Pope: Brutal computergames are sick

When will they learn to compromise? It's like in the United States, at 16 you're "old enough" to drive a car (endangering the lives of others); at 18(17) you're old enough to join the military and see all sorts of gruesome things (and vote), and at 21 you're "old enough" to drink alcohol... and I think 18 is the age of "M" rated video games. Why don't they just come up with a standard age of 'maturity' and apply all those things to that age.... like 19. 19 would be good. 19 to drive, 19 to drink alcohol, 19 to vote, 19 to join the military, and 19 to play "M" video games... that would work better than trying to abolish everything that people see as "too graphic and EVIL"... silly pope, and senators, and congressmen.. and everybody else who's silly.

Poor americans. In Austria, it's legal to drink Alcohol at the age of 16.

Héh, In Belgium you can drink beer from 16, harder alcohols from 18...

On topic: I think all those politicians and stuff should stop putting their idea of a videogame as law. They should get parents informed about it, forbid the sale of M games to minors, and make it punishable by law. Seems extreme, but than people can't shift the blame to the games anymore. The problem with children/people who do things like in games (seriously, there are like 300+ movies about every action you see in a game now... why not target those??), they should be followed up by their parrents. Its easy to say "ah, he's still with his new Quacke 4/GTA" and a few years later complain that games have made him an antisocial messed up kid... (not that videogames cause that, but if you put a kid from a young age alone in his room, sooner or later its going to turn out antisocial....)

- all of this is IMHO !

great idea...
another game idea would be a monastry manager...your job would be hiding all kind of sexual harrasment and blaming it to video games and TV.

Hah, just found this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkNvQYiM6bw&mode=related&search=

very funny if you ask me :p

As an italian I can say you don't know how boring that guy can really get and how much he can influence politics in my country. He is now trying to stop the introduction of civil unions (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_union) in the name of god (this kind of moves looks like a Non Expedit, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non_Expedit ). I'd like to see the army enter Vatican City and kick his ass out of Italy, maybe bush (yeah, bush, not Bush, he doesn't deserve a B) will give him another house...

{(endangering the lives of others)}

I have 16, i drive a car, a have job i dont put lives in danger sir, you are too falling in the same game...

There a quite a lot christian games, here's a german article about them:
http://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/web/0,1518,381915,00.html

I didn't quite expect to find another Belgian here, Alvaron :P

Anyway, the church also wanted to prevent us from reading The Da Vinci Code...

mmm i can't imagine in what genres can fit.. maybe FPWH, first person witch hunt..

The most extrem example going through the german news some time ago is http://www.eternalforces.com/screenshots.aspx.

Here you have to put all 'unbelievers' out of their misery. And to me it looks more cruel than most of the many FPS i've tried, including all the 'Bad' ones like Doom, Wolfenstein, etc.

Computer games are just another scapegoat. It goes in cycles. This year we'll bash computer games. Next year maybe Hollywood stuff. Everything that shifts the responsibility from the parents is a possible scapegoat, so they won't have to face the fact that it was their own fault that little Johny can't distinguish reality from fiction on the screen. As to politicians (and the Pope, perhaps), they've learned to profit on this kind of stuff. They make games/music/films a threat so to have an enemy to fight against and prove themselves to their audience. Other than that, i sincerely doubt any of them really takes some time to understand what they are attacking. "hey, there's blood in it, so its good for bashing". No one cares if Johny sees disemboweled people dying in Iraq on the news. No one cares if the world *is* indeed a violent place. They just want to profit from the destruction of a threat of their own creation.

I remember buying my first computer-related mag in 1995. The cover story was something like violence in computer games degrading our kids minds - true or false. Fear sells.

Parents and the kids themselves are to be blame for youth violence, not video games. I am sure the Pope has the right intentions but he is totally misinformed. About the Eternal Forces game, I don't think the Pope agrees with it and I don't think I agree with the Pope.

I don't usually comment in this blog, but I decided the reaction to this entry merited it. There is a lot of hate and wrath directed at video games, and I can see that you're all very offended. Good. I'm offended, as well, but I also see a lot of hate and wrath directed at Christianity and Conservatism here. Well guess what, as a Christian and a political Conservative, I'm offended no less than you are at the attacks on video games. No, it's not right for politicians and religious leaders to blanket-ban something just because they personally find it offensive, but suggesting that someone should make a game about the Crusades, where the player runs around and slaughters Muslims is no different. If you want to prove that video games don't make people violent, then perhaps you should not send so much hate back on those who speak against them, hmm?

And just to save the next person who reads this some reply time, allow me to write your reply for you.
To: Yukikaze
From: someone who disagrees

THAT'S BULL**** U F**** MORON CHRISTIANS AND REPUBLICANS R THE REZON 4 ALL THE F**** CRIME IN THE WORLD I HOPE U F**** ROT IN HELL YOU F**** DUMBSH**!!!!111oneoneone!1!!!