20°

Germans show Jack Thompson "the way"

Two German states have drafted a bill which would ban all video games which allow a player to inflict "cruel violence on humans or human-looking characters". This would mean a ban in all FPS games along with almost all MMORPG's in Germany, crippling the nations gaming economy and closing many German Counter Strike teams.

Germany already has the toughest game restrictions in the world and GoW has already been banned in the country but these new laws take the ban to a whole new level. The new laws come as a consequence of an attack on a school by a Counter Strike player which ended in his suicide.

If one thing comes from this, it makes Jack Thompson look like a pussy cat!

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joemutt6366d ago

But they probably wont let you hunt for any endangered or protected animals.

BlackCountryBob6365d ago

I forgot to mention on the article, it also bans development of the "violent" games so how will this affect the development of Crysis?

Sphinx6365d ago

Viva La Revolution! If I lived in Germany I'd be going nuts.

Sidherich6365d ago

I'm all for keeping games like GoW, Rule of Rose or Mahjong from minors. Right now in germany its a little bit like porn. Its allowed to be sold if the one buying it is 18 or older. You arent allowed to show it to minors thus having public ads for it is forbidden too.

Lets constuct an example with porn. Watching porn disturbs kids into rapists. Thus porn is responsible for all the rapists here in germany. The only effective way is to ban porn in germany and prohibit the filming of porn.
So everyone owning porn would be criminal ( including politicians ).

So if politicians would play as many video games as they watch porn we wouldnt have to face the threat of a ban here in germany

lame

Sidherich6365d ago

right now it is only possible to ban a game if it violates our laws. Most famous example is Caste Wolfenstein which would violate the restriction of showing nazi symbols (only exception for that restriction is art and documentaries).

If a game/movie/book features simply violence it is added to the index which means it can still be sold if you are 18

more on the topic here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wik...

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100°

Former Dragon Age lead writer David Gaider pours scorn on EA's AI dreams.

"They want you to believe the devs under them are super stoked to work generative AI into their processes," continued Gaider, "but I assure you what they took as excitement was really a veiled wail of despair not unlike the time that team was informed of their new 'really cool' live service mandate.".

LordoftheCritics1d 10h ago

Publishers see gaming as another stock market.

isarai1d 9h ago

I think anyone with some common sense knew this, im glad i don't support their games anymore, what a sh!t company.

Psychonaut8517h ago

Friends don’t let friends buy EA or Ubisoft.

Chocoburger17h ago

I said this yesterday. AI isn't what we want when it comes to crafting artistry. Alas, these soulless corporate morons don't care about their work, only about cutting corners as much as possible.

120°

Phil Spencer and the Battle for Xbox’s Soul

Has the rapid growth of Xbox made the ship too heavy? Following the closures of Tango Gameworks, Arkane Austin, and Roundhouse, we explore what the future of Xbox could look like.

LG_Fox_Brazil1d 14h ago

This ship was never meant to sail, this ship was made from the get go to sink as fast as possible. It almost feels that they want to lower the standards of quality in the industry so that they can fit in

rlow120h ago

I disagree, Xbox from the get go innovated and changed the industry. They did a lot of firsts and standardized a lot of others. It wasn’t till the beginning of the Xbox1 era that things started to go south.

Stevonidas16h ago

Yep, although I’d argue it started going to shit when they tried to hock Kinect on their audience instead of continuing to invest in their studios and IPs. 2001-2010 Xbox was peak gaming, though.

rlow115h ago

@Stevonidas
I agree they never should have focused on it after the 360 era. But you do have to remember they were faked out by the huge volumes of Kinects sold. To quote info on Wikipedia, “Project Natal, It was first released on November 4, 2010, and would go on to sell eight million units in its first 60 days of availability.” So if your Xbox and see these huge sales on a peripheral where are you going to put some money? Criticism in hindsight is worthless…..if only we could all see our future. In other wards they had no way of knowing. Plus they had engagement numbers and a lot of signs pointed to people wanting it.

Their biggest mistake wasn’t the Kinect, but unlike Sony after the PS3 debacle. They didn’t double on down on exclusive good games. The other huge mistake was letting Call of Duty go to Sony.

Hedstrom23h ago

Phil wants Xbox to be as soulless as him!

Tacoboto23h ago(Edited 23h ago)

Xbox has no soul and Phil has no confidence, and it's impossible to say either do when they killed Tango and Arkane Austin.

Everything they've said since has only made them look worse to a point that they're actually less competent than Embracer.

Markdn23h ago(Edited 23h ago)

Whe you release something like the series S and expect it not to hurt your business model, and developers have to have parity with games. Then you know Microsoft don't care. Series s is the final nail that broke developers,

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70°

A Matter Of Trust: What The Game Industry Should Do To Win Gamers Back

Skewed and Reviewed have written an Opinion Piece covering issues in the gaming industry, how current issues were issues years ago, and what can be done to help restore consumer trust.

anast1d 9h ago

Nothing. It's up to the gamers to stop consuming content from companies that they don't agree with.

Garethvk19h ago

How do you know if you agree with it or not unless you play it? Which without conventions forces gamers to rely on trailers. Perhaps Demos should be made more frequently. But companies need to do better as well.

anast19h ago

Wait until release. Watch Gameplay. Exercise patience.

Garethvk19h ago

But is that not what they have now? Tons of gameplay or are you talking about watching actual gamers play it versus the trailers and streams? The big issue is that some companies pay streamers and influencers and they create content but for me; that is hardly a fair, unbiased, and factual look at a game.

1nsomniac23h ago

Get rid of the suits in the industry and job done!!

Garethvk19h ago

They usually are attached to the money sadly. It would be nice to have gamers in charge but you have so much money invested that business people are needed. Hence the issue; you need people who know business but are also gamers who know have an eye to the community. It sounds simple in theory that if you give gamers quality games that they want to play; money will be made. But that is not always so.