Brazil Bans EverQuest & CounterStrike

AFP Google has a story about the banning of EverQuest and Counter-Strike in Brazil.

RIO DE JANEIRO (AFP) — Brazil this week imposed a ban on popular role-playing computer games "Counter-Strike" and "EverQuest," claiming they incited violence and were "harmful to consumers' health."
The federal prohibition on the sale of the games was being applied across the country, the official consumer protection agency in the central state of Goias said on its website Thursday.
Both games allow players, typically teenage boys, to connect online to fantasy worlds where they interact with other players, form groups and carry out joint missions usually involving combat.
"Counter-Strike," a first-person-view shoot-'em-upper based on the motor powering the popular "Half-Life" game, requires participants to choose a role as either a masked terrorist or an anti-terrorist officer before going forth with an ever-sophisticated array of weapons.
An adapted version in Brazil permitted players to take on the perspective of either a police officer or a narcotrafficker in Rio de Janeiro's infamously crime-ridden slums.
"EverQuest" is a swords-and-spells game in the mold of "Lord of the Rings" in which human or elvish or other imaginary characters go on joint adventures to gain treasure and increase their avatar's abilities.
Both began in 1999 and have since developed huge worldwide followings.
Some psychologists have described them as addictive as drugs. A few players have turned professional, earning money from powerful characters they sell, or from the auction of hard-to-win virtual items.
The ban was ordered in October 2007 by a Brazilian federal court, but was not immediately implemented.
The judge, Carlos Alberto Simoes, ruled that the games encouraged "the subversion of public order, were an attack against the democratic state and the law and against public security."

More information.

Excellent decision. God forbid Brazil became a violent place.

If only we'd known (long ago before we could even talk) that video games were the root of our problems, maybe we could have averted centuries of pain and suffering!

I rather suspect they did something against the rest of the world.

We have a saying here in Germany that goes like this:

"Millions of flies cannot be mistaken."

I don't why the article? still claims that most players of MMO's are 'young teenage boys'. Statistics clearly show that even for MMO's the average player is over 20+ as well as there being quite a few women playing MMO's actually.

On the other hand in Russia even adults seem to tale their online gaming way too seriously:

http://gamepolitics.com/2008/01/17/i…game-kills-you

Also, this link to

http://justadventure.com/yabb/YaBB.pl?num=1200760475

talks about how a grandmother got killed when she announced it was time for dinner apparently interrupting a 20 year old man playing time.

This is just so sad - and don't give gamers a better reputation, imo.

What's the world coming to I ask ?!?

And I do know that people have killed other people before there were any games and probably will do so after people have stopped playing games.

What's really ridiculous is that they're picking on a couple of specific (& very out-dated) titles. If they were being serious, they'd have to ban all MMORPGs and FPSs, because they're all "guilty" of exactly the same thing as those two.

There's thhree things I'm suspecting from this: a) its an easy cause celebre of voter pandering; b) there's something about these products that have special problems with pirating as Brazil has no copyright laws and cashes on that fact; and c) local developers and publishers are trying to use the legal system to stifle foreign competition.