German Social Affairs Minister Wants to Rate World of Warcraft "Adults Only"

[Kekkis]

Oh and noes.. Well 2 bad for German ppl if Social Affairs Minister get what she wants.

http://www.gameculture.com/node/1177

[merujo]

i always find kinda pathetic these measures after "things" happen.

[beyond-tec]

I.
they're trying to forbid first-person shooters since Counterstrike was released.
you can still buy it in the shops so it will take ages to rate WoW 18+.

II.
even if they rate it 18+, nothing would change. The mother, father, brother, sister....
of someone would buy the game in the shop. Done. The rating of "adults only" is only
for selling it in the shops, not for creating accounts, paying the account etc etc...
so it wouldn't change anything here.

[magwo]

Meh, retards.
Kids don't kill kids due to violent inspirations - kids kill kids when they are unhappy, abused and/or suffer from mental illness.

No legislation in the world can replace treatment, tolerance, respect and kindness.

[beyond-tec]

kids are bored, school ends at 14:00, they don't need to help their parents,
don't need to work, they just hang around with their friends, they don't have
any problems / worries... they just hang around doing nothing and wasting time.

too much free time = too much stupid ideas in a society that doesn't have any
laws to convict kids that are under 16 years old and try to help kids instead of
punishing them for what they've done.

we got gangs here of ~20 kids that hurt other people, rob them, even stab them
down with knifes etc. and can't get punished because they're 14 years old and
the only thing our legal authorities can do is take them home and talk to their parents.

but hey...
rating WoW as adults only will truely solve this issue.... for sure.. I promise... yeah....

[Bigfish]

Another case of someone looking for political ammunition from an unrelated source.

[Bigfish]

Also, I want my Adult's Only content. Dryads gone wild, brothels in every capital, severed heads and limbs, and the grim, harsh realities of STDs and Pregnancy.

[Basilikos]

Also, I want my Adult's Only content. Dryads gone wild, brothels in every capital, severed heads and limbs, and the grim, harsh realities of STDs and Pregnancy.
Multiboxing that would be hilarious. One of your drones not doing quite what you want? Make them suffer!

[Qtrain]

If anyone remembers and played "Carmageddon" I want it remade and set to a "G" rating, man that was a fun single player game, very old at this point . Blood guts and goo and dead bodies all over.

[Smoooth]

I think food should be banned. Every single murderer in the history of mankind ate food sometime before killing. Coincedence? I think not!

[magwo]

I think food should be banned. Every single murderer in the history of mankind ate food sometime before killing. Coincedence? I think not!

Your clairvoyance is a feast for the mind.

[Mooni]

So............................
..............
....how do we go about getting this done in the rest of the world?

[Stealthy]

If only they could restrict the WoW forums to 18+ :P

[AtroxCasus]

Actually, while parents are IMO ultimately to blame when their kid goes off the reservation, there is in fact a link between media violence and the rise in violence by kids. Media being movies/tv/videogames etc...

A recent study showed that in countries where the television is/was introduced and becomes common place, including the US, the incidents of extreme violence doubled in 15 years. (That's a generation of 15 year olds for those counting). For the US they used FBI statistics on violent crime from the 50s, and then the early 70s.

In a large number of "high school shootings", kids have demonstrated uncanny marksmanship, including one who killed everyone with single shots to the head or "double taps" to the chest. He attributed his abilities to playing shooter games.

Also in high school shootings, most have been stopped simply because an adult went up to them and said "What are you doing? Stop this", and they did. This suggests a connection between the real life shooting and when they are playing a game. They're at home, killing away, and mom says "Hey turn it off and come eat" and they do. They follow the instructions of the adult. Studies also suggest that when these kids are shooting, they cease to see classmates, and merely see "targets" or "points", they are so disconnected from the act of murder by having repeatedly shot and killed hundreds or thousands of people/zombies/monsters.

Go ahead, flame away, but the reality is that the only reason you don't hear more about how the media contributes to violence is that the media would have to tell you they do. Instead, they put it on the parents 100%. Yet, we have laws that kids can't buy liquor and guns. Nobody lets those industries tell us it is 100% on the parents. Here's another example: Every school has state of the art fire alarms, sprinkler systems and practices fire drills. When was the last time you heard of a school fire? But in an age where school shootings are on the rise, when was the last time you heard of a "school shooter drill"? Nobody is doing it because it's easier to call these things aberations and hope that "parents" keep their kids from going nuts. Reality is that a kid is more likely to be shot in school by another kid than he is to be caught in a fire at school.

[Bigfish]

A recent study showed that in countries where the television is/was introduced and becomes common place, including the US, the incidents of extreme violence doubled in 15 years. (That's a generation of 15 year olds for those counting). For the US they used FBI statistics on violent crime from the 50s, and then the early 70s.


Correlation does not equal cuasation. You could just as easily make the case that rapid industrialization and improved communications technologies in said countries allows for better reporting and tracking abilities.

Oh, and http://www.schoolsafety.us/pubfiles/savd.pdf. School shootings are way, way down.

[AtroxCasus]

A recent study showed that in countries where the television is/was introduced and becomes common place, including the US, the incidents of extreme violence doubled in 15 years. (That's a generation of 15 year olds for those counting). For the US they used FBI statistics on violent crime from the 50s, and then the early 70s.


Correlation does not equal cuasation. You could just as easily make the case that rapid industrialization and improved communications technologies in said countries allows for better reporting and tracking abilities.

Oh, and http://www.schoolsafety.us/pubfiles/savd.pdf. School shootings are way, way down.


As for better reporting, my source was "On Combat" by Andrew Grossman, and the way I read it, the information was taken recently, going back 50 or so years. So the reporting and tracking has no bearing on the data, which was recently researched. As far as I know, no country every did a quick "what was violent crime like 15 years ago" survey after everyone had TVs.


School shootings may be very well be down, but it doesn't change the fact that schools are much more prepared and willing to be proactive for fire than they are for a shooting, and when was the last school fire with casualties you can find?

Regardless, I'm not saying WoW needs a rating change or anything. I'm just saying that to deny media impact on real world attitudes and events is foolish. Regardless of where you lay the blame, the media presents images and opportunities proven harmful to youth and it isn't really regulated like other harmful products. Another example in his book was of a case study where they took teens who had violent histories and behavior problems, and while they were at some school, they put them into 2 study groups, where one was not permitted television, and to everyone's surprise not only did the no TV group have the most significant improvement in behavior, but the worst kids of that gorup had the most improvement.

I know that you can study any issue and find evidence supporting both sides of it, so I'm not saying there isn't room for error. I just think dismissing video games, movies and TV as factors in some of the "aberrant" behavior seen in the last 20 years is risky.

[Bigfish]

So the reporting and tracking has no bearing on the data

lolwut?

You happen to have a link or a citation for where this "study" is? I'm moderately curious how this was carried out.

[Vicker]

Actually, while parents are IMO ultimately to blame when their kid goes off the reservation, there is in fact a link between media violence and the rise in violence by kids. Media being movies/tv/videogames etc...

A recent study showed that in countries where the television is/was introduced and becomes common place, including the US, the incidents of extreme violence doubled in 15 years. (That's a generation of 15 year olds for those counting). For the US they used FBI statistics on violent crime from the 50s, and then the early 70s.

In a large number of "high school shootings", kids have demonstrated uncanny marksmanship, including one who killed everyone with single shots to the head or "double taps" to the chest. He attributed his abilities to playing shooter games.

Also in high school shootings, most have been stopped simply because an adult went up to them and said "What are you doing? Stop this", and they did. This suggests a connection between the real life shooting and when they are playing a game. They're at home, killing away, and mom says "Hey turn it off and come eat" and they do. They follow the instructions of the adult. Studies also suggest that when these kids are shooting, they cease to see classmates, and merely see "targets" or "points", they are so disconnected from the act of murder by having repeatedly shot and killed hundreds or thousands of people/zombies/monsters.

Go ahead, flame away, but the reality is that the only reason you don't hear more about how the media contributes to violence is that the media would have to tell you they do. Instead, they put it on the parents 100%. Yet, we have laws that kids can't buy liquor and guns. Nobody lets those industries tell us it is 100% on the parents. Here's another example: Every school has state of the art fire alarms, sprinkler systems and practices fire drills. When was the last time you heard of a school fire? But in an age where school shootings are on the rise, when was the last time you heard of a "school shooter drill"? Nobody is doing it because it's easier to call these things aberations and hope that "parents" keep their kids from going nuts. Reality is that a kid is more likely to be shot in school by another kid than he is to be caught in a fire at school.

Elderly people and people with leg injuries tend to walk more slowly. They also tend to fall down more often. If one were to perform a statistical study to correlate walking speed and frequency of falling, the results could be interpreted to mean that people who walk slowly tend to fall down more often.

Consider this: Kids who are emotionally disturbed tend to enjoy shooting people in video games. They also enjoy shooting people in real life. That doesn't necessarily mean that the video games are provoking them to perform school shootings.

Another point that I would like to make is that my high school had a lot more school shooting drills than it had fire drills. I remember several drills that involved school-wide lock-downs. The doors were locked, the windows covered up, and everyone was instructed to move to a part of the room where they couldn't be hit by someone firing at the door.

Furthermore, people wage plenty of wars based on religion, i.e. the Crusades and the problems with the Gaza Strip. I wouldn't say that this calls for a ban on relgion; I would say that it's the fault of poor interpretation of religion. Religion shouldn't be banned because there are nuts out there who brandish it like a weapon. Don't ban video games because of the nuts either.

[Bovidae]

My wife is a schoolteacher and their school has an annual lockdown drill which is directed at preparedness for school shootings whether it be from a student, or an armed felon evading police. They also perform 3 fire/earthquake drills over the course of every year.

In all the years she has been teaching, she has experienced many MANY (read 12:0) more kitchen fires and earthquakes than school shootings, suggesting that their drill ratio of 3:1 is over preparing for a shooting, rather than the eminent threat of a 4.0 earthquake (lulz) [/derail]

I support an AO rating, integrated pr0n, no language filters, and less children. ftw

[hardcoded]

I think food should be banned. Every single murderer in the history of mankind ate food sometime before killing. Coincedence? I think not!Food is fine.
Ban Dihydrogen Monoxide Now! ('http://www.dhmo.org/')