

Was Murgos putting on a play when he let out a brief little aside directly to the audience?  You should probably avoid these kinds of references when you have no idea what the fuck you're talking about.

ETA:  Okay, you apparently have the capacity to enter a term into Wiki, but still can't grasp what the words that describe that term actually mean.  Work on that.

I've been acting since I was 7 years old. You buy DVD's. I know exactly what I'm talking about.

The 4th wall applies to you too, Gomer Pyle. You're the other piece of shit who thinks people here are actually intimidated by you. Two peas in a pod.

Heh, Stray thinks people get intimidated by other people on the internets.  He's cute.  Maybe I just don't share your opinions though and I can state my case strongly even though it's not your opinion.  I don't actually have to agree with you just because you have 8000 posts you know.

I've never heard my voice described as squeeky before but sure, if you think that scored you some points enjoy it.

I intimidate people through an internet connection?  Mmmkay.

Again, though, you haven't explained how the term 4th wall applies to your earlier post.  As much as I have deep respect for the theatre, and all the macho, manly men who are employed in the theatrical arts you're still talking out your ass.

*Gets the popcorn out of the microwave.*

*SIGH*

Just be real, y'all.

Get it? Both of you try to push your way around discussions here, trying to act like internet thugs, and it's stupid. No one cares. You think they do, but they do not. You think it reinforces the things you say, but all it does is work against you.

The only thing offensive about it is that YOU think it works.

It's like this Peter Pan play I watched once, where Captain Hook's hook fell off. And he still tried to go on.

Act like your own damn selves for a change, instead of trying to keep up this act. No one has "teh hate" THAT fucking much. And if you think you do, you're even bullshitting yourselves.

Nah, I get it.

He's thinking that my internet persona is all an act, that it's not who I really am and because he knows I have a squeeky voice I am therefore really a loser who rages at people on the internet because he's compensating for being a total wuss.

What I am thinking is that he needs to take a few more psych classes though.

edit - I've been posting to these various boards since '98 Stray.  I am who I am.
edit #2 - Fucken LOL.  People aren't characters in a play, in real life a guy that feeds kids to a crocodile is not personafied by his prosthetics.

Ask Nix.  Ask any of the guys around here I've played with on Live, dipshit.  This is me.

I also have the good graces to assume that this is who you are: a egomaniacal, wannabe artsy-fartsy douchebag.

You don't win the forums by getting stuff denned.

See, that's what I want more of.  :-)

LOOK!  KITTENS!

(http://www.infomotions.com/gallery/heart-of-texas/Images/DSCN0452_1.jpg)

Wouldn't help.  We can post there too :)


I was laughing at you.  Not with you.

Again.... Stop with the bullshit.

Are you stoned?

Are you guys on your period this week or something?

No, I am saying your only reaction (and Gulp's) is to try to rile me up now. It's just more of the same bullshit from you. I'm genuinely concerned about you, man. You live in this fantasy land where you think the things you say are actually offensive to people. You tell me you're "laughing at me" because you think it's going to make me cry. :cry:

What you should do is not say anything at all (Now THAT....That would probably piss me off).

In Gulp's mind, he probably thought calling me an "egomaniacal artsy fartsy douchebag" would cut deep. "Artsy" being the key word there....

But I'm hardly an artist, nor do I consider myself that way. Gulp bullshits himself into thinking he got to something real personal to me, but I don't know what the fuck he's talking about.

(http://img294.imageshack.us/img294/156/pms2bx.jpg)

And it's working. The only place this line of discussion is going is The Den.

 :-D

C'mon though.  The bit with Captain Hook's hook falling off and yet he staunchly soldiers on being a baddy was pretty funny.

I gotta be honest, it's shit like this that really makes me dread reading f13.

Pretty much outta here if it keeps up--y'all mostly act like children, and it's impossible to rationalize spending time when pretty much most of the threads deteriorate to this type of thing.

Catch y'all on the flip side.

That was my only point from the beginning. But if I look just as bad for raising the issue, then so be it.

There's a time and place for flaming, but making that your general course of action in every thread? Why? Who are you trying to kid? Pretty much the only guy who comes off sincere when doing it is Angry Bob. And he's more entertaining to boot.

Uhh....  WTF is going on?

Can we chill and go back to the topic at hand maybe?  You know, Germany being silly and throwing the baby out with the bathwater as they have done with any violent sort of videogame since like, the Commodore Vic 20 days?

Blah, get off my jock.  I made an off-hand flippant comment meant to be taken mostly in jest (Europeans, "We don't have [personal] guns!!!" , rest of world, "Never seems to slow you down.") and Stray decides it's time to try and pull my punk card.  For being mean, of all things, in the diaspora of the self labeled Samizdat community.

This is a community whose point of view, in general, is often counter to the established or popular view and which often gets stated as vulgarly and forcibly as possible.  I haven't seen any push by anyone to change that (until now) and I don't see why dissenting opinions need to be squashed under the mushy heel of passive aggressive conformity.

"Can't we all get along?" (which in this case means, "I [stray] don't care for your posts, please try harder to make me happy.")

No.  And I don't think I should try to.  Conforming to the popular is an easy road but goddamn is it boring and places like IGN and it's ilk already do it better.

Not asking to you "conform" to anything..

....But, I will get off your case. I'm getting sleepy, and have lost interest anyways.

Well it is basically the same kind of stupidity as in the US, just concerning a different subject.

US: Naked people are BAD, especially when they are having sex, and persons should be "protected" from those images, voilence is OK, swearing is BAD
Germany: Violence in movies and games is BAD, and people should be protected from it, naked people are OK even if they have sex, swearing is too.

This leads to some crazy things like extremely gory violent death scenes in games and movies flagged as PG 12 in the US. Put a naked breast in there and it suddenly becomes adult only and people complain: "doesn't somebody think of the children".

On the other hand in germany every TV station is allowed to show adult themed material after 11 p.m (softcore usually). and is even allowed to show advertisements for porn sites and phone sex hotlines (and they are very explicit) but when Arnie blows somebody's brain out with a shotgun the scene is cut and the movie is flagged as adult only, while german citizens complain that nobody thinks about the respective german children.

In my opinion it is the same kind of stupidity just concerning different aspects. Both nations are lobbying very hard for everybody to adhere to their own moral standpoint.

They both have such strict laws concerning these topics that they not only protect children from being exposed to such scenes but also keep adults from seeing those things by placing a de facto sales ban on these things (de facto because requirements for the sale of these things are so strict that 90% of all bigger stores don't sell them)

So you shouldn't be too condescending because your government does the same shit, just concerning a different subject.

That's just for the record.

right wing groups in germany are lobbying for years now to ban voilent games (violent meaning "every game in which the main goal is to kill humans or humanlike creatures. Such a broad statement would include nerly 80% of all games out there in my opinion) and the last high school shooting in germany (a guy ran amok and injured 16 people) has given them even more fuel.

The reasoning goes something like: "He killed people, he played counterstrike religiously ->> violent games are bad because they make people kill others." and at that point any attempt of a discussion is useless because those people KNOW that they are right (they are by default) and they don't let facts get in the way of their opinion. Unfortunately the forerunners of such a game ban are members of the ruling party in germany which are usually age 70 and don't even know what a computer looks like let alone what a computer game is.

One of the initiators of the ban initiative has clearly shown that he has exactly no clue what computer games are by stating that in World of Warcraft I can kill people with shotguns and automatic rifles and that Final Fantasy VII leads to violent behaviour in teens. Think of it as the german equivalent of the "the internets are a set of tubes" guy

But he states that "violence == BAD" and 60% of all germans agree with him. *sigh*. Ironically that bill is supported by people that in their youth fought viciously against bans on movies and music which in the 60's wereseen as the cause of youth violence and criminal behaviour.

all of them ignore the fact that germany already has the most strict laws concerning the protection of the children and that games that glorify violence can already be banned from sale.

Hey! That's my job.

I'm going to stay out of this one other than to say that you realize most posters on most forums do this kind of name-calling and stuff right? Hell most of the forum that shall not be named is creative name-calling. Noone thinks you're gonna reduce the girl-man on the other-side of the keyboard to tears. I guess I'm not sure why you suddenly decide these two are different.

ETA: Removed the offending forum's name. So please don't send :cthulu: after me

What happens in Politics stays in Politics.

Wait. Someone fire the scriptwriter. How did we go from Gustav Adolphus On Ice to a couple of drunks screaming about the merits of their respective Intarwebdumbassery?

I am frightened and confused by this thread. So I shall go play a video game Banned In Germany. For The Children.

I thought the first rule of Politics was that you didn't talk about Politics?

And Jeff's post seems remarkably intelligent and correct.  Its just a different flavour of douchbaggery.

There's no chance of a law being passed for the whole EU on this.  Just the fact that it's the Germans who want to do it is enough to ensure it won't happen.

Is X-box live regionalized to the point that Germany can be shut out of the Crackdown Demo?  If not I'll bet it is real popular there.

Those games being banned in germany doesn't mean they don't have them. In reality it just makes getting those games slightly more difficult, they just order the games from just outside their borders and pay a little more porto. That might be the reason for the Eruope-wide initiative. Fuckers want to destroy that possibility.

I'd be amazed if xbox live doesn't already record the country your xbox from so it can record usage stats by market.

Also, I presume live knows your credit card number, therefore it knows where you are paying from.

So yes it is.

Wow this thread got rerouted into retard city fast. While I overall agree with Stray in the "WTF are you on about" department, I think Jeff Kelly wins the thread.

Well maybe I should have just posted something to the extend of "Fuck you all, noobs" to be part of the F13 crowd? :-D

Nice Kittens

I thought you were talking about Corpnews for a second before I remembered I had read your post pre-edit. :P