Crytek developer reveals current state of gaming in Germany

A sad, sad day.Recently, an entire chain of events has been sparked in Germany by a shooting incident which, supposedly, can ultimately be traced back to the violence portrayed in video games. First, it was the proposal which involves litigation of the people who made these types of games, then came the proposal to jail those who played these games, and just recently came the proposed bill which calls for the banning of such games.

Many have stated that perhaps the German Parliament members were just trying to look good in the eyes of the older members of the public. However, Tim Partlett, a game developer for Crytek who has been involved in such projects as Far Cry, points out in a revealing post that this sort of attitude from the German government has been around for longer than we think.

To quote a passage from his entry:

“In 2004 the Bavarian authorities sent in the state troopers. Ostensibly it was as a response to a claim made by a former employee that we had illegal software installed on our machines. Their remit, however, appeared to be a lot wider. When the small tech team appeared to inspect our computers, they were accompanied by over one hundred flak-jacketed riot police, all armed with Heckler and Koch sub-machine guns.

It was a total overreaction. It was like they expected to find us hunkered down behind our desks, pulling out our shotguns and semi-automatics and shouting “you’ll never take me alive, polizei!” They arrived first thing in the morning, and kicked down our doors. They even raided the nearby private residences, with one of our programmers forced to lay down naked on the floor with a gun to his head after he discovered armed police in his room after finishing his shower.”

He goes on to point out how another homicide has been blamed by the media on video games, and yet it was almost never mentioned that the suspect was drunk at the time and was already an unstable individual who was obsessed with violence to begin with.

For those who want to see another part of this picture, we would recommend that you go over Partlett’s article for a minute or two by clicking on the link below (it’ll take you to the Quarter to Three Forums), as it makes for both an educational and enlightening read.

A sad, sad day.Recently, an entire chain of events has been sparked in Germany by a shooting incident which, supposedly, can ultimately be traced back to the violence portrayed in video games. First, it was the proposal which involves litigation of the people who made these types of games, then came the proposal to jail those who played these games, and just recently came the proposed bill which calls for the banning of such games.

Many have stated that perhaps the German Parliament members were just trying to look good in the eyes of the older members of the public. However, Tim Partlett, a game developer for Crytek who has been involved in such projects as Far Cry, points out in a revealing post that this sort of attitude from the German government has been around for longer than we think.

To quote a passage from his entry:

“In 2004 the Bavarian authorities sent in the state troopers. Ostensibly it was as a response to a claim made by a former employee that we had illegal software installed on our machines. Their remit, however, appeared to be a lot wider. When the small tech team appeared to inspect our computers, they were accompanied by over one hundred flak-jacketed riot police, all armed with Heckler and Koch sub-machine guns.

It was a total overreaction. It was like they expected to find us hunkered down behind our desks, pulling out our shotguns and semi-automatics and shouting “you’ll never take me alive, polizei!” They arrived first thing in the morning, and kicked down our doors. They even raided the nearby private residences, with one of our programmers forced to lay down naked on the floor with a gun to his head after he discovered armed police in his room after finishing his shower.”

He goes on to point out how another homicide has been blamed by the media on video games, and yet it was almost never mentioned that the suspect was drunk at the time and was already an unstable individual who was obsessed with violence to begin with.

For those who want to see another part of this picture, we would recommend that you go over Partlett’s article for a minute or two by clicking on the link below (it’ll take you to the Quarter to Three Forums), as it makes for both an educational and enlightening read.

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