German shrinks call for videogame ban

[Twin-Skies]

German Shrinks Call Violent Games “Landmines for the Soul”, Seek Ban

http://gamepolitics.com/2007/12/03/germa...-seek-ban/

Murder simulators?

So twenty minutes ago…

The new catch phrase to describe violent video games has been crafted by a group of psychotherapists in Germany:

Landmines for the soul…

As reported by Heise, the German Society for Scientific Person-Centred Psychotherapy (GwG) claims that parents are somehow being duped into buying violent games for their children on the basis that they promote “media competence.”

Thus, the GwG, which claims to be the largest professional organization of psychotherapists in all of Europe, has called for a ban on violent games. GwG spokesperson Elke Ostbomk-Fischer, who came up with the “landmines” line, told Heise:

In the past few years, the exposure of young people to dangerous media has reached such a shocking level that politicians need to act immediately before an entire generation of children and adolescents are taken in by this whirlwind of violence… [A ban is the only way to] maintain the fundamental consensus of a humane society.

Ostbomk-Fischer disputed the idea that a ban would make violent games more attractive to German youth:

This is clearly not the case for traffic lights, theft, and a murder.