Richard “Dr. Gonzo” Lewis shares his derailed train of thought with the wider world in his regular column feature, Gonzorreah.

Read Richard's last column, "No Gold Watch In Gaming" HERE

This column is the sole opinion of the author and does not represent the opinion of Heaven Media Ltd or the opinion of any affiliates.

If you know anything about human nature you know that when tragedy strikes it is natural to look to blame someone or something for it. It is a way to try and make some sense out of the chaos that is real life, where such events lurk round every corner and are inflicted upon people without such factors as discrimination, bias or even logic. These events just happen and snap the people that they affect out of their comfort zone with the speed of a magician pulling out a table cloth. Of course, it doesn’t care about the what gets broken and smashed in the process.

But the recipient does and that is where blame comes in. Without blame you are faced with some pretty grim prospects… Either these events are spawned by the complete random chaos that presides within a universe of infinite possibilities or in some twisted and intrinsically self-loathing reasoning you actually deserved it. Whatever way you slice it, the bruised human mind isn’t ready for this kind of trip and so blame is vital to the curative process. It turns fear into focus, it pushes down despair and replaces it with purpose. It presents simple answers to difficult and frightening questions. Blame is a crucial part of the psychological survival mechanism.

When tragedy strikes you first hand you generally come to your own conclusions. Whether they are rational or irrational you arrive at them by yourself because you are affected personally. However, there are those second-hand tragedies that affect us in a more abstract way and it is hard to know how to react. By this I mean the things that we know are terrible, but have nothing personal invested in them. Wars, terrorist attacks, motorway pile-ups and even natural disasters are not above the blame game… As such we look to those in positions of perceived authority to guide us. “Tell us who we should be blaming, because my instincts aren’t really firing” is the general consensus and by and large we listen when we are told. You only have to look at the swing most parents of people in the armed forces went through… Prior to the Iraq invasion they were generally all for the idea of such a thing. They are happy to apply blame to little more than labels and concepts, until their children come home in boxes. Then it is round about that time they turn on the people they formerly looked to for guidance.

Eazy E - one of the musical artists that ran into trouble in the 90s

I can appreciate this is a heavy life lesson to lay on you and you may ask yourself is Oprah Winfrey writing a guest column on Cadred. She isn’t… Yet. But it this core element of human behaviour colours all things we do and it has had a direct impact on gaming whether you care to notice it or not. Bad things happen, people need a scapegoat and greasy politicians and paid-off whore-mouth experts wait in the wings to provide answers in exchange for votes and more money. Modern history is permeated with examples, but you don’t need to be a student in this area to come into contact with it. When I was growing up the blame for most of society’s ills were being laid dead and maimed on the doorstep of music. Suicides inspired by Rock albums, shootings encouraged by “Gangster” Rap, drug taking promoted by Rave… The only genre that seemed to be out of the headlines was the government approved commercial pop.

Now I see the exact same thing happening with computer games and I look to events within Germany where a potential wind of change – not a deliberate reference to the Scorpions unless you think it was funny, in which case I’m happy to claim it – is coming. Something that could have a huge impact on casual gaming but most definitely on the e-sports industry that seems to be one major uppercut from staying on the canvas permanently in Europe.

You will already know that on the 11th March Tim Kretschmer, aged 17, entered the Albertville Secondary School – of which he was a former pupil – in the town of Winnendan and killed fifteen people, the majority female pupils, before turning his gun on himself. There is no point on dwelling on the heart-rending crimes that took place on what was declared a “day of mourning for the whole of Germany.” And of course, as outlined above, in the face of such tragedy action is demanded and blame has to be apportioned. The all too easy answer at the present time? Computer and video games. Even though there is no indication that he was influenced by the games directly, or indeed any compelling evidence to suggest that violent video games breed violent people, there is already new legislature being proposed that would ban all video games deemed violent in that country.

Mortal Kombat II is banned in Germany

Germany currently has a very good record when it comes to freedom of speech and ideas and in no way could be considered draconian. After having some dark pages in their history German citizens and governments alike do their utmost to ensure that personal freedoms are protected and that the state does not rule on matters of art and culture with a heavy hand. On the matter of computer games it has been a different story. Those that fall under Section 131: Representation of Violence in the German Criminal Code, that states “acts which describe cruel or otherwise inhuman acts of violence against human beings in a manner which expresses a glorification or rendering harmless of such acts of violence or which represents the cruel or inhuman aspects of the event in a manner which injures human dignity”, are outlawed. It is a ruling that has seen the banning of titles like the Mortal Kombat series and it has sparked debates about other games, leading to specific rulings about their distribution.

Even with this kind of law Germany is also one European country where e-sports is accepted in mainstream culture and is the home of the ESL, a league and organisation that has spread and continues to grow to this day. It’s introduction to the UK has been welcome, arguments over the slow payment of prize money aside, and if it were to suddenly disappear it would leave a void even after only a couple of seasons. In Germany it is the bedrock of their e-sports to the point where teams prioritise involvement in their online competitions over international LAN events.

After the shooting, perhaps prompted by the revelation that the perpetrator had played games like Counter-Strike and Farcry, it hasn’t take long for German Ministers to put together proposals that would effectively ban playing, buying, selling and manufacturing of any game that could be deemed to be violent within their country. There are no copies of the exact wording of the proposals, or what criteria a game has to meet to be considered violent within that context, but it doesn’t bode well when you hear people such as Uwe Schünemann, the Lower Saxony Interior Minister, say things like: “Violent games lower the inhibition level for real violence and spree killers have again and again played such games.” You can always rely on politicians to peddle their opinions and try and pass them off as facts. If you want to be factual then they may want to meditate on the fact that according to reports from friends, families and teachers Tim Kretschmer spent more time playing table-tennis than he did playing computer games at all.

Why hasn't table tennis been targeted in the same way as computer games after the shooting?

The cynic in me questions the motives of such inflammatory statements and reactionary legislature. Governments love to peddle easy answers to the populace prior to elections and Germany’s just so happen to take place in on September 27th. Is it also a coincidence that the story was leaked at the same time as the E3 convention, the biggest gaming conference in the world, was taking place? And is it also coincidence that tied to the proposals is also some new rules about police powers and internet privacy? Of course there is no such thing as coincidence as politics.

The sixteen ministers backing these proposals seem completely oblivious to the negative aspects of what they are proposing. First there is the fact that large, long-standing German companies such as Crytek would no longer be able to employ people to have anything to do with their products in Germany. This would apply to all the companies within the industry wanting to manufacture titles with violent themes. It is generally not seen as a good thing to create unemployment within a growth industry that generates money, minor political points-scoring aside. Secondly there are all the many players who are in competitive teams that would no longer be able to take part in their game of choice without effectively being criminalised. If you think that is an over-exaggeration take into consideration that the same minister mentioned above was also part of the proposals that would make playing video games that features “cruel violence” punishable by up to twelve months in prison. It is another generalisation that overlooks statistical evidence that suggests those involved in competitive pursuits are actually less likely to commit crimes or become involved in gang activity. This evidence has prompted elements of our own government and police forces to actually look at backing e-sport initiatives.

German company Crytek, makers of Crysis (pictured), would face big problems if the ban was successfully passed

And it might be easy enough to point and laugh casually at our supposed long standing rivals but if you love e-sports the ramifications are huge. The ESL losing the core of its users would not be a good thing for us in the UK, or indeed many other countries across Europe where it makes a huge contribution to e-sports. Our scene desperately needs their events at the moment and the prospect of losing it is not something to be taken lightly. If you were to remove the German organisations from the competitive e-sports scene the whole of Europe would get a hell of a lot weaker.

So what can we do? Realistically, “we” can’t do anything about it. But German citizens can and I would implore anyone who has a vague interest in gaming – a figure I imagine would make up a significant portion of the German population – to start writing to your local politicians, to local papers and to do all that you can to show them that you can be involved in gaming, competitive or otherwise, and actually be psychologically healthy. There are plenty of positives all of which are right now being overlooked, but then again the media has never really been interested in portraying it any differently. But they may want to think about want is effectively an over-zealous form of censorship and what else that might lead to if it goes without unchecked… Even if the media is doing the dirty work for governments, if they have a censorship heavy agenda it won’t be long before that comes back and bites them in the ass. If precedent is set here how long before movies, TV, books and then newspapers can be brought into the firing line?

I won’t end on a pessimistic note though because at the moment the future is very much uncertain and it all could change again. Paintball was also being talked about as a pursuit worth banning to prevent further tragedies but those proposals have been widely rejected as over-zealous, showing that there may well be common sense applied by the Bundestag in the case of gaming too. And proposals actually tightening up gun control and introducing random inspections of gun owners properties to make sure that the weapons are being stored safely look certain to be brought in. That in itself is something that shows that even idiots wrapped up in the politics of blame can sometimes target the right cause. Let us hope they keep their attentions focused on them.