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Greek Game Ban

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Fellfrosch:
I'm kind of surprised that no one has reacted to my news post on the game ban in Greece. Despite my expression of disbelief, the news is very real--if you don't trust gamespot, the same story is running on msnbc.com.

So what do you think of this? If you live in Greece, you can be fined tens of thousands of dollars just for owning a computer game-regardless of whether you play it or not. If you visit Greece as a tourist and take along your gameboy, you could go to jail. Sure, those of us who neither live in nor visit Greece have very little to fear, but it's a frightening precedent in two ways--first, it's a sign that Greece could enact even more totalitarian laws in the future, and second, there's a possibility that similar laws could spread to other countries.

What do you guys think of this?

Lord_of_Me:
it's really annoying, that's for sure. Other countries probably will get ideas. apparently google is banned in china!

Prometheus:
This one is a bit hard to respond to. It seems a bit surreal still. (Google's ban in China, however, doesn't surprise me at all) Reportedly the reason they're banning all this stuff is that they've had problems with illegal gambling. Is the problem over there really that bad? Also, whoever decided that they couldn't differentiate games used for illegal gambling from legitimate games...it's hard to know what to say about that. A Gameboy, for instance, isn't going to be communicating with anybody. Even internet based games can be monitored for financial transactions. It just doesn't seem very hard to me. The fact that people inside Greece are allowed to challenge the law is encouraging. I don't think the international community will look favorably on it either, particularly since their citizens are being held for something silly. I could always be wrong, but it seems much more like a horrid legislative mistake than a move towards totalitarianism or a new type of gameless world to me.

Tage:
I don't think it will last. Legislation like that in democratic (or at least open-speech--I'm not familiar with Greece's government) nations is too rediculous to stay intact. I bet the only reason it got passed in the first place is because the common people weren't paying attention to what their legislative bodies were doing, otherwise it would have been protested long before it got passed.

Entsuropi:
you guys wont know about this, but last year 8 british tourists were put in jail for photographing some planes. they were planespotters and the planes were civilian.  there was a big outcry in britain - did nothing. the greek dont give a flying f*** about the international community by the looks of it. besides, nobody said they were particularly bright. all their stuff happened millenia ago, and they went for sciences and philsophy - not the most common sense of subjects are they? besides, they were all gay. believe me on this one. small boys and old men went along well together in ancient greece.

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