gaming and the Greek government

[baratron]

I have completely forgotten what I was going to post about. Grrr.

Finally got round to posting one of the thingies in rhythm_action that I've been meaning to post for months. I have a couple more entries to post there, but I think I'll leave them for a couple of days so as to not completely overwhelm the journal. It's always a bit sad when 90% of the posts somewhere are by the community's moderator :) If you have any interest in rhythm action games do go and join it - more members always welcome :)

Did any of you apart from hiddenpaw see the crazy news from Greece? In an attempt to ban unlicensed gambling, the government there managed to pass a law that makes playing computer games in public illegal. *shakes head in disbelief*. Fortunately, a court there has just declared the law unconstitutional. Well, thank God for that. It's a bit worrying when one of your main hobbies gets declared illegal...

Comments

[kiya]

I should tell roimata that the law was declared unconstitutional. She was the one who posted about it that I saw. :}

[otterylexa.livejournal.com]

I keep reading that as "Gaming and the Geek government"

[jaxom.livejournal.com]

And just think, with the european arrest warrant, the greek police could have arrested you in london for using a gameboy in public!

Ahah, you say, but it's legal in london. Well, the arrest warrant covers crimes that aren't crimes in all EU countries, like xenophobia, so don't be too complacent now...

(and yes, i know the greek ban isn't on the arrest warrant. Yet. Using a P2P service probably will be though if copyright law keeps going the way it's going)

[hiddenpaw.livejournal.com]

Unconstitutional? Thank god for that. It would have broken new and very dangerous ground.
Especialy if you concider the cultural importance of computer games.

[hiddenpaw.livejournal.com]

Now I think of it it must be just as possible to put across political and philosophical with computer games as with books, theatre, TV and drawing.

The only cases I can think of are Final Fantacy VII for the obvious enviromental thing and Cannon Fodder for the incident with the Poppy for the oppening screen shot.

Can any of you folks out there think of cases?