Greece bans all forms of gaming

[xboxtito]

Greece bans all forms of gaming

Greece is putting a ban on all
gaming across the country. No longer can the Greek
people play any arcade games, home computer or video
games, or other certain forms of entertainment.

A game of slots at your local bar? Illegal.
PlayStation in your living room? Illegal.
Snaky on your cell phone? Illegal.

Breaking this law results in fines of up to 75,000
Euros (US$7,630) and three months in jail. As for
replacing your controller with cuffs, repeating
offenses earn you at least a year in jail.

If you can read it, a copy of the official law, passed
into effect only a few days ago, is available online
here: http://www.gameland.gr/pics/law.gif

An English translation (by Grand Master Peter) was
posted online: http://www.gameland.gr/lawenglish.htm

Thanks to the English translation, these are the
different categories gaming falls under:

a. Mechanical games are those, for whose operation it
is necessary to use muscle force.

b. Electrical games are those, for whose operation it
is necessary to be dependent on electrical
mechanisms.

c. Electromechanical games are those, for whose
operation it is necessary to be dependent on
electrical mechanisms AND use muscle force.

d. Electronical games are those, for whose operation
it is necessary to be dependent on electrical
mechanisms that also have some calculating
(accounting) program.

e. Entertainment "technical" games are those, whose
result depends exclusively on the ability and skill
of the player, and its use is solely for
entertainment.

"It is prohibited the operation of games of type "b",
"c" and "d" of Article 1 (including in personal
computers) placed in public places such as hotels,
cafeterias, organization halls and inside any other
public or PRIVATE place.

The Mechanical games, are only permitted to be
Entertainment "technical", as defined in the previous
Article. Regarding those games, it is prohibited to
make any bets between any persons or to include any
financial gain for any of the players involved."


Across Greece, there's over 2,000 different arcades
which will be forced to shut down, but that's just the
tip of the ice berg. With all gaming, everywhere being
banned, it's hard to imagine just what has happened,
but there you have it.

Thanks to the support of websites such as
http://www.gameland.gr there's something we can do
however, in the hope of changing the law.

1) Petition

Firstly there's an online petition, and people who
know me will know I don't believe in these things. But
never the less, it only takes a minute to sign and
this is a people's freedom to entertainment at stake.

http://www.petitiononline.com/comp5932/petition.html

2) Speak Your Mind

Secondly, you can post your thoughts straight to the
government at:

http://www.parliament.gr/english/contact/default.htm

The name of the law to use as a reference is
"Proedriko Diatagma 174, Teyxos 1, 30 July 2002
'Apagoreush Paigniwn'"

3) Legal Advice

Finally if your a lawyer and have some legal advice,
please email whacker@esn.gr with a subject line of
"Legal advice".


XE would like to give a special thanks to Graham Parker for making this article happen. Some of you may remember Graham as the best webmaster that ever was on Sega2000.net, which is where I got my start, thanks Graham for everything!

thats f**k up Sh**

[DOOM]

SeRiOuS BUMP!
WTF!

[lxc]

man my friend told me about this a while ago and it is really messed up

[Slacker]

It could happen here ,it would of been more likley with Gore in office with tipper and Lieberman in the background , anyway thats some extreme conservitism IMO, I can just imagine all the underground Gaming thats going on , can you imagine how much video games are going to cost in greece!! now, theres going to be a Gaming Mafia smuggling Video games .... but I blame it on American tourists , I have never been so embarassed to be an american until I saw americans in other countries,,,when you travel you will see,

[GO BUCCS!!!]

oh man, i just ripped greece on that the petition. MINE IS SIGNATURE #10292

[redrum237]

I found a post at XBOXGamers saying that gaming is NOT banned in greece, the guy says he is from greece and the only game banned was some lottery games.


Heres the post

[DR2000]

Originally posted by xboxtito
Breaking this law results in fines of up to 75,000
Euros (US$7,630) and three months in jail. As for
replacing your controller with cuffs, repeating
offenses earn you at least a year in jail.

Er, yeah, the only problem is that US dollar cost around the same as Euro. Not 1 to 10, or so.

[darianX]

The article is correct...all electronic games are banned. My boss is Greek, he goes there 4 times a year and has many friends there. He was aware of this while it was in the pipeline months ago. The purpose for this ridiculous law is basically to crush ALL competitors of the large casinos in Greece. The Greeks are very much into gambling...they even gamble on simple video games - hence the blanket ban. The gov't could care less about people gambling in their homes but what concerns them are the small "mom and pop" gaming parlors found everywhere.

The Greek gov't has a great deal of interest in the success of the large casinos because the casinos line the pockets of polititians. This ban will be overturned at the first challenge but the damage to the small parlors will already be done. Money makes illegal things legal or at the very least makes the heat go away for a while.

American gamers need not get worried that it could happen here. As screwy as the US gov't is, they're way out of the league of the Greek gov't. I've heard many stories of the rampant corruption of the Greek gov't and their associations with the many unions there. It wouldn't surprise me at all to find that a union is behind these shenanigans. But fear not US gamers, a law like that here wouldn't even get introduced - the game industry is larger than the movie industry. They wouldn't kill a 20 billion dollar industry.

[mahalan]

Originally posted by darianX
But fear not US gamers, a law like that here wouldn't even get introduced - the game industry is larger than the movie industry. They wouldn't kill a 20 billion dollar industry. [/B]

I can't imagine the US government ever banning games here but the size of the industry has nothing to do with it. Can anyone say "tobacco"?

[JimmieDoogan]

MORONS!!! I can't even believe that such a possibility could ever come to pass in any other place but a Muslim country. I can't believe the Greek Lawmakers could be such MORONS!!!!! And BTW, the Gaming industry does not pull in even almost as much cash as the Movie industry. Trust me. There aren't a whole lot of voice actors looking to get into games, cause game makers don't pay shiet. Thats why voice acting sux so bad in most games. This is just a small little example, but considering that most anyone working on a movie makes more than people in the gaming industry I think it's safe to say that Movies are pulling in more revenue seeing as how they have to pay their employee's (mainly the actors and directors) amazing amounts of money. Besides, Hollywood has more than 70 years under its belt. Gaming is Growing though. Soon it will probably be bigger than Television Broadcasts.

[XBOX Dude]

damn that's messed up how could a government ban gaming i mean come on the greeks do worse things then play games the invented some intresting bedroom traits if you know what i mean why exactly did they ban it, did it have to do with gambling

[xboxtito]

Originally posted by XBOX Dude
damn that's messed up how could a government ban gaming i mean come on the greeks do worse things then play games the invented some intresting bedroom traits if you know what i mean why exactly did they ban it, did it have to do with gambling

Yes the reason they did it...to cut down on illegal gambling (public and online).
The arguement is that some video games resemble gambling machines. So to
cut the confusion, they cut out gaming.

[mrmp3]

Confusion? I don't think a single person would mistake a video game for a gambling game...er...anyone with common sense. Looks like the Greek government doesn't have it. I was wondering, was video gaming big at all there? Signing off...