News that was missed in all the E3 drama: German ministers have started making plans to ban the distribution and production of all violent video games, with the law due before parliament in the coming weeks.

Germany have always had a pretty strict censorship / classification policy, forcing various big-name games to be edited before being approved for release in the country. Blood is not acceptable and anything to do with the Nazis is forbidden (understandably) - but this new move is a big one.


Turning Point: Fall of Liberty was subtly edited for German audiences.
The worldwide release (with swastika) is on the left, the German release (with a cross) on the right
According to German news website Chip Online, ministers of the interior representing each of the sixteen German federal states decided at a recent conference that they would ban the production and distribution of all video games "where the main part is to realistically play the killing of people or other cruel or unhuman acts of violence against humans or manlike characters."

Images like this will cause WoW to be banned, too.

By my calculations, that's taking out a pretty decent-sized chunk of the games market, something which would result in a massive loss for the industry. (The definition forbids obviously blood-thirsty games like F.E.A.R. 2 or Wolverine, but then much more G-rated fare such as World of Warcraft.)

And it's not just consumers and retailers who miss out - German game developers (such as Crytek would also be outlawed, meaning they'd have to outsource development to other countries.

The law is currently being planned to come into effect before the German federal elections in September, and is widely accepted as being prompted by the country's school shootings back in March, which were linked to Counter-Strike and Far Cry 2.

At this stage, it's not known if the law is facing any opposition as it is taken through parliament, but we'll keep you posted as we get updated.

...if nothing else, Australians please take note - we might not have an R18+ adult rating, but things could definitely be much worse.

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Thanks to jambo and Tarale for this news submission!
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