Venezuelan Game Ban Okayed, Gamer Reacts
Venezuelan Game Ban Okayed, Gamer Reacts
November 5, 2009
Venezuela’s parliament has approved a law that lumps in toy weapons with videogames and bans the import, production or sale of both groups of items within the country.
The law was approved late last week and will go into effect within three months, reports Russian news agency Ria Novosti. The law features strict penalties of up to three to five years of incarceration for each offense. Previous reports also claimed that campaigns would be launched to warn about the dangers of videogames and that Venezuela’s consumer protection society would have full decision making abilities over what games to ban.
On BoingBoing, a 26-year old Venezuelan gamer named Guido Núñez-Mujica has penned an article detailing his distaste for the new law, even in the face of government harassment that could emerge from his public denouncement.
A few excerpts:
This law makes selling video games to anybody actually worse than giving real guns or cigarettes to a minor, or even forcing him or her to work, as you get less jail time and lower fines if you do any of those things.
These games are a cherished part of my life, they helped to shape my young mind, they gave me challenges and vastly improved my English, opening the door to a whole new world of literature, music and people from all around the world. Now, thanks to the tiny horizons of the cast of morons who govern me, thanks to the stupidity and ham-fisted authoritarianism of the local authorities, so beloved of so many liberals, my 7 year old brother's chances to do the same could be greatly impacted.
But I'd rather go to jail than betray the gamer culture, partially responsible for making me the person I am today.
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Posted 02/09/10 at 11:20am
Valdearg: The catholic teachings, perhaps, but certainly, there are PLENTY of Catholics who condone violence and hate. Just like these guy
Valdearg: The catholic teachings, perhaps, but certainly, there are PLENTY of Catholics who condone violence and hate. Just like these guy
Posted 02/09/10 at 11:19am
gellymatos: violence or hate against anyone.
gellymatos: violence or hate against anyone.
Posted 02/09/10 at 11:18am
gellymatos: Like I said, paranoia that the law could make it illegal to voice an opinion on gay marriage. And catholics don't condon...
gellymatos: Like I said, paranoia that the law could make it illegal to voice an opinion on gay marriage. And catholics don't condon...
Posted 02/09/10 at 11:15am
Valdearg: Can you find a different reason behind the lawsuit, other than the fact that they want to protect their "right" to perpetrate violence against homosexuals, based on their religious beliefs?
Valdearg: Can you find a different reason behind the lawsuit, other than the fact that they want to protect their "right" to perpetrate violence against homosexuals, based on their religious beliefs?
Posted 02/09/10 at 11:14am
Valdearg: The fact is that this Law Center, which specializes in the defense of Catholic Beliefs, kind of like a Catholic ACLU, I suppose, is challenging a law that PROTECTS homosexuals from violent acts motivated by hatred of gay people.
Valdearg: The fact is that this Law Center, which specializes in the defense of Catholic Beliefs, kind of like a Catholic ACLU, I suppose, is challenging a law that PROTECTS homosexuals from violent acts motivated by hatred of gay people.
Posted 02/09/10 at 11:13am
gellymatos: Again, sorry I jumped the gun like I did.
gellymatos: Again, sorry I jumped the gun like I did.
Posted 02/09/10 at 11:13am
Valdearg: @Gelly: It's a liberal blog. Its not designed to be balanced. Does that mean that everything there is completely false, and not worth investigating? Nope.
Valdearg: @Gelly: It's a liberal blog. Its not designed to be balanced. Does that mean that everything there is completely false, and not worth investigating? Nope.
Posted 02/09/10 at 11:12am
Valdearg: To be completely honest, I would argue that that assessment is more biased and farther from reality than the Daily Kos assessment.
Valdearg: To be completely honest, I would argue that that assessment is more biased and farther from reality than the Daily Kos assessment.
Posted 02/09/10 at 11:12am
gellymatos: I'm sure the story itself is true, it's just that the site seems to be biased. More so than Fox. And that takes effort.
gellymatos: I'm sure the story itself is true, it's just that the site seems to be biased. More so than Fox. And that takes effort.
Posted 02/09/10 at 11:11am
Valdearg: Would you rather I link straight to the horses mouth? Here's the story from the Law Center involved in the suit.
Valdearg: Would you rather I link straight to the horses mouth? Here's the story from the Law Center involved in the suit.
Posted 02/09/10 at 11:10am
Valdearg: @Gelly: I love how you jumped on the A_L train, and EVERYTHING that EVER comes from Daily Kos is questionable. Clearly, NONE of it could POSSIBLY merit a closer look.
Valdearg: @Gelly: I love how you jumped on the A_L train, and EVERYTHING that EVER comes from Daily Kos is questionable. Clearly, NONE of it could POSSIBLY merit a closer look.
Posted 02/09/10 at 11:09am
gellymatos: I'm sorry. I thought you were attacking the church due to your history of doing so. My bad.
gellymatos: I'm sorry. I thought you were attacking the church due to your history of doing so. My bad.
Posted 02/09/10 at 11:08am
gellymatos: ...that these laws will make it illegal to voice an opinion against gay marriage. Third, Your source is questionable. And by...
gellymatos: ...that these laws will make it illegal to voice an opinion against gay marriage. Third, Your source is questionable. And by...
Posted 02/09/10 at 11:07am
Valdearg: @Gelly: Wow, jumping right to the defense of the church, despite the fact that I never implicated the Catholic church?
Valdearg: @Gelly: Wow, jumping right to the defense of the church, despite the fact that I never implicated the Catholic church?
Posted 02/09/10 at 11:06am
gellymatos: , not orders from the church. Second, the paranoia about these laws that SOME christians have is based off of the parnoid idea..
gellymatos: , not orders from the church. Second, the paranoia about these laws that SOME christians have is based off of the parnoid idea..
Posted 02/09/10 at 11:05am
gellymatos: Vald: Where to start. Oh yes. First, he doesn't seem to represent the whole church. His doing this out of his own conviction...
gellymatos: Vald: Where to start. Oh yes. First, he doesn't seem to represent the whole church. His doing this out of his own conviction...
Posted 02/09/10 at 10:59am
Valdearg: Honestly, the only thing I can imagine is the plaintiffs think it's their religious right to perpetrate violent criminal acts against homosexuals. Unfortunately, knowing some folks like that, it wouldn't surprise me if they did believe that.
Valdearg: Honestly, the only thing I can imagine is the plaintiffs think it's their religious right to perpetrate violent criminal acts against homosexuals. Unfortunately, knowing some folks like that, it wouldn't surprise me if they did believe that.
Posted 02/09/10 at 10:59am
Valdearg: @AE: I know, right? The only thing that law does is make a violent criminal act more severe if it was motivated by a hatred of homosexuals.
Valdearg: @AE: I know, right? The only thing that law does is make a violent criminal act more severe if it was motivated by a hatred of homosexuals.
Posted 02/09/10 at 10:43am
Andrew Eisen: What's amazing is the folks at that Law Center can't seem to read plain English that states that nothing in the law restricts someone's right to think what they want or say what they want.
Andrew Eisen: What's amazing is the folks at that Law Center can't seem to read plain English that states that nothing in the law restricts someone's right to think what they want or say what they want.
Posted 02/09/10 at 10:39am
Valdearg: But, hey, people are capable of anything when they use their religion as justification for their blatantly bigoted behavior.
Valdearg: But, hey, people are capable of anything when they use their religion as justification for their blatantly bigoted behavior.
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Game Politics and Game Politics logo are trademarks of the ECA.
Comments
<Venezuelan Police Officer> Did you give that child a NERF gun?
<Venezuelan Citizen> I thought it was a real gun! Honest!
only in Venezuela…
岩「…Where do masochists go when they die?」
Damn that sucks. Socialism ftl.
http://www.eliteownage.com/nice
Calling it that is an insult to it. This isn;t socialism, it's totalitarianism.
Actually neither is responsible. Venezuela is a constitutional democracy. It is indeed a socialist state and is not a totalitarian dictatorship. But that doesn't mean socialism is to blame. Bad government is to blame. After all, similar laws are being proposed in capitalist countries - does that mean capitalism is responsible? Of course not. Bad government can come in any form - capitalist, socialist, democracy, dictatorship or anything else.
My bad for the blanket statement.
Still, if a government becomes worried that a video game will lead to them being overthrown, then they're likely a bad government and deserve a good tossing.
LOL! You can't nationalize and control an economy without controlling the people. You can't make sure that everyone takes home the same paycheck (regardless of work) without controlling the people. Socialism REQUIRES totaliarianism in order to function. Why do you think it took the Soviets and Mao in order to implement it?
Wow I can see anti-socialist propoganda really does work.
Socialism != communism
Just like Capitalism != Facism
Honestly. Learn the differences before you decide to get all up in arms about it.
I blame Fox News. They always say that free health care is socialist and USSR are socialists, so free health care is bad. Seriously, out of any community, why would anybody here believe anything Fox News says.
Zerodash
Dude lay off the kool aid, Socialism/Communism even Capitalism can work well if the principals are kept to when you allow for too much greed and exploitation from a small proration of the populace you gain corruption and instability as a by product. Incapitalism you have to work to keep the middle class fat and happy at all costs in Socialism/Communism you HAVE to treat all members of society as equally as possible if the government makes its officials into nobles to farm fromsociety its due to greed(and fou capitalism) more than "Socialism/Communism".
Until lobbying is a hanging offense I choose anarchy! Stop supporting big media and furthering the criminalization of consumers!! http://zippydsmlee.wordpress.com/
So it's illegal to play tetris over there, oh dear, oh dear
On BoingBoing, a 26-year old Venezuelan gamer named Guido Núñez-Mujica has penned an article detailing his distaste for the new law, even in the face of government harassment that could emerge from his public denouncement.
How long till the Venezuelan government and Chavez's order to arrest Mujica (and probably torture and execution for him) for criticizing the government's ban for video game?
so is it all games or just the violent ones (its bad either way). if its all games than the ban is about as stupid as the one greece did a few years ago but that was because the dumbass government could not tell a video game from a game for gambling.
I was wondering this too. The article here makes it sound like ALL VIDEO GAMES. But, surely not.
Venezuela’s consumer protection society would have full decision making abilities over what games to ban
Meaning they could do the work much like the ESRB or BBFC, or, more likely, just ban them all and call it a day.
I love the fact that the whole idea is blatantly sold as 'taking the aggression out of our youth', as though being aggressive and standing up for your rights is unacceptable, though, in all honesty, it probably is in Venezuela, they aren't even trying to hide it as 'violence'...
Heh, I'll be laughing when they're stuck scratching their heads over the spike in youth crime rates and the new black market come up.
Do venezuelans realize that Hugo is a dictator?
"One would think that after ten years of Socialist government focused on the poor and against the evil rich, the fiercely egalitarian Venezuelan MPs would have found the time to increase the taxes of the hated rich to the same level of such boring, bland, flavorless, countries as Finland, New Zealand, Sweden or Canada."
my contry may be boring, bland and flavorless but at least you wont get killed and robbed when crossing the street.
I think he's using the official Venezualan political rhetoric to prove a point, the sentence may well be missing a couple of quotation marks and be intended as satire.
Since when are dictators elected to office by popular vote and kept in office constitutionally?
The idea that Hugo Chavez is a dictator is patently false and arises out of pure ignorance. His government may be doing stupid stuff, but not because Chavez is a dictator - it's because governments of all stripes often do stupid stuff.
From wikipedia:
"The weak dictator has, for any social goal he/she has in mind, and for any political scenario, a course of action that would bring about the desired goal. For the weak dictator, it is usually not enough to "give their orders", rather he/she has to manipulate the political scene appropriately. This means that the weak dictator might actually be lurking in the shadows, working within a political setup that seems to be non-dictatorial. An example of such a figure is Lorenzo the Magnificent, who controlled Renaissance Florence."
Are you defending that crazy fuck? Are you defending his taking of freedoms from people like the boy who just wants to play games like us? Yes, he did some great political moves to make his bullshit "legal" or "constitutional" but please don't tell me you are coming to his defence.
Be careful what you say about Hugo. The man is beloved by most of the Left in the US.
I feel your pain.
If things go bad in my country, I will move out of Australia.
Playing videogames is worse than playing with a toy gun?
Now THAT is really screwed up.
If you can't change your country, move out of there as soon as you can.
You may lose your family and friends who don't have emails, but you are able to still be who you want to be.
Move to Canada, that is my advice.
Two word. Torrents. Enjoy.
Careful there, don't want a military platoon kicking down his door for plotting against his government.
[quote]This law makes selling video games to anybody actually worse than giving real guns or cigarettes to a minor, or even forcing him or her to work, as you get less jail time and lower fines if you do any of those things.[/quote]
Assuming this is true I [b]seriously[/b] question the intellect of the Venezuelan government.
Haha, google, "Hugo Chavez".
More like "Google 'HTML formatting'", amirite?
I like the excerpt of what the guy said. It does sound like Venezuela would be banning all games. Plus does that mean that even a game that has like a little blood in it would be banned?
"It's better to be hated for who you are, then be loved for who you are not." - Montgomery Gentry
Better jail every one of the Venezuelan poitical officials with a cellphone as most cellphones certainly have a game embedded on them at piont of sale. In fact, they had better start jailing all salespeople selling cellphones as they are most certainly purveyors of game filth.
Wow Venezuela, just wow.
chavito el pendejito
since i am from colombia and i've seen who he supports (getting money from narcos and stuff) a have a great distaste in my mouth every time he opens his. He looks like a frog too.
"Now, thanks to the tiny horizons of the cast of morons who govern me, thanks to the stupidity and ham-fisted authoritarianism of the local authorities, so beloved of so many liberals"
PWNED!!!
Just kidding but I love that part in the article.
And people wonder why the us calls him all the things we call him.
Douchebag. Hope you have a revolt in your country and get tossed out.
Should stuff you in a box and send you to siberia.
Yukimura is still here. "When he's at his best, he's little less then a man, and when he's at his worst, he's little more then a beast." W.S
This is so ridiculious????
Never underestimate the power of idiots in large amounts.