I am from Germany, and we have the strictest laws on gaming “violence” there are. Some games dont even come here, because of that (like Dead Rising, God of War (was later released, dunno why it was delayed) and Gears of War, just to name a few).

Most games, that would get a 18+ rating here (more or less comparable to pegi 15 or the british 15 or ESRB T (yes TEEN, not always but often)), are nearly always cut (Command & Conquer was a pristine example, though well done mostly).

Its good that Austria and Switzerland do also speak german and are in the same region as we are… Importing those titles is not (as long as they are not banned (there are 2 sorts of bans in Germany. “Beschlagnahmung” and “Indizierung”, the first being totally illegal, even to have such a game were the latter only completely forbids sale, ads and whatnot to people under 18, which also means, no normal store can display them. Usually my 18+ video rental store has these games, so no real biggy here), which pretty seldomly happens, to be true… I only know of 2 games right now. Mortal Kombat 2 and Wolfenstein 3D (there were some “Nazi Games” on the Amiga which were also banned, but those were not banned because of violence, but because of hatred, racism and such…)

The recent discussions about “Killerspiele” (Killergames) from the likes of Beckstein, Schäuble and the other guy are just plain stupid. They also display Counterstrike, Doom and GTA as Killergames, but EXACTLY these games were censored here to get a 16+ rating (nearly no blood, people dont die in CS, they just get tired!! NO KIDDING!). In TV they always show US/UK releases, which are hard to get here (nearly impossible to get under the age of 18, because importing games 18+ requires you to have a legal ID which states your age which you need to show to your UPS guy on arrival). Ok, there are bloodpatches, but not every kid is as good with computers as I am, nor does every kid play their games on a pc (not bloodpatches for console games at all).

These recent pukes out of Jacksons mouth (just MY humble opinion, dont sue me, I am german!) are equal BS. Really But not as bad as we have it though… Our politicians do that, hes just a mere lawyer from Fl.

Hm… done ranting (for now, looking at you Schäuble, Stoiber, Beckstein and the other guy, who is “strangely” member of a german NRA thingy… No guns for normal people here (only you have a licence which requires such a membership)… But ban games…)

I think he’s targeting MS in this mailing since his Sony mails were ignored in the past. I bet Sony will get one soon.

People like him and Parents that blame games/books/music/movies for their own lack of parenting skills are the root of the problem. Not the media they are so against. Growing up I heard from so many idiots that Rock and Metal music was satantic. These same idiots would have burned the media and people that wrote them a few hundered years ago. They do more damage to the community then the objects they complain about. They care more about their own warped belief then they care about other people. And yet they call the entertainment evil or damaging.

Its only a way to blame someone else instead of taking responsibilty.

If Mr Thompson was so concerned about moral values he would look to stop the sales of these games to minors in the first place.

There again I do not see Mr Thompson going out and suing Wal*Mart, Best Buy or EB Games for selling these games to minors, nor launching a campaign to educate parents about what they are buying for their kids.