Germany's Getting Gears Of War 3 Uncut

[vansau]

Germany's Getting Gears Of War 3 Uncut

Marcus Fenix is coming to Germany and won't be restricted in the slightest.

Germany is a notoriously difficult market to release violent videogames in, <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/105839-Germany-Wants-to-See-Your-Papers-for-That-Unicorn>not to mention import unicorn meat to. That's why it's a little surprising to learn that the USK classified <a href=http://www.amazon.com/Gears-War-3-Xbox-360/dp/B002I0H79C/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1310666245&sr=8-1>Gears of War 3 with an "18" rating without requiring its content to be edited.

This is the first time a Gears of War game hasn't been indexed in Germany. Indexing means the Federal Department for Media Harmful to Young Persons has decided the game is unacceptable for kids to purchase. This doesn't ban the game from being released in the country, but "essentially treats it like porn with restrictions."

Eurogamer is reporting that Gears of War 3 is "definitely uncut." Meanwhile, when Joystiq followed up with the USK about the release of the game, the site was told that it had " 'a different feel to it than its predecessors,' and that the arguments used to index the first two games didn't hold up.

Source: Joystiq


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[Rad Party God]

Well, yay for germans!.

+1 Rational thinking.

 

[lolmynamewastaken]

i thought porn in germany was less restricted than in most places? this has come from my searching the internet for stupid laws...

 

[teebeeohh]

oh great now just release it on another platform and i can get it. i own literally everything that could run gears but an xbox.
on the topic: so we don't get violent games, only means i have to wait a week or two for my packet from the UK to arrive. Also, we had boobs in Giants.

 

[Staskala]

i thought porn in germany was less restricted than in most places? this has come from my searching the internet for stupid laws...

Considering how lax the law is when it comes to owning pornography featuring adolescents between 14 and 18 (which was actually legal until 2008), I would assume so.
Indeed, video games get treated much harsher than porn and pretty much anything else.

 

[lolmynamewastaken]

i thought porn in germany was less restricted than in most places? this has come from my searching the internet for stupid laws...

Think of Germany as reverse America. We have naked tits on billboards, on daytime network TV, and in mineral water commercials. Nobody in Germany has any problems with sex in the media.

However, anything depicting violence gets censored to hell and back. The first Command & Conquer games? The infantry were "robots", so they wouldn't make that squishy sound when you drove a tank over them, and the three pixels of "blood" were changed to "oil". God of War? Yeah, not in any of our retail stores. The 18+ rated version of the last "Rambo" flick in theatres? Missing about 10 minutes. GTA? If you're looking to get money by doing assassination or rampage missions, better look at imports.

It's exactly the opposite of the US, where you can chainsaw people on Sesame Street, but nudity in an ultra-violent game like GTA IV gets everybody in a major tizzy.

I'd like to say that both are equally retarded, but then, murder tends to hurt people more than tits do.

Haha! im from the UK so i pretty much get all of the above to a poncey extent. its like boobs are there if you want to look for them and so is murder, so long as its safe murder.

 

[Jabberwock King]

Eurogamer is reporting that Gears of War 3 is "definitely uncut." Meanwhile, when Joystiq followed up with the USK about the release of the game, the site was told that it had " 'a different feel to it than its predecessors,' and that the arguments used to index the first two games didn't hold up.

While I feel glad that German gamers seem to have gained more trust from the puritans that were restricting content, I have to ask, how exactly has it changed that it is now allowed to get a free pass?

 

[NLS]

i thought porn in germany was less restricted than in most places? this has come from my searching the internet for stupid laws...

Yes I was about to comment the same thing. My time in germany has learned me that porn is less evil than video games.

 

[BobisOnlyBob]

Haha! im from the UK so i pretty much get all of the above to a poncey extent. its like boobs are there if you want to look for them and so is murder, so long as its safe murder.

The BBFC have been pretty liberal in the past decade, haven't they?

 

[lolmynamewastaken]

Haha! im from the UK so i pretty much get all of the above to a poncey extent. its like boobs are there if you want to look for them and so is murder, so long as its safe murder.

The BBFC have been pretty liberal in the past decade, haven't they?

yeah, i can't think of anything that's actually been band, but some things do get ratings way higher than they should do. mostly films/dvds though more than games.

 

[BobisOnlyBob]

Haha! im from the UK so i pretty much get all of the above to a poncey extent. its like boobs are there if you want to look for them and so is murder, so long as its safe murder.

The BBFC have been pretty liberal in the past decade, haven't they?

yeah, i can't think of anything that's actually been band, but some things do get ratings way higher than they should do. mostly films/dvds though more than games.

Only one I can think of is The Punisher, which was an okay adaptation of the okay film. The difference is, in the film there's a "torture" scene...

Spoiler

he's actually blowtorching bacon while poking the guy with an ice lolly and talking to him, convincing the guy who can't see that he's being burned to death and the blowtorch is searing his nerve endings so all he feels is cold... it's stupid, but the guy being interrogated is gullible and cowardly

...while the game ACTUALLY allows you to torture someone with a blowtorch. Initially given an 18 cert, then the rating was pulled after complaints and thus "unrated" and not legal for sale. Can still be redistributed by existing owners, though, I have a copy.

 

[KDR_11k]

As an adult gamer living in Germany, the way we get treated regarding any game with a little bit of blood in it almost makes me want to become a nanny-state hating republican.

When was the last time you checked up on that? The standards for indexing have gone pretty high since the days of Doom. Stuff like Warhammer 40k games won't even get rated the full 18 these days. Games have to require pretty brutal mangling of human opponents to get any reaction out of the bpjm these days.

 

[Owlslayer]

Well, i say this is great news to all German gamers who like the franchises. Haven't really been a Gears fan myself, but I've heard lots of good things about it, and it's always good to see people get the original version of a product.

 

[puffy786]

i thought porn in germany was less restricted than in most places? this has come from my searching the internet for stupid laws...

Think of Germany as reverse America. We have naked tits on billboards, on daytime network TV, and in mineral water commercials. Nobody in Germany has any problems with sex in the media.

However, anything depicting violence gets censored to hell and back. The first Command & Conquer games? The infantry were "robots", so they wouldn't make that squishy sound when you drove a tank over them, and the three pixels of "blood" were changed to "oil". God of War? Yeah, not in any of our retail stores. The 18+ rated version of the last "Rambo" flick in theatres? Missing about 10 minutes. GTA? If you're looking to get money by doing assassination or rampage missions, better look at imports.

It's exactly the opposite of the US, where you can chainsaw people on Sesame Street, but nudity in an ultra-violent game like GTA IV gets everybody in a major tizzy.

I'd like to say that both are equally retarded, but then, murder tends to hurt people more than tits do.

The robots replace the soldiers in half-life as well and the blood was turned green. In the German Counter-strike (or so i heard) instead of people dying, they would just lie down.

 

[Staskala]

The robots replace the soldiers in half-life as well and the blood was turned green. In the German Counter-strike (or so i heard) instead of people dying, they would just lie down.

That's CS:Source, in the original CS they'd just sit down and shake their head in disappointment. Same with the humans in HL.

 

[Metalrocks]

lived over 14 years in switzerland and in the shops we were only getting the damn cut version from germany. like syndicate wars. you had no bodies and no blood. when you killed someone, they just vanished in to fin air.
even when switzerland had nothing to do with the USK and BPJM, we still were getting the crappy cut versions from germany.
always had to go to a special shop who was selling US imports. of course you payed more for it but sure better then an awful cut version.
i used to watch a show on NBC europe called "giga games", and they had to be careful what they show and could not say the original title like half life. they always had to say "on index half life". if they just say half life, they could have gotten in to serious trouble. so stupid. the same was for magazines. they had to write "dt" (for german) next to the title.

 

[Mr. Eff_v1legacy]

I'll be impressed when they can release anything related to WWII without having to censor it.