Turkey's Family and Social Policies Ministry has been looking to find reasons to ban Minecraft in the country. It seems as though after a month of investigation, they have found multiple reasons excuses to do so.
In the past, Minecraft has been hailed as a game that encourages player creativity — a sandbox game where anything is possible. In Turkey, this is no longer the case as the game has been deemed violent.
Where is the violence based? The investigation points to the entirety of the game:
Although the game can be seen as encouraging creativity in children by letting them build houses, farmlands and bridges, mobs [hostile creatures] must be killed in order to protect these structures. In short, the game is based on violence.
Killing creepers, slimes, spiders, skeletons and all the other things that want to kill you aren't the only base of the violence. Apparently, Minecraft can also persuade children to harm animals without recognizing that it will bring the animals pain. The online multiplayer also boasts an issue as it can isolate children and cause online bullying. A majority of the conclusions from the investigation were drawn on the concept that children cannot draw a line between reality and the game (based on the game experience of a nine year-old child).
This call to ban Minecraft does not mean the game has been banned or will be, however; the case will be reviewed by Turkish courts before any final decision is made. If the court rules that Minecraft should be banned, it will be the first country to ban the game.
Having played the game and been exposed to actual griefers in multiplayer, I'll admit there's an aspect of violence in, but it's certainly not what the game is founded on. It adds a dynamic to the game, and that's all. It seems almost offensive for the Family and Social Policies Ministry deem this game harmful because a nine-year-old can't tell the difference between real-life and a blocky computer game.
[Leadergame & Hurriyet Daily via Kotaku]
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