I dunno how know these news are outside of my own country. But, recently, Brazil is now dealing with yet another case of political stupidity. Currently on the Senate, it's being discussed a law which would prohibit the creation and distribution of any game that could prove themselves offensive to "the culture, customs, beliefs, traditions, religions and symbols of any social group". Okay, I can understand that there have been a few games which can be plain just downright offensive and/or stupidly violent, such as by example the infamous Rapelay and Postal 2.

However, the law such as it is could pretty much ban 99% of all games to be sold around the country. I know what you might be thinking. "But this law affects only Brazil, I don't see why I should care" well, there's the thing, this law also prohibits the creation of games, while the game industry in Brazil is definetly not big right now, it's definetly a growing area, which a lot of people think have a good future. This law would kinda poop on all that, don't you think? Which lowers significantly the chance of you seeing new titles in the future.

Regardless, I am posting this here now to raise awareness, not only of anyone who happens to read this up, but also for any other Brazilian gamers or game-makers who might be around here and don't know about this case yet.

I doubt this will be passed (have any others?).
Throughout time all 'risque' mediums, or rather all those that are modern and haven't been analysed every which way from every angle face this dilemma, from films in the nineteenth century to books, well, since forever.
Ultimately its too big an infringement of 'people's liberties' to ever be seriously considered by any democracy.

I am awell aware of that and it's pretty much what I hope will be the case with laws such as these. Regardless, it's best if we don't sit around idly and just suppose that this event will repeat itself. There are people supporting this thing, just as there was people supporting PIPA and SOPA and just how about there will always be people supporting the prohibition and censoring of new media.

Most, if not all of these people always have very little contact with this new media and fail to realize properly the echoes of their actions, so, in the end, it's true that, even if these things pass, they may not stick around for long. Regardless, they may cause things to come to a standstill. In this case in special, it's a very serious situation, especially since the game industry in Brazil was picking up so well. Something such as this would definetly slow it down to a near stand-still.

Well, I have to say that Kaust has a point; pretty much all new media are heavily scrutinized (some of you may remember the whole Seduction of the Innocent and CCA affair in comic books, although you'd have to be immortal or something to have experienced the whole thing), but eventually, they become an accepted part of the culture.

From the little studying I've done in Brazilian politics, it seems as if the country is a mix between Rightist wealthy elites and Socialist citizens. The current president is an odd compromise between the two, having started out as a Marxist, but turning slowly to Capitalism in the modern day...
in the end, the bill could go either way, although it really does seem to be too conservative to get popular support.

Um... seeing as Niscp does not seem to be from Brazil (speaks slang-y English, professional brony, but his personal picture does have that Brazilian feel), I guess we'll just have to hope Leongeon comes back one day and posts at this topic for a more professional opinion.

Uhm...I AM from Brazil o_o;; (What do you mean by my personal photo has a brazilian feel >_>;; I really should update that thing, btw...) And I don't think Leongon is brazilian either, if i'm not mistaken, he lives somewhere more along the western coast of South America, again, it's what I was led to believe so far.

Your analysis about our politics is a bit...Simplistic. But it's pretty correct. Our president(ess?) hasn't really voiced anything in regards to the law yet. What bothers me is that, from what I've read so far, this law was frozen up somewhere in the old files since 2006, but recently Congress just approved it and sent it to the senate. The law is still under discussion but most of the senate seemed to be in favor of it. However, after strong feedback from the people and local game related companies against the law, it's slowly being pushed into a sort of neutral ground between approval and denial.

And I am (Roughly) aware of the affair you mentioned regarding comic books. Truth to be told, I am yet to understand why does this always happen. You'd expect that some people would learn to be more accepting after seeing similar scenes repeated again and again.

Ah but thats the very point. What these idiots are saying is that this time its different. Sure they were wrong about every other medium, but thats irrelevant because it was another medium, this ones the real problem
These people don't understand that a medium is just that- a medium. It exists to get something across. Their case would be more fitting to complain about (and its just that, whining) who creates using the medium.
But really even thats ridiculous, theres always been violence and theres always been, lets say, progressive views on things. Jesus any of you read The Monk? A little Eighteenth century insight into rape, incest and murder in the church. Today its considered art, a literary masterpeice, back then its success was through its very scandal.

Personally, I don't mind any form of expression in a video game. What people seem to forget is that it's a fundamental human right to be able to express themselves. It's not like video game development is aiming a gun at our society's cultural beliefs or anything bad in general! (eg. Racial discrimination, or any bad political point of view.) People make games to profit and that's it. people need to realize that video games are a part of our capitalist freedoms. Takes a politician to introduce a bill and know nothing on the subject.

- Myst