Brazilian officials have wielded the ban hammer and banned venerable online games EverQuest and Counter-Strike in the country.
It was claimed that both games incited violence and were "harmful to consumers' health", according to a report by news source AFP.
The ban was actually officially ordered last October but has only now come into operation. Neither game can now be sold in the country.
Judge Carlos Alberto Simoes ruled that Counter-Strike and EverQuest promoted "the subversion of public order" and "were an attack against the democratic state and the law and against public security."
And so download rates shoot up, as well as piracy! Way to go Brazil!!
Considering how lax they are about nudity on Rio's beaches, you'd think they'd get pernickety about that instead. Also, instead of taking the time, trouble and considerable cost to enforce this law, why not spend the cash on helping Rio's street kids for a change rather than ignore them.
Well I certainly know that I use MMOs for all my anarchic plans.
EverQuest helps me to understand the way elves will react when I burst into their capital city and begin to attack their guards using my 2-handed sword and line of lifetap spells. Never again does Brazil need to worry about my awesome DPS.
Come on - banning Evers**t and doing nothing about more violent/real games is plain stupid. Unless of course you were being ironic and were giving your own joke as an example of terrible humour...
Come on - banning Evers**t and doing nothing about more violent/real games is plain stupid. Unless of course you were being ironic and were giving your own joke as an example of terrible humour...
EverQuest? Counterstrike? Way to keep up with developments there, Brazil... Perhaps you would care to give your verdict on Space Invaders while you're at it?
Compeltely bizzare ruling in a country where crime is rife, and I doubt even 0.1% of it is inspired by Counter Strike. However, you can understand the ban if the Brazilian government wants to outlaw all imagary pertaining to the usage of guns (which I doubt it is, more likely making games the scapegoat like every other moronic parliment in the world).
But Everquest? Unless Brazil has become a haven for mythical creatures who've become offended by the digital butchering of their brethren, methinks the Brazilian Government are talking through that aperture which the rest of us sit upon, as they have absolutely no idea when it comes to games. Like every other parliment in the world, then!
Copyright 2006 - 2009 Future Publishing Limited, Beauford Court, 30 Monmouth Street, Bath, UK BA1 2BW England and Wales company registration number 2008885
