"Killerspiele" Update (The "Why the EU can't define Killerspiele" Edition)

The European Union wanted to present a unified front against the producers of the so called "Killerspiele" - and they couldn't do it. And that's a good sign, because in the end it means there is no such thing as a "Killerspiel".

The members of the EU tried to define what a "Killerspiel" is, but they couldn't find the characteristic of such a game. That's not much of a surprise to me, because even in Germany we have not been able to define the "Killerspiel", as much as the conservative politicians tried.

What surprises me far more than this is the fact that they still pull out the topic whenever they need something to talk about that does not have anything to do with our real problems in Germany. I think, it's basically because they still think it's only a teenage phenomenon and thus their voters (although not their future voters) think the same way about it than they do.

And it's usually the older politicians who are very set about the whole topic - in other words: It's those politicians who have already fought against violent movies in the past and see this new topic as pretty much the same. The younger ones don't talk a lot about it - even though 'younger' in German politics doesn't mean 'young' the way everybody else would define it. A 'younger' politician in Germany is someone younger than 60. (And that's only a very little bit sarcastic.)

There are even some fair reports in the media by now (there's a good heise-article I can only recommend, although it's in German). Not many of them and not where the majority of those who don't know much about games can find them (most of those articles are online), but it's a good sign.

Nevertheless, the great discussion seems to be over (and unemployed people make a much better subject for the various TV-programs anyway) and until the next person runs amok in Germany, there's probably not going to be a lot of talking about.

For one thing a council deciding on art in Germany has proclaimed that computer games - no matter of which kind - are art as well, thus forbidding them would be censorship, something politicians in Germany don't like doing (too many unwanted parallels to the past).