EU debates banning violent games

The European Commission is spending the day discussing the possibility of a ban on violent video games.

The plan is to introduce a common standard for all EU governments to regulate the sale and marketing of violent video games. The Motion for a Resolution cites the recently released Rule of Rose, which caused particular concern.

"In Europe a lot of violent video games for children are on sale, and a new video game called Rule of Rose, which features children and perverse, violent and sadistic images that are harmful to human dignity, was recently released in Europe," says the motion.

"The aim of the video game is to bury alive a girl who has undergone psychosexual and physical violence bordering on perversion and sadism.

"This video game is only the latest of a series that has become increasingly popular with the younger generation and whose only end is the instigation of violence, bullying and abuse of the weakest."

The debate was prompted by German justice minister Brigitte Zypries after an event last year in which an 18 year-old computer games player wounded 11 schoolchildren before killing himself.

But Zypries acknowledged that ministers were unlikely to agree on common standards today because of the range of different regulations in member states.

European Union justice commissioner Franco Frattini has said that he will support a parental advisory sticker scheme.

"The protection of the rights of children is a priority of the European Commission," he told the European Parliament in Strasbourg last year. "Violence and sadism in video games is clearly a worrying issue."