Doom No Longer Considered "Harmful To Young Persons" In Germany

[The Wooster]

Doom No Longer Considered "Harmful To Young Persons" In Germany

Nearly two decades after its release, id's classic shooter Doom, has been removed from Germany's 'List of Media Harmful to Young People' and given a USK16+ rating.

Doom, along with its sequel Doom 2, were removed from the list - simply referred to as the Index - after an appeal filed by current copyright owner ZeniMax Media, which also happens to own Bethesda Softworks.

The index, maintained by the slightly Orwellian sounding Federal Department for Media Harmful to Young Persons, is essentially Germany's answer to an Adults Only rating, and is mostly used to limit minors' access to the nation's distinct brand of hardcore pornography. Being indexed means a title cannot be sold, advertised or displayed anywhere inquisitive young kiddywinks might venture. The index also places a great deal of restriction on how the title is sold via mail order, essentially limiting sales of indexed titles to seedy brick-and-mortar stores.

After ten years, the owner of an indexed title can appeal to have it removed from the list. While id never bothered to appeal the indexing back in the 00's, current Doom copyright holder ZeniMax, having acquired the developer and its copyrights back in 2009, apparently thought it was worth the effort. Whether ZeniMax is seeing potential for a Doom re-release, or if this is simply about the principle of the thing, it's certainly good news for German gamers.

Source USK [http://www.usk.de]




Permalink

 

[The-Epicly-Named-Man]

Well thank Christ for that.

 

[Worr Monger]

Hop onto DooM, German youngsters!

'Tis a fantastic game, still!

 

[hannes2]

Well, to be fair, it can be sold pretty much everywhere, you´re just not allowed to display it and can only sell it to people who specifically ask for it. Sure, a lot of stores choose not to sell such games, but they could if they wanted to, and stores that specialize on games sometimes do, because ordering a bunch of games from Austria isn´t that hard if selling games is the one thing you do. Well, unless you´re GameStop, apparently.

Not quite. Adults Only would be a 18+ rating. Only games that are completely denied any rating by the USK can get on the index, so it's a little bit more than just adults only: Media on the index is in no way allowed to be accessible to minors and can be completely banned. That means a shop can't even have an indexed title on the shelf, while anything 18+ can very well be displayed.
At least as far as my understanding of our systems goes.

The Index consists of several lists. Not sure how many, but I think it´s something like A,B,C.
"A" means you´re allowed to sell it but not to display/advertise it.
"B" means it´s not allowed to be sold, but you may still own it.
I´m not sure if there´s a C or what it means, but I guess the next logical step would be banning possession.

Just in case anyone cares.

 

[Avayu]

Really, we still had Doom on the index? Not that anyone would care, but still ...

The index, maintained by the slightly Orwellian sounding Federal Department for Media Harmful to Young Persons, is essentially Germany's answer to an Adults Only rating

Not quite. Adults Only would be a 18+ rating. Only games that are completely denied any rating by the USK can get on the index, so it's a little bit more than just adults only: Media on the index is in no way allowed to be accessible to minors and can be completely banned. That means a shop can't even have an indexed title on the shelf, while anything 18+ can very well be displayed.
At least as far as my understanding of our systems goes.

 

[Beryl77]

Good for the Germans.
Now if only they wouldn't cut their games so much. Even though I live in Switzerland, we often just get the stores just get the games from Germany, which means that their heavily cut. I once tried to play Quake IV, it seemed like half of the game was missing after I played the uncut version(thank the mighty Newell for Steam).

 

[VGC USpartan VS]

C'mon people, Doom has got to be one of the most immature games ever made! It's not going to mess anyone up!


But somehow the Simithsonian considers it art.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

I heard Zenimax's entire letter to them just consisted of "IDKFA".

 

[Dr_Horrible]

But somehow the Simithsonian considers it art.

Well, it had huge significance and a great effect on the early games industry, I can certainly understand it being on the list.

OT: Wow, just... wow. How was this still on the list?

 

[Tiamat666]

Good for the Germans.
Now if only they wouldn't cut their games so much. Even though I live in Switzerland, we often just get the stores just get the games from Germany, which means that their heavily cut. I once tried to play Quake IV, it seemed like half of the game was missing after I played the uncut version(thank the mighty Newell for Steam).

I'm not sure what versions of games you get in Switzerland, but in Germany you still get the cut versions via Steam. Thankfully Steam highlights cut versions with a a "Low violence version" text, so you can find out if it is cut or not.

 

[Ulquiorra4sama]

Now if only the rest of the world would follow then we'd actually see some progress... said the gamer completely void of the fact that some games probably shouldn't ever see the light of day again.

But in Doom's case i doubt we've seen the game 'cause as much violence as parents may have wanted to believe. I like to think that most people who played Doom turned out to be pretty decent folks.

Granted... the game did inspire things like this, but it's merely for shits and giggles so it should be ok.

 

[teh_Canape]

But somehow the Simithsonian considers it art.

considering how games are today

it pretty much is a piece of art

 

[Sylveria]

Uh oh, the German kids are playing Doom.. the next Hitler will surely be born because of the mind warping capabilities of a 20 year old game.

Granted... the game did inspire things like this, but it's merely for shits and giggles so it should be ok.

That is just hillarious.

German policies and countries similar to them are why the gaming community needs to keep pressing forward for the same legitimacy that other forms of media privy to. Here's a country where the Ultra-conservative, fear-mongering, "Bulletstorm makes people rape" crowd actually won. This is also a country that invented shizer porn. Rather strange morality spectrum huh.

 

[Goatmeat]

I've been playing Doom since I was 8 and I've only gone to Hell to murder giant mechanical brain spiders twice.

 

[The Random One]

So Germany has a list of banned works... not because of its post-Nazi censorship stance... but because of its weird porn.

I dare you to make a joke about this at the expense of Germany. You can't possibly hit any more stereotypes than the actual news.

EDIT:

But somehow the Simithsonian considers it art.

considering how games are today

it pretty much is a piece of art

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

I never understood the whole "murder simulator" rap Doom got. I mean, if anything, the game probably cut down on the number of accidental firearm deaths!

[small]After all, every self-respecting Doom player knows that picking up a gun lying in the open just means that a hundred demons will spawn in your face.[/small]

 

[Formica Archonis]

No relation to the Index Librorum Prohibitorum? Same concept, except that one's just harmful to Catholics.

Glad to see Doom finally got off the list, even if it's a silly gesture at this point. (Shame Doom 2 is still a bit neutered due to the Nazi imagery in the Wolf3D easter egg.) Ah, the glory days. When men were men, imps were imps, and one news report insisted it was a game about killing children in a concentration camp.

I made so many maps and monsters for that thing it's not funny.

It's still a great game. The weapons balance is just perfect, so much so that most weapon mods annoy me. One of the few things I didn't like about STRAIN [http://doom.wikia.com/wiki/STRAIN].

Any of you young'uns remember TeamTNT? It's funny, my first interactions with Doom online were with a group of their beta testers, at least two of whom were German.

(Yes, I'm rather old school.)

 

[uzo]

I heard Zenimax's entire letter to them just consisted of "IDKFA".

Lol nice one. That was the all weapons code though ... I think IDSPISPOPD would have been more relevant - no-clipping cheat there. Or IDDQD, invulnerability.

I always wondered what they stood for ...

IDKFA (I Don't Know Fuck All)
IDSPISPOPD (I Did Shoot Past In Silent Prowess Of Purple Death)
IDDQD (It's Doom Dude, Quit Distracting!)

 

[Formica Archonis]

I always wondered what they stood for ...

IDDQD was apparently short for an informal fraternity, Delta Q Delta.

IDSPISPOPD was for "Smashing Pumpkins into Small Piles of Putrid Debris". I'm sure it made sense to someone. But I'm glad they replaced it with IDCLIP for Doom 2. I mean, it's a noclip cheat!

EDIT: Oh, lookie: http://doom.wikia.com/wiki/Doom_cheat_codes

Yours are pretty funny, though.