The EU Court of Justice in Luxembourg has handed down an historic sentence on the question of “violent games”. According to the European judges, called to rule on a case in which the German government was opposed to a private company in Bonn that owns videogame outlets equipped with “laser-sport” in which the objective is the virtual assassination of adversaries with the use of laser pistols, member states may prohibit games that simulate the murder of human beings since they “represent a danger for the public order and violate the fundamental values upheld in the (German) Constitution”. The ruling the first of the Court on the question of videogames that simulate assassination, though it is limited to the “variant of laser games that has as its objective shooting at human targets” could constitute a fundamental precedent for hundreds of suits brought each year on violent games, injurious to human dignity and potentially dangerous for social order. For further information, www.curia.eu.int
