Jamyskis

I’ve been reading a lot about the new Youth Protection Act here in Germany (German: Jugendschutzgesetz) and a lot of what I’ve been reading troubles me deeply. It appears that the video gaming industry and market within Germany is going to be wiped out by politicians that seem to think that we are unable to independently distinguish between what is right and what is wrong. All this is being carried out under the guise of “protecting Germany’s youth”, yet many of the existing measures and most of the new ones do little to protect the younger generation.

As it stands, all video games in Germany are required to carry a USK mark declaring as of which age the game may to be sold to an individual. If the game is deemed to glory war or violence, the game does not receive a USK mark, instead being passed onto the Juristenkommission to check that the game is not in violation of applicable law. If it passed, it is placed onto the Index, where the game may not be sold on the open market, rather only on demand. In such cases it means certain economic failure for the game and most companies will not choose to adopt it.

The latest modifications to the act include the increasing of the size of the USK seal (not such a big issue) to an extension of the criteria that allow a game to be indexed. It is this latter criterion that allows subjective and ill-informed judgements on the part of the USK and JK to decide on what is considered dangerous to young people and what not.

Let me get one thing clear - I am all for keeping violent games out of the hands of young people, and I wouldn’t wish any change to the USK system, except perhaps to forbid the USK to refuse a mark. Indexing, however, is a form of censorship, and censorship is forbidden in accordance with the German constitution.

These latest changes mark a more serious turn in censorship in Germany. Games can now be indexed on the basis of “displaying cruel, violent or inhuman behaviour”, which would include more or less any kind of war game or first-person shooter. Rome: Total War, for example, which received a USK 12 mark, would probably be indexed under the new rules by one examiner, probably not under another. It is these subjective factors that allow politicians to make arbitrary judgements  and enforce them based on their wishes and views. It’s a dangerous precedent that reminds one of 1933.

On the subject of which - did you know that displaying the Nazi version of the Hakenkreuz (Swastika) is illegal in Germany? Recent court judgements allowed the display of the Swastika for purposes such as opposition to Nazi practices or beliefs, or for use in historical footage. It’s been long known that in films, the Swastika has been allowed for use in portraying the villains, such as Neville Sinclair in Rocketeer, the Nazis in the Indiana Jones films, and so on, and so forth. While the display of the Swastika is no laughing matter, it is a perfect example of the double standards that exist in German censorship and why gamers are routinely discriminated against. Films may display it (so long as it does not glorify it), but games are forbidden from displaying it in any shape or form, as shown by the banning of the game Wolfenstein 3D for it’s use of the symbol and the Horst-Wessel-Lied, even though the Nazis are quite clearly portrayed as the villains.

It’s a joke of a situation and one that needs rectifying - there’s been no-one to really represent the interests of gamers (only entertainment industry associations, and that only because some of the interests are the same)