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Law 3037/2002
Last time we dived into why many major Video Game companies were/ are avoiding the Chinese market due to the out of control piracy and government ban, until the release of the Nintendo iQue! China was a harsh market and in 2002 Greece also became almost a police state cracking down on all types of video games! From gambling machines to computers in internet cafes the Greek Government were out for blood!
In a bid to solely ban illegal gambling the Greek Government passed Law 3037/2002 which effectively banned not just gambling but also all electronic games in public places! Forget taking your 3DS to get those hits on Streetpass, it might just get you arrested! The act of electronic gambling came from a video showing a member of the ruling Panhellenic Socialist Movement formed back in 1967. The party was one of the biggest electoral parties in Greece between 1977 and 2012, anyway the video made it into public hands and wild hysteria broke out. The media latched on to this story and made it a huge scandal in Greek politics, we'll focus on this media aspect another time, this caused the Greek Government to introduce Law 3037/2002 and here's where things blow a little bit out of control!
If you're old enough to remember prohibition back in America in the 1920s-30s you might remember how secretive things were. Speakeasies selling alcohol in secret, people requiring passwords to even enter the building! You couldn't just go down to the pub, it was like 20 questions just to get in! Well, maybe not quite but still, it just shows how far people will go to sip their favourite alcoholic beverage regardless of the law and we see similar things translated in Greece! One case saw some internet cafe owners in front of a court for allowing people to play Online Chess in their cafes! Online Chess! That's the complete other end of the spectrum to what the Greek Government were aiming for! They hoped to ban gambling in public and instead have banned anything in the realms of electronic entertainment! A crowd grew outside the courtroom in support of the cafe owners and the court ruled that the law was unconstitutional, however, things don't stop there!
As a result of the court case the Greek Foreign Minister received a letter from the European Union itself stating that Law 3037/2002 was in conflict with EU legislation! The European Court of Justice could now take action against Greece, which they did but we'll get to that. The law caused the friction largely to the fact that it effected everyone in Greece, foreigners or otherwise meaning me and you couldn't take our Atari Lynx's out on a night in the town! The Greek Government did, however, try to clarify the law but retained that video games were still banned in public! The government passed a new decision (1107414/1491/T. & E. F., just for your records) in the Government Gazette issue 1827 on December 8 2003 which did relax the laws slightly but still banned electronic video games in the country! It also banned the use on encryption by internet cafe owners, effectively cutting of that poor punters password to the Speakeasy!
In January 2004 the police raided an internet cafe and took a total of 80 computers! 80 compiuters! All under suspicion of being used to play video games! A year later in 2005 the European Court of Justice return to the scene, and this time they wanted to overturn the ban! The voice of reason, the law was floored from the offset as the law was made to allow some software companies to continue operating as they were, something banned under Law 3037/2002! Since 2005 the law has been suspended and we can now walk the streets with our SEGA Game Gear's in hand!
