Shardz

That's absolutely crushing. A country that allows child pornography won't allow drug references? What am I going to do without Fallout 3?

Generally shouldn't the parents be making a choice for their kids about whether they should be playing super violent games? Most of the other 3 pertain to adults, or common sense (seatbelts. Come on!).

Offering two versions would be rather ideal. This way if people don't want their children seeing such violence/sex, they can get the censored version. People who don't care, grab the full version.

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TheSkudDestroyer

And where does the US get off saying that's wrong?

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|TG-6th|Skud
BMT Graduate - 320th Training Squadron, Flight 024 - MSgt Romero - "Kids no more!"
30 weeks Keesler AFB, 1W031 - Weather

Shurikane

The problem is: the average parent is too mind-boggingly stupid to care about what his kid sees and plays, so we, the government, have had to make up a law for them.

In pretty much every good family I've met, I learned the parents either imposed some restrictions on violent/mature games and/or made sure their kid could distinguish reality from fiction. Sadly, those kinds of families are very few and far in-between. Most of us don't really realize the impact since we're adults already and couldn't give a rat's gluteus maximus about how disturbing a game might be.

Now, the other end of the spectrum: a family I know completely ignores what the kids do. Those kids are aged 13, 11 and 10 respectively, give or take a year. Last time I went to their place, I found a fair pile of adult comic books full of coarse language, gore and several rape scenes. The kids fought and cussed each other off on a constant basis. They asked me to install GTA: San Andreas on the computer for them. I refused.

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Donagel

"They asked me to install GTA: San Andreas on the computer for them. I refused"-Rocks

I once saw a 9 year old kid in a grocery store thanking his dad profusely for buying GTA. After a little internal discussion, I went over to the dad and said "You do know that in this game you can sleep with prostitutes, kills cops, etc" Guy looks at his son with a angry looks and says "no (empahsis)I(/emphasis) didn't, and then marched the kid out of the store. You know it was the kids fault after all...

As a dad of three, I have to spend considerable effort to allow the kids to electronically explore, while filtering the stuff they can't handle yet. Its tough and it kinda slowly kills the punk rocker I once was.....

As to censorship, its a tough call. How far should a governement go towards saving people from themselves?

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"Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard." - H. L. Mencken

Nathrael

Well, the problem isn't that children aren't/shouldn't be allowed to play games like Manhunt (a game which I seriously dislike by the way), but that censorship does not only restrict children, but also adults. A "18+"-rating is always fine (as long as you can still sell/buy the game, unlike in Germany - there are two kinds of 18+ games: those who are just 18+, and those who are on the "Index", a list of games which are not allowed to be advertised or be placed on the shelves), but censorship rarely does any good. Why can't I see the sex scenes in Fahrenheit (Indigo Prophecy over there in the USA; the scenes aren't worse than anything you see in a 16+ Hollywood movie), when I live in the USA (although, unlike in Germany or Australia, I could easily obtain a uncut version somewhere)? Why can't I see blood when I want to play the German version of nearly any shooter? It's funny what they have done to Half Life 1. There weren't any soldiers, but robots - if you killed barnacles, they spit out valves etc; if a scientist got killed, he just sat down and shook his head, drawing enemy fire on him but not able to "really" die.

Of course, there are things that should not be shown in any game, ie Nazi propaganda etc, but does it really corrupt me if I watch a person consuming a Joint in a video game, does it corrupt me if I see two people having sex? It's not like I play games for such scenes, but I want to play the games as their developers had them intended to be, not how the government thinks how it is acceptable.

The government should not censor - it should encourage or teach parents to watch what their children are playing, at least until it can be said that they are mature enough. I'm far from being representative, but I often played games that the German rating institutes would never give me, I played Doom 3 when I was 15, various 16+ shooters when I was 12, and spend at least a hour, usually two, every day, to play games that censors say "teach children how to operate a firearm", but unlike the large majority of other young people here in Austria (who spend far less time playing shooter games), I've never been in a fight (well, I was attacked a couple of times, but I never fought back; I don't know how it is in other countries, but Austria's youth - including foreigners - is pretty aggressive).

As for GTA; sometimes, I think people exaggerate about it a little bit. I haven't really played it for a long time, just once together with a friend, we tried to steal a tank from the military base and wreck cars on the street with it, and while the game surely is _far_ from being ok for kids, I can't see why a 16+ player shouldn't. But maybe I just haven't seen the "worse parts", and I only played the censored version (yeah, unlike me, my friend usually bought the German versions), so I probably shouldn't talk too much about something I don't really know. Doesn't change though that I think it's great how you (Donagel) told that kid's dad what he just bought his son.

Sorry if I made some grammar errors in my post, for I'm rather sleepy and have had a hard day, and I'm not a native speaker.

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Sirusblk

Censorship is wrong no matter what IMHO. It should be allowed as an option not a decision. I'd love for Valve to let me turn on Party Mode for my machine only.

The problem isn't Germany, the USA has the same thing in a different form.

It's nice to know that Valve re-rendered their footage for Germany

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