The government on Tuesday declared war on violent video games for children following mounting protests over a "disturbing" Japanese horror adventure called Rule of Rose. Justice Minister Clemente Mastella said the government would take "preventive measures" to ensure that kids were not exposed to games like Rule of Rose.
The PlayStation game, which was released in Japan last January by Sony and has just arrived in Italy via the publisher 505 Games, features murder, animal torture and mutilation and hints of eroticism, while its main character is at one point buried alive.
Because of its controversial subject matter, Sony dropped the game in America.
Youth Policy and Sports Minister Giovanna Melandri, Education Minister Giuseppe Fioroni and House Speaker Fausto Bertinotti have all expressed concern about the game while Rome Mayor Walter Veltroni has vowed to get it banned.
Mastella said that he was "indignant over the level of brutality in these children's games".
"Our youngsters have the right to be protected from such violence. Nothing has been done until now about such games and this has allowed the phenomenon to grow unchecked," the minister said.
He suggested setting up an authority to regulate the sale and distribution of children's games and ensure that "acceptable standards" were applied.
"The authority would identify and deal with those with an unacceptable level of violence before they can be distributed," he said.
The minister noted that Rule of Rose was meant for over-16s but said there were no guarantees that it would not be played by those who were younger.
He stressed that he could not order copies to be seized because that would require legal justification.
Minister Melandri said on Monday that she wanted "particularly violent video games like Rule of Rose" to be banned.
Mayor Veltroni blasted the creators of such games, saying "they must have perverse minds".
The game is set in 1930s England and revolves around Jennifer, a 19-year-old girl who is held captive in an orphanage by a group of deranged, sadistic children.
The player becomes Jennifer who, assisted by her dog, must keep herself alive by offering gifts to her mad captors and buy time as she searches for a way out of the orphanage.
At various points in the game, she is bound, gagged, doused with liquids, buried alive and tossed into the so-called Filth Room.
The game contains hints of sadomasochism and lesbianism and it was allegedly this erotic bent that led Sony to decide against releasing the game in America.
Instead the small publisher Atlus snapped up distribution rights there.
The head of Sony's Italian division, Corrado Buonanno, stressed last week that his company had "completely disassociated itself" from Rule of Rose in Italy and the rest of Europe.
"There is probably a different sense of what's acceptable in Japan and Europe so our Japanese division did not feel the need to block this game's production and distribution on its own market," he said.
"But from our point of view, this game is unsuitable for the Italian and European public because of its content. That is why we have decided not to sell it here," Buonanno concluded.
