February 2, 2008
The Finnish Christian Democratic Party (CDP) has issued a call for video games to be screened for violent and sexual content before being made available to the public.However, as reported by Afterdawn, video games sold in Finland are already age-rated by the PEGI (Pan European Game Information) system. The Finnish Games and Multimedia Association (FIGMA) has raised objections to the CDP's demand, saying:
[Additional content screening would] decrease the number of released games, cause delays in release schedules, and increase the price of video games.
FIGMA officials also fretted that, faced with too many barriers, Finnish gamers would simply acquire their games through alternative channels.
Big Thanks To: Longtime GamePolitics reader Lee Jarvis aka ZippyDSMlee
Comments
Organized religion also helped establish a good deal of respectable schools around the world that promote proper discourse and compassion for their fellowmen.
Don't let the stupidity of the dumber members of the flock entice you to make blanket statements like that.
Nice find, of course a progressive country has to show some failures every now and then otherwise we would already have moved there.
Oh, i think the PTC should change their name to ORCSTC, or over-restrictive christian stereoytpe television council. Just a thought. No offense to any christians, im as close to being a christian as you can get without being one. (Catholic)
We have known this for many-a-week.
Zippy is a protected species after all *rolls eyes*...LOL
Seriously, they REALY need a reality check! there are worse things in this world than VIDEOGAMES! Want proof? Give Darfur and Rwanda a look.
They are minority party and Finnish gamers should not be worried about this because like the news says, FIGMA already corrected their false assumptions.
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Papa Midnight
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Papa Midnight
Rowanda was caused by VIOLENT VIDEOGAMES!!
The CDP needs to just come out and say it. They don't like videogames and want them banned from the public. Then we can see how much support they would get.
Its the island of misfit mascots for you!
....Are they removing the games that have violence or sex? Or are they just putting a label of some sort hmm perhaps an M or AO of course either way prices will rise
If its the first= !@$&^ @#$^@^ $%!!@ @$^@ !&$@*
if its the latter=*$@#^ ^&@@ *%@#!$ &*$#%@(slightly less swearing)
I wouldn't say it's the religion itself. It's simply insecure people who cannot cope with the pace of the world around them - this can be seen as they are clearly unawares of the barrage of ratings boards associated with releasing games, and indeed any sort of media, to a foreign country. For example, I'm Christian and I've been apart of the creation, not to mention thoroughly enjoyed, some of the games I'm sure spawned this group to begin their grasp for attention. I'm afraid this is just another group giving the rest of us Bible thumpers a bad name.
BTW, Papa Midnight, it's not a waste of tax dollars. It's a waste of tax euros ^^
Let me adjust my comment to be more specific...
Organized religion should be outlawed or at least taxed heavily and prohibited from engaging in political and social discourse involving none believers or members.
Now personally I fail to see why churches are exempt from taxes, but saying they deserved to be singled out is idiotic.
Where do you draw the line between organized religion and unorganized religion. Heck, how do you define organized religion. Frankly a church has the same rights as any other private entity. It can lobby the government and it can attempt to represent the collective voice of its members.
While only in the context of the US im pretty sure most of the amendments cited as protecting games from being unfairly singled out would protect a church/churches/national group of churches from being singled out for massive taxes.
But hey, its okay to tax something you don't like.
I dispute that statement entirely and completely.
The sane people are, unfortunately, the minority in any organised religion.
this is a ok idea, I also like how law can be tied to the sale of mature stuff to minors, looking at Germany things are not baned persay but are merely hidden from the view of minors, a system that merely regulates the sale of mature media to minors via fines/fees and not bans and crapping on the high ground sounds good to me.
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Protecting the world from steak only makes more cannibal's.
thats like saying all communists are black boot in fact ed elitists seeking to rule the world under a iron fist.....
Organized Religion has 1 factor I dislike, the top 25% tend to be rich elitists who make a hobby out of being busy bodies this is almost truthful for anything organized by humans, the choice of "hobby" might change depending on the org.
You're thinking of Nazi's, not Communists. Well, maybe Stalinists, but they're hard.
I suspect we could find a lot more 'bad influence' within the ranks of the 'leaders' than in a game.
Pretty much everywhere, not just in Finland, of course.
Regarding drawing the line, you are correct it is a very difficult thing to do to be sure. I tend to draw the line at the point where such organizations feel their morale and or social code should be applied to others via governmental entities. This is so because I believe faith to be irrational and it can easily lead good decent people down the path of "evil" by doing/taking rational or logical steps. Moreover I do not think such organizations should have the same rights as any other private organizations for the prior reason in principle and since they claim special social status as institutions of faith.
@Twin-Skies - I dont doubt that such organizations have help improve the quality of life for many. But I do question the idea of what "proper discourse" is as it is a highly relative concept as well as "compassion for their fellowmen" if (s)he choses to not believe or live according to institutional values.
In general I know that a great many good hearted, kind and civic minded people are believers and truly feel they are doing what is right in accordance with their faith and I respect that to a large degree. I have also seen a lot people have problems in their lives caused by such organizations and their dogmatic principles of blind faith and unquestioned obedience to cause.
I guess it boils down to what is perceived as "good" or better yet how "good" is defined and how best to promote that idea to others and our children. In general I define "good & bad" in terms of welfare and suffering of others and self. But I digress...
It is as Steven Weinberg said “With or without [religion] you’d have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, it takes religion.”
I think they want to chip away every last shred of crime, no matter how clean the nation is at the moment. If the PEGI is really that effective in Finland, then the CDP is just jealous of their work and trying to make them look bad.
I see organized religion as another way humans mob up, not so much the mafia style but just general human grouping, its no worse or better than anything else humans have done.
Nice quote BTW,but it can be stretched to include government and other human organizations, its rather easy to blame religion since it such a large target but lets face it on the whole humans are quite pathetic.
Anyway, we are way off topic here and I do not wish to turn this into a debate on religion vs liberty. So back to the topic at hand...
If this private group wishes to educate its members about the "dangers" of gaming with regards to its values, then it should pay for the research itself and disseminate the results to it faithful without involving public resources, regulations or hampering business, trade and choice of consumers.
Honestly, folks that wish these sort of ideas, should think how the same laws can backfire on their own enjoyments. Since it'll be gamers who wont come to their defense, when such laws are pass.