They said they would retaliate with more democracy and freedom... Good job.

This is a retailer, a commercial entity., not a policy nor does it have any more to do with democracy than the banker's right to 25% bonus increase.


And it is effectively a freedom of choice. In the same way Wal Mart doesn't carry sexual toys (or does it?), while they likely carry contraceptives and condoms.

Society accepts what is acceptable and games, sooner or later, will become subject to availability, which will likely reduce the general offering, just like certain products are limited to certain types of retailers.


A knee-jerk reaction here would be instant ban on sales of such games enforced by government. And a retailer pulling out is a good step into direction of self-regulation. It can serve as example in industry and weakens the need towards government policies.

The moral ground here is much more important due to increased digital distribution. If stores stop selling boxed products it has no effect on availability. But if a policy is established, it will apply to everything and could trivially apply to digital downloads as well.

[quote name='Drathis' timestamp='1312035107' post='4842530']
They said they would retaliate with more democracy and freedom... Good job.

This is a retailer, a commercial entity., not a policy nor does it have any more to do with democracy than the banker's right to 25% bonus increase.


And it is effectively a freedom of choice. In the same way Wal Mart doesn't carry sexual toys (or does it?), while they likely carry contraceptives and condoms.

Society accepts what is acceptable and games, sooner or later, will become subject to availability, which will likely reduce the general offering, just like certain products are limited to certain types of retailers.


A knee-jerk reaction here would be instant ban on sales of such games enforced by government. And a retailer pulling out is a good step into direction of self-regulation. It can serve as example in industry and weakens the need towards government policies.

The moral ground here is much more important due to increased digital distribution. If stores stop selling boxed products it has no effect on availability. But if a policy is established, it will apply to everything and could trivially apply to digital downloads as well.
[/quote]

It's a commercial entity retaliating with something totally different than democracy and freedom. This is happening in Norway after those words were said. The words have no meaning now. I don't care if it wasn't the government, it's still the Norwegian people doing this.

It's a commercial entity retaliating with something totally different than democracy and freedom. This is happening in Norway after those words were said. The words have no meaning now. I don't care if it wasn't the government, it's still the Norwegian people doing this.

Towards the end of 90s I worked in aviation, mostly developing custom software for development of paragliders and ultralights and such. During that time, paragliding was in boom. Everyone was doing it. People without their own could rent on the spot.

Accident rate was X%. But with very large number of people doing it, the absolute numbers rose exponentially (due to exponential number of people).

So, EU steps in and slaps all kinds of regulation on *manufacture* of parachutes. It wasn't technical problems, inexperienced people multiplied by mass caused accidents.

In under a year, hundreds of manufacturers had to close shop - the cost and effort needed to obtain the certification was simply too much for them. What was left was effectively one single manufacturer.

Over the next two years paragliding stopped being a fad and numbers decreased, leading to low accident rates. So, big success.


Meanwhile, the pros in the industry stuck with manufacturers they knew were good. Not because of regulation, but because they had to choose who they will risk their life for. So, the handful, instead of producing certified products, instead went into "for personal use" which avoided that problem. The serious market was already self-regulating and has remained such.


It's important to understand the impact of policy vs. self-regulation, regardless of why the latter happens. Game sales fall under publishing and that is big business. Lobbysts will use anything since there is potentially a lot of money at stake, just like with music licensing or the movie ratings.

In this given example, market will decide if it supports it. But what one definitely doesn't want is governments to get involved, because nothing good will come out of that.

[quote name='Drathis' timestamp='1312056456' post='4842618']
It's a commercial entity retaliating with something totally different than democracy and freedom. This is happening in Norway after those words were said. The words have no meaning now. I don't care if it wasn't the government, it's still the Norwegian people doing this.

Towards the end of 90s I worked in aviation, mostly developing custom software for development of paragliders and ultralights and such. During that time, paragliding was in boom. Everyone was doing it. People without their own could rent on the spot.

Accident rate was X%. But with very large number of people doing it, the absolute numbers rose exponentially (due to exponential number of people).

So, EU steps in and slaps all kinds of regulation on *manufacture* of parachutes. It wasn't technical problems, inexperienced people multiplied by mass caused accidents.

In under a year, hundreds of manufacturers had to close shop - the cost and effort needed to obtain the certification was simply too much for them. What was left was effectively one single manufacturer.

Over the next two years paragliding stopped being a fad and numbers decreased, leading to low accident rates. So, big success.


Meanwhile, the pros in the industry stuck with manufacturers they knew were good. Not because of regulation, but because they had to choose who they will risk their life for. So, the handful, instead of producing certified products, instead went into "for personal use" which avoided that problem. The serious market was already self-regulating and has remained such.


It's important to understand the impact of policy vs. self-regulation, regardless of why the latter happens. Game sales fall under publishing and that is big business. Lobbysts will use anything since there is potentially a lot of money at stake, just like with music licensing or the movie ratings.

In this given example, market will decide if it supports it. But what one definitely doesn't want is governments to get involved, because nothing good will come out of that.
[/quote]
This was totally not the point. I get what government regulation is and it doesn't always work, no need for analogies here. I'm disappointed because this is a knee jerk reaction by Norwegians, even though it wasn't the government.

If it's true that video games represent only a tiny fraction of their total sales, you could be very cynical about it and see this as a commercial entity taking advantage of a horrible tragedy to get free publicity and to build an image as a family friendly and 'responsible' company. But I rather not think that way.

If it is just a retailer, treating a few decision makers in a private company as representative of Norway isn't that different from treating a certain individual with a shotgun as representative of Norway.

Don't forget that a corporation isn't anything other than people, lead by a smaller number of people, with some kind of legal charter. An individual somewhere made this decision.

So we now have two facts about Norway; a few individuals did ridiculous things (murder, make you have to go to a different shop to buy some entertainment products) that ideally aren't congruous with their culture.

I'm disappointed because this is a knee jerk reaction by Norwegians, even though it wasn't the government.

From what I've heard, some game shops have pulled out some games, and other have not. Some retail owner said he received a call from an employer that there were customers raging and shouting about supporting the incident by keeping WoW on the shelves. I don't think it's the Norwegian gov or retailers, but some random population making a fuss.