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[Previous entry: "Strategic ambiguity"] [Main Index] [Next entry: "Your blues artist name"] 14 June 2003: "We got trouble, right here in River City"
Via Jackie D, who in turn got it via Mr. McGillicuddy (who uses Blogspot, so no permalink), comes the revelation that Greece banned all video/computer games in July 2002. All games, even the standard Solitaire and Minesweeper which come with a standard installation of Windows. Take your mobile phone to Greece and you could find yourself the subject of a criminal prosecution. This is somehow supposed to help stamp out gambling. I wasn't aware that Greek organised crime had been running cut-throat Snake II tournaments in warehouses on the Piraeus waterfront. "Two men with Nokias enter, one man leaves"?
(4) "Violent video or computer game" means a video or computer game that contains realistic or photographic-like depictions of aggressive conflict in which the player kills, injures or otherwise causes physical harm to a human form in the game who is depicted, by dress or other recognizable symbols, as a public law enforcement officer.It's been pointed out that description potentially covers an awfully wide field; East German Volkspolizei and Soviet KGB border guards, members of the city watch in medieval/fantasy settings, Imperial stormtroopers ("Are these your droids?" "Let's see some ID."), you name it. Perhaps more to the point, this law doesn't outlaw the sale of these games to 17 to 21 year-olds, who, one might think, form a higher-risk category than adolescents. Update: regarding the Greek games ban, Steven Sharp writes in to note that by September last year, the Greek government was working on clarifying the new law; see this BBC article. The article does note that actually repealing the law was likely to be rather difficult, since it was passed with the approval of the government and opposition. I think the lesson we can draw is that hurriedly introduced legislation tends to suffer from bad wording, and that this is a lesson lawmakers everywhere should take to heart. |
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