Germany may ban violent video games

Legislation being proposed in Germany could see people who play violent games being jailed for up to year.

Regional politicians in the states of Lower Saxony and Bavaria have proposed laws that would see players and retailers of games that feature 'cruel violence' being locked up.

In reality, this could mean most first-person shooters or horror-based games for the PC, PS3 or Xbox 360 with a age game rating of 16+ could be banned for violent content. The proposed legislation would also apply to online gaming, affecting over two million German players.

The controversial laws are reaction to a shooting in November, when an 18-year-old shot himself after injuring 11 others in an attack on his school. He was reportedly an avid gamer and there is a growing backlash in Germany to violent games.

Germany already has very strict gaming bans in place and, unlike in the UK or US, games developers have to edit out gratuitous content and bloodletting in the German versions of their games.

As reported in the Financial Times, there is a growing anti-violent games lobby and surveys are showing that many Germans want violent games severely curbed.

“It is absolutely beyond any doubt that such killer games desensitise unstable characters to violence and can have a stimulating effect,” said Günther Beckstein, Bavaria’s interior minister, earlier in the week.

The German computer entertainment market is worth over £1bn a year and is the third largest in the world. The legislation, if passed, will severely damage its entertainment industry and severely impact the revenues for the major console and games makers.