Initially approved in September, the proposed legislation is expected to face a final vote within weeks.
Venezuela's violent crime rate is such that the government of President Hugo Chavez stopped releasing complete annual murder figures in 2005, but Justice Ministry figures published last year claim an average rate of 152 homicides a week, or 7,900 for the year. But critics of the bill have dismissed what they call a PR stunt designed to appease anxious parents.
Vocal supporters, politicians and anti-game activists, however, draw attention to games like Counter-Strike, Grand Theft Auto IV and coin-op Silent Scope 2: Dark Silhouette, all hugely popular with middle-class teenagers.
When the bill was introduced to the partisan legislature, it's said, lawmakers watched images of car-jackings and beatings from Rockstar's game. "That's what our children are learning from these games, and it cannot continue," said congressman Jose Albornoz.
If passed, the bill would effectively outlaw the "manufacture, importation, distribution, sales and use of violent videogames and bellicose toys." It would give the country's consumer-protection agency freedom to decide what should be prohibited, and to impose fines of up to $128,000. It would also force the media to "implement permanent campaigns" to warn about violent games, and threaten the closure of internet cafes, arcades and retailers.
But this, say critics, will only fuel the country's rampant piracy trade and overwhelm those charged with enforcing it. Currently preoccupied with food price regulations and double-digit inflation, the 163 consumer-protection inspectors would be hard pushed.
"It's a facade that allows them to say they are doing something to lower the crime rate," says opposing lawmaker Tomas Sanchez, "while hiding the fact that existing policies have failed."