German Gamers Start Petition Against The Banning of Violent Videogames

Living in Germany has some small disadvantages. Like having a government composed of old men that hate and fear everything that was invented in the last 20 years. It’s no surprise then, that a banning of the production and distribution of violent videogames (dubbed Killergames) is openly discussed by the ruling parties. I’m sure that this has nothing to do at all with the upcoming elections.

A group of German gamers that had enough, have now started an online petition against this lunacy. Now, before you roll you eyes and say “like that ever worked before”, you should know that this is not a little thing on some backwater blog. Let me use the words of Gamepolitics user Christian to explain:

In Germany citizens are able to post petitions in an official internet forum of the Bundestag. These petitions are “accepted” when 50000 German citizens electronically sign the petition. When petitions are accepted, the German government has to review, respect and discuss the petition’s postulation.

At long last a petition against videogame bans in Germany is online. One can sign the petition here. To watch the development of the petition one can look here.

As you can see, it’s completely official and the government has to discuss it if enough people sign it. And as things look now, that will most likely happen, since about 39,000 people have signed it in the 23 days it has been running.

It’s questionable, however, if this could change anything. The petition against the implementation of censorship of the internet was signed by 134,000 people, but the government simply moved the discussion of it till after the upcoming elections. Said bill has passed the Bundesrat (Federal Council) yesterday, which means that only our President of the State has to sign it to make it a law. Hooray for democracy!

Picture by Flickr user 96dpi