I must apologize for the headline. They didn’t want to burn the games, just dispose of them. But the result would have been the same. They being a group called Aktionsbündniss Amoklauf Winnenden (something along the lines of Coalition Killing Spree Winnenden), comprised of parents that lost their kids in the last major killing spree in Germany.

They had this great idea to dispose of the killergames. Just put a giant container in a public place and tell the people to toss the stuff in there. And to give a better incentive, let’s have some prizes! Everyone that throws a game in gets the chance to win (among other things) a soccer tricot. But not just any tricot, oh no! It’s signed by the whole German national soccer team! Oh boy, the kids will love it!

The content of the container after 4 hours can be seen in the embedded video:

According to the group, they collected about two dozen (!) games over the course of the day. A questionable result, if you watch the video. There is a whopping number of 4 games in the container (two PS2 games, a single CD and a Gameboy cart). But Hardy Schober, the head of the group, still called it a success. It wasn’t the goal to collect a lot of games, they just wanted to make a statement and start a discussion about the banning of violent videogames from children’s bedrooms. “If we can prevent a single killing spree in Germany, we have met our goal.” he said later.

Not that I don’t give the people the right to try to change things they don’t like, but a) the whole idea was just ridiculous b) blind fuzzing isn’t helping anybody and c) this really offends me as a gamer. And the fact that they hired a security firm to watch the scene isn’t helping. So what, they expected a lynch-mop of angry gamers to storm them Bravehart style?

They are judging me and everyone else that plays video games prematurely, simply because they think our hobby was the cause of a violent crime. And I’m not the only one that thinks that way, as the Association of the German Videogamers (Verbandes für Deutschlands Video- und Computerspieler) had a counter demonstration set up next to them.

There are plans to repeat the whole thing in different cities and I hope they come to one near me. I want to watch the trainwreck with my own eyes.

Update: I found a video of a cameraman advising kids to throw games into the container to take footage of it for the news. I wonder if the games were in there before they shot the video, or if he brought them with him. Also a number of people have commented on German news sites saying that the 24 games handed in claim can’t be right, as they were there and saw (and took pictures) of only the 4 that are shown in the video.

via Gulli.com and Netzpolitik.org (German)