The music was brutally good though.
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27 games removed from Steam in Germany
- Thread starter Henrar
- Start date
GoodCoffeeJoey
Banned
Dismemberment?
Candescence
Member
I didn't even know Timeshift even had a PC port. I might actually buy it on sale one of these days so I can actually finish the damn thing, I had a 360 copy but, well, I don't play shooters on consoles if I can help it, with the occasional exception such as Splatoon.
Joseph Merrick
Member
replace Carmageddon with the classic old german version where all the pedestrians are robots
Englebert3rd
Unconfirmed Member
NO
Not SiN
What did that game do to you Germany?
The name. It's a SiNful game!
(And an awesome game too)
ThoseDeafMutes
Member
Mods that will get removed from the steam workshop yeah. What's absurd about the ban is that they don't stop people from reliving their 3rd Reich power fantasies, you play as Fascist Germany in 1939, led by Hitler, Goering and the lot of them, and the only difference is the most prominent Nazis have their portraits darkened so they look like they're standing in shadows and there's no Swastikas. You still crush Poland without mercy and invade the USSR, but that's ok without the Swastika. It's an utterly puerile sort of rule.
TheRedSnifit
Member
Or the German version of Team Fortress, where every class used the same robot model.
Don't forget the Version where you can shoot people but instead of dying they sit down and weep...
hans_castorp
Member
Weird. I live in Germany and I can find them in the Steam store.
I thought I had changed my region.
I thought I had changed my region.
Palculator
Unconfirmed Member
In the historical context those rules were introduced in they make sense, I just wish they revised their stance on video games as, like I said, it doesn't really extend to art and it's common to see Swastikas and the like in films. Wish a publisher with some clout would take a stance that they don't want to alter their work and that the same freedom films have should apply to games.
Chairmanchuck
Member
Not even films that have a historical meaning. I mean even Switch used them in their Stromberg parody.
They should finally remove the paragraph. Nowadays it doesnt make any sense.
Man... if steam would just introduce a proper age verification method, it would solve all of those problems.
Also stuff like only being able to play Wolfenstein TNO with the bad german dub because screw Bethesda and their region locks.
Will never happen though. That would actually involve not easily automated work on the side of valve.
Also stuff like only being able to play Wolfenstein TNO with the bad german dub because screw Bethesda and their region locks.
Will never happen though. That would actually involve not easily automated work on the side of valve.
Dictator93
Member
Yep.
TheRedSnifit
Member
That's art, sir.
Those games were indexed in the past. Panzer General for instance (downplaying war and the nazi reich).
dragonfart28
Banned
I am no radical right winger here, but removing access to media for political reasons is dumb.
It actually makes the state look like what they are trying to protect its citizens from.
It actually makes the state look like what they are trying to protect its citizens from.
More Fun To Compute
Member
Chaos Engine? Don't enemies just disappear in a puff of smoke?
So is his Auschwitz documentary.
Candy bombers full of nineties shooters! Fries are always welcome though.
Palculator
Unconfirmed Member
We're ahead of those freedom-hating Americans? SCHLAND! SCHLAND!
I find their argumentation still a bit strange. I bet I could recut some war movies to make them look like Nazi propaganda. Wouldn't that also qualify as harmful use of those symbols outside of the author's intention?
Ah, gotta love our German censorship. None of the games included on that list interest me but I still hate how unfairly games are treated by our rating system (and I'm not a fan of censorship in general, even when the intentions behind it are good - intentions almost always are).
Wouldn't you be prohibited from doing so under copyright law, though (unless you mean old war footage that's in the public domain)? Not saying the USK's reasoning isn't bullshit, it certainly is, I'm just not sure whether your example makes a whole lot of sense.
Wouldn't you be prohibited from doing so under copyright law, though (unless you mean old war footage that's in the public domain)? Not saying the USK's reasoning isn't bullshit, it certainly is, I'm just not sure whether your example makes a whole lot of sense.
Palculator
Unconfirmed Member
That's the exact thought I had when I read that at first! I didn't mean to defend their reasoning as, like I said, I don't think it applies to the game they used it for, just that I see it being somewhat applicable to Hearts of Iron. For the film example, however, I'd say you could probably make the case that consumption of something differs from taking its assets to create derivative work. "Consuming" a film means watching it, not ripping out its frames/scenes to create your own film (or Nazi progaganda film for our specific example.) However, "consuming" a game means playing it, and playing as the Third Reich is well within the possibility of Hearts of Iron without having to do any modifications.
If I was their spokesperson that's the reasoning I'd use, anyway, lol. I find the ban rather silly myself and it has put me off playing the new Wolfenstein (since Bethesda was cheeky enough to IP lock the PC versions to the censored release if you're using a German IP so you can't even use the old trick of buying a Steam key for a Non-German version.)
TheMoon
Member
If only publishers gave a shit and let them get rechecked as well. But of course thanks to the USK's idiotic setup, this costs a shit-ton of money. So to complete the hattrick: what a pile of shit.
okay you got a chuckle out of me
TheMoon
Member
Yes, Germany's rating process is one of (if not the) most expensive ones. You even have to get trailers and demos rated separately from the game, which costs a couple hundred Euros. Depending on the size of your game, it can cost over a thousand Euros to get your game rated. This is why so many indies kept dancing around EU releases and sometimes straight up excluded Germany from their eventual EU release. The IARC initiative was subsequently created for this, allowing smaller devs to get their titles rated almost instantly, for free and for multiple regions and ratings boards at the same time (one submission can cover your ESRB, PEGI, USK, ACB rating). As of now, only Nintendo has been through the process of enabling this system for their platform from the three major platform holders. Sony and I think MS are listed as supporters but they're apparently still not through the process or whatever the hold-up is there.
True, would probably get in trouble with copyright, at least if you intend to spread it.
Yeah, the interactive nature seems to be the crux. When I think about it, violence in games is also treated more severely in games than in movies. Or at least can I not remember a "killerspiele" debate happening with movies.
Oh and with the New Order I'm still not sure why Bethesda went the extra step of even removing Nazis entirely, referring to them merely as the "regime" in the German localisation. Additionally they also removed more specific Nazi rhetoric. I don't even really care about the symbols, but when they change the game's story so significantly it's kind of upsetting.
derExperte
Member
GOG is doing the same, 31 games are affected.
http://www.gamestar.de/news/vermischtes/3274795/gogcom_jetzt_auch_mit_geo_lock.html
http://www.gamestar.de/news/vermischtes/3274795/gogcom_jetzt_auch_mit_geo_lock.html