http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-14748027

A German ban on selling Doom to teenagers has been lifted after 17 years.

The classic video game was put on an index of controlled titles in 1994 as it was deemed likely to harm youth.

Like pornography, sales of the violent shoot 'em up were restricted to adult-only stores.

The rules have been relaxed because officials believe that Doom is now only of artistic and scientific interest and will not appeal to youngsters.

However, one version of the game remains on the index because it features Nazi symbols on some levels.

Funny how things change in 17 years. I mean, the content hasn't changed but the reason the ban has been lifted is that there are now more graphically violent games which will cause Doom to have less of an impact on their kids.

Do video games actually cause people to go mental? I'm usually in favour of age ratings on certain media... but banning outright, is that necessary ever?  

Posted by Xaphan

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-14748027



Funny how things change in 17 years. I mean, the content hasn't changed but the reason the ban has been lifted is that there are now more graphically violent games which will cause Doom to have less of an impact on their kids.

Do video games actually cause people to go mental? I'm usually in favour of age ratings on certain media... but banning outright, is that necessary ever?

I believe banning isn't necessary, but I also favor the age ratings on media. Media titles can be very misleading, and you never know what's actually in it. The ratings mainly solve this problem.  

officials believe that Doom is now only of artistic and scientific interest and will not appeal to youngsters.

Scientific interest? Lol.  

Horse****. I played Mortal Kombat while I was in the second grade and I didn't turn out to be some violent head-ripping serial killer. Germany is usually incredibly anal about these kinds of things and will outright ban media. Don't even get me started on how ******ed they get with nazi material.  

It's no surprise that politicians don't understand how videogames effect anyone, and idiot journalists don't help either by making insane claims just to draw attention to their otherwise ****ty articles. "Man commits murder, had a copy of Grand Theft Auto 4 in his house... clearly influenced by violent games!"  

Dusty imagine that but 10x worse, that's Germany for you. Video game bans and censorship is just ******ed overall though. I bet if you depicted New York in a terrorist situation it would be a huge no-no.  

Posted by Crono

Dusty imagine that but 10x worse, that's Germany for you. Video game bans and censorship is just ******ed overall though. I bet if you depicted New York in a terrorist situation it would be a huge no-no.

Many movies and games had to remove any content that even remotely dealt with an airplane and a tall building... even if it wasn't crashing but just flying by. And this is only just beginning to loosen up.

I don't doubt that other countries are worse off, I know Australia is particularly bad about it as well. You know what though? It's not the censoring that gets me but the inconsistency. One game gets by with insane amounts of violence but another game gets banned for a little blood. It's really stupid and I wish governments would let parents actually be parents instead of acting like a strict babysitter.

ps I've grown up playing violent games and watching horribly bloody movies. I'm probably the one of the nicest people you'd ever meet. If someone manages to let a video game influence their real life then they had problems to begin with. Sooner or later they would have ****ed up whether they played a video game or not.  

Exactly. It's like when they blamed Rammstein for the Columbine shooters. Ridiculous, especially when you consider the fact that almost all of Rammstein's songs are about sex.