[tayete]

I've read in the news today, that the Government of my country (Spain) is going to propose to the rest of the European Union, to apply laws against too violent video games.
Of course, nothing is tolden about films and TV, only video games.
I feel ashamed of living in a place where you cannot decide wether something is good for you or not.
On the other hand, what has caused this decission, is that Barking Dog (the makers of Homeworld) are going to develop "Global Operations" (a 1st person FPS) in which you can acquire the role of an ETA terrorist and kill Spanish policemen. For those out there who don't know, in Spain we have a *big big* problem with bascques terrorists, that every year kill dozens of innocent people (teachers, lawyers, politicians, periodists, writers, and policemen/policewomen), trying to impose their dictatorship. It's a group similar to the IRA, but with no historical background.
As such, I can only condemn Barking Dog's choice, as they are making fun of innocent people's deaths, but anyway, I don't think this should lead us to a censorship. Liberty of expression/publicing is essential for the freedom of our mind.

[This message has been edited by tayete (edited February 27, 2001).]

[schabe]

yep, censorship sucks. in germany are some games e.g. Quake3Arena indexed. so they cant be sold to youth people with age < 18. and advertisment for this games is not allowed. so you wont see this game in a shop but may ask the personal to eventually get such a game. it sucks.

regarding basque terrorists: i heard that they fight for the indepence of 'basque country', as the IRA fights/fought for independence or northern ireland ? well anyway this violence sucks and wont lead to any solution.

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((( www.jzone.de )))

[Spitfire]

Well said. Couldnt agree with you more.



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4LL J00R 4R7 4R3 B3L0N9 T00 U$!?#!?@#$@!?!111

[Ragnarok]

I didn't know that.
Damn PP!
*sigh* well, they may change their opinion before they made the law. If I could vote...

About vasque country, it isn't the same as in Ireland. It is completly different. The "vasque people" have their own laws, their own senate, own goverment, own taxes, own almost everything. And they say they don't have freedom. Hah! ETA kills everybody who isn't vasque (being vasque the ones who think vasque country should be independent, not the ones who have lived in the basque country all their lives), so who hasn't got freedom?

I live in Navarra, next to the basque country, and they say this region should be independent also. I get quite angry with these stupid, brainwashed people...

And now I won't be ablo of buying a good game to discharge all the fury. Damn

[Giant Hamster]

Censorship in anyway is horrible.

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-JameZ the Giant Hamster-

The Hamster Alliance
AIM: Gianthmstr
Multimedia Producer/designer/all of the above.,overall guru :)...and music music music! weee!!

[the_monkey]

i think censorship to an extent is good. do we need to see boobs on tv? not at all. do we need to see senseless violence in videogames? im sure its unhealthy in one way or another, maybe not now, but as technology advances into realism i think we'll be crossing the line. i enjoy fps's cuz they are fun, and challenging and whatever. but i think that certian games should not be sold to anyone under the age of 18, sure parents should have the upper hand of deciding what is right for their kids and what isnt. but hardly any parents care what their kids is playing, and most of the time, they dont know. i had quake 1 on my system for years untill my parents even knew about it. when they found out, they wern't pleased, but they still trust my own judgment.

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Maho: the online Comic

tradgedy is when i cut my finger.
comedy is when i fall down a manhole and die.

[shahar2k]

damn right ceenda
games have become an excerise in simulation, no longer is it a defined game, but "how much of the real world can we shove into this CD" that being said though Deus ex is a great game, as much for what they left out as what they put in.
in that game things happen which many people would consider "adult" whores are harrased by their pimps on the street, people are killed, and dark twisted agendas reveal themselves. however nearly everything there has consequence, kill innocent people, or even mercilessly kill enemies and consequences will occur.

on the other side, are games like GTA and carmageddon, which both actually REWARD you for the violence, however these games have absolutley no need for their story. the gameplay is there, and it is "dressed up" as violence.

you might as well be giving people money when you shoot them, and asking them nicely when you carjack them, but the gameplay of lining up the shot, shooting and avoiding being shot yourself is there, seprate from the violence and gore. the gore is there for one thing only. the "edge" this is not gaming hower, this is MARKETING. this is research, people will buy a game based on simple cheap "edge" (look! in this game you are fighting people who all walk on their hands!!!) as opposed to deep gameplay, all deep gameplay determines is how long people play the game... and what kind of money does that make.

censorship is fear, I do not believe in fear. If a game is not allowed to come out in a country, it will still be avaliable by unregulated means (black market, internet W4R3Z...) and avaliable only to those people who do not want to pay a full price for the game. yah the moral majority will shut up about it (it's not longer a censorship problem, but now it's a "piracy" problem) but it's still a problem.

people watch movies to see the MOVIE, but the movie commercials show explosions instead
people play games to PLAY. people who don't play games, only SEE games. once more people play them, then games will become more accepted

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Maybe I'm paranoid... maybe it's you!

[Giant Hamster]

i think censorship is bad in every way. there is no good reason for it.

keeping sex away from little kids?

thats why they have parents.

but what if they sees it by accident?

so what. its natural, its healthy, and there is nothing wrong with sex. it doesn't give you bad breath, make you kill your brother, or tell you to run away from home. so i dont see the problem. plus they have to find out sometime.

i feel parent should explain this stuff to their kids in the first place, not shroud it and tell them its evil.

most children wont ever see any sex on tv or anywhere else untill they are atleast 5-7 because if they have parents then they are probally watching them carefully....or atleast should be.

if the child happens to stumble across daddy's prono library the parents should explain it all to them, they might not comprehend it, but atleast give it a shot.


thats my take...

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-JameZ the Giant Hamster-

The Hamster Alliance
AIM: Gianthmstr
Multimedia Producer/designer/all of the above.,overall guru :)...and music music music! weee!!

[LeChuck]

"...I feel ashamed of living in a place where you cannot decide wether something is good for you or not."

Welcome to America

[ceenda]

It would be nice if gameplay made a return some day, too.



[This message has been edited by ceenda (edited February 27, 2001).]

[Guy]

i agree on how stupid cersorship is when it comes to games. it should be left up to the parents to see what is right or not for there kids, but a little censoreship is good. like keeping porno away from young kids and all that stuff, but yeah.. censorship can be really dumb

[PandaX52]

So what if one game is politically offensive...Just cancel that game, it would certainly seem justified with what tayete said about making fun of innocent people's deaths....why should all the other games have to suffer if only one is creating the conflict?

[Typo Dave]

Tayete and Ragnarok, I was in San Sebastian and Biarritz 2 years ago. I was waiting in a queue at a web cafe in San Sebastian and an old man walked past me and the Americans who were waiting in the queue (I'm Australian, by the way).

The old man started yelling at us, in Basque. I couldn't understand a word he was saying.

Why do the Basque people have resentment against Americans? I have heard that McDonalds can't open any restaurants in Basque territory because they get firebombed.

I was surprised by the level of Basque sentiment in those towns (and even in Pamplona). Basque flags were everywhere.

I understand that the Basque language and culture are unique in Europe. But isn't Spain made up of several very distinct regions (Andalusia and Catalonia, for example)...so what makes the Basque so extreme?

The Catalonians in Barcelona seemed very patriotic, but they don't resort to violence like the Basque.

I know that Franco used the German Luftwaffe in the 1930s to bomb the Basque people (as depicted in Picasso's painting). So have they always been targets for Spanish governmental oppression?

I ask this because I simply don't know, not to cause trouble!


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For thought provoking discussion, come and visit the Society for the Perpetuation of Independent Thought


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[Spitfire]

Censorship is bad because it forces the ideas of one upon many. No matter what terrible things it shields your eyes from, it�s still an attack on your personal freedom of choice.

The thought my (nonexistant) kids being told on television what�s right and wrong is much, much more frightening to me than the thought of them seeing hardcore porno. Much.

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4LL J00R 4R7 4R3 B3L0N9 T00 U$!?#!?@#$@!?!111

[Ragnarok]

agree spitfire.

Typo, I know nothign about why basque people are against americans.
But you should know that the people that want to be independent is a minority.

Actually, the basque flag is the flag made for a politician party (PNV) that is nationalist.
And some of those nationalist have distorted history and try to make people think the basque country once was free and independent until the spanish bad people come there.
The thruth is so different. There was a time when the regions they call Euskalherria were united, but that was under the navarro king Sancho, who conquered all that land. And people spoke basque in a few villages.

And no, they haven't been always target of opression. Only during the dictatorship of Franco, because right after his dead and the begin os the democracy they elected a nationalist party to govern over them and they are still there. No opression.

But they kill periodists, policemen, workers, cookers, politicians, everybody that doesn't want the basque country as an independent nation.

Well, I could write a lot, but I don't know what you want to know...

And hey, visit Spain, not only the north. People in the south are more friendly and there are beautiful monuments.

-Ragnarok

[ceenda]

Giant Hamster: The problem IMHO, is when sex is presented (often in films and video games) as something that is instantly available and gratifiable. This is not often true of life(unless you're in that kind of relationship!) and hence people tend to become frustrated that they cannot get what they are trained to believe is their 'right'. The way sex is presented in the media encourages a selfishness that will only cause unhappiness IMHO.

I'm not a prude, but I am concerned.

[tayete]

Hi Typo!

Well, I think RAGNAROK has explained it very well, and he knows what he's talking about because he lives in Navarra (whose capital is Pamplona) and suffers from time to time the violence of those who think that Navarra should be too part of the Bascque country (??? nobody knows why, as Navarra was an stablished kingdom when the bascques were still living in caves).
The flag you could see everywhere is a flag that a man created 40 years ago (that's what I meant with "no historical background", and Ragnarok explained a bit more), the same that their nationalism idea and their language (it's a mixture created 30 years ago from the different variations of bascque that exist, that sometimes have nothing to do one with another).
And you could see that flag everywhere for one simple reason: there are few people who want to be independent from Spain, but they try to be everywhere, try to harrass every popular fiesta they find, and worst of it all, they are so feared that nobody says anything, as they will even try to kill you. It's the empire of terror, and everybody wants peace, except those terrorists. They say they want democracy, but kill politicians from every party: christian-democrats, socialists, comunists, anyone... everyone who doesn't share their terrorist ideas must be killed.

And well, they are agains *ANYTHING* they consider from outside their tiny villages, so you Australians (and americans, and british, and french, and andalusian, and *EVERYBODY*) aren't welcome.

As simple as that.

[travis travis]

Censorship is stupid and in its own way dangerous... but... it would never be an issue if people weren't always trying to jump to an extreme without a good reason- like Tayete said about what Barking Dog is doing with their game - of course that's going to draw negative attention. It's extremely poor taste as well, to take interesting subjects and just use them cheaply for a videogame, if you're going to develop a game with 'issues' then it better have a story to it, it shouldn't just be a mindless excuse

[eureka]

There are those game makers that should be critisized for the extreme violence in their game. Parents should protest their game and stores should refuse to buy their game. But the government should not stand in their way if they want to make the game and offer it for sale. Nobody is being forced to buy it or play it.

Of course if you believe in the argument that a cartoon camel can make kids smoke, couldn't a violent video game lead them to violence? Maybe, but in a free society we have to accept that people are going to say things we don't like.

[the_monkey]

quote:

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Originally posted by Spitfire:
Censorship is bad because it forces the ideas of one upon many.

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the same can be argued about the freedom of choice. which i agree, should never be restriced or taken away, im just being the devils advocate here...


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Maho: the online Comic

tradgedy is when i cut my finger.
comedy is when i fall down a manhole and die.

[Visionary]

The opinions on this are great. I agree with just about every side on this.

Hehee. Some feminist gave a speech at my college (mind you this is a polytech computer video imageing college) about how video games ruin the minds of people and I quote "is online electronic masterbation".

Needless to say this video game topic turned into war. I've found however that its once again a case of where people not understanding the situation at stake so they fling out false reasoning to violent crimes.

[Giant Hamster]

quote:

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Originally posted by ceenda:
when sex is presented (often in films and video games) as something that is instantly available and gratifiable. This is not often true of life

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As I said, thats why they have parents.
to explain these things.

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-JameZ the Giant Hamster-

The Hamster Alliance
AIM: Gianthmstr
Multimedia Producer/designer/all of the above.,overall guru ...and music music music! weee!!

[This message has been edited by Giant Hamster (edited February 28, 2001).]

[PandaX52]

Amen to that Ceenda! -certain- movies and games DO portray sex in such a way...


couldn't have said it better myself...