Call of Duty: Black Ops Censored in Germany

[GideonB]

Well thank you USK, now my money goes to the UK yet again.

Ha, tell you what, I've NEVER bought a PS3 game in Germany - and I own 40 of the things. Not only are games not censored up the arse in Britain, they're also significantly cheaper.

Oh yeah, German voice-overs. Pass. It's not that German is an ugly language or anything, but it's a difficult one. Which means that very few Germans speak it correctly, and none of them are in the movie-/game-dubbing business.

Dude, so true. UK is like the mecca of cheap games. Amazon.co.uk is my best friend.

As for dubbing: It's really jarring once you find out how utterly shit the translations of films and games are, right? I mean there's the occasional good or adequate one, but in general it's laughably bad.

In the UK for me nothing is cheap. We must be thinking on wrong places here.
Also Germany censors a lot of things. How is this different?

 

[Nevyrmoore]

First Medal of Honor, now this. Brace yourselves people for playing Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood where the assassinations have all been replace with big friendly hugs.

That's what you do already.

[sub]You just stab them while you're doing it.[/sub]

Stab them with LOVE!

 

[Ekonk]

Yep, the Germans do love their censoring.

I wonder why that is? Do they think the new Hitler will arise if they don't? Because IF a new Hitler arises, it certainly won't be in Germany. Everyone will see it coming, now that it already happened once.

Having said that, I wonder how much people truly learned of WW2, considering how many dutchmen voted for notorious xenophobe Geert Wilders last election. Will they ever learn?

 

[Socken]

If Reagan hadn't supported it, it would still be there.

I didn't read the whole thing so disregard this if I missed anything, but Bush was president of the US when the wall came down.

But Reagan still supported it.

Yeah that just occurred to me too.

Funny, though, I wonder why everyone's celebrating Kohl, Gorbachev and Bush as the "fathers" of German unity then. I mean German Unity Day was yesterday and I didn't hear Reagan's name once.

 

[Ekonk]

I think you need to do some history reading yourself. Though I admit the writing wasn't the best. It wasn't America single handedly, but it was it and the allies who were responsible for the wall being put up, and in the final equasion it was the US that wound up having the final say on taking it down. If Reagan hadn't supported it, it would still be there.

That might not make some people happy, but that's the way it is.

You need a good check of your facts, my friend.

Also, your claim doesn't really look good on America, considering the Berlin Wall was a terrible thing that divided families and caused a lot of deaths and even more misery.

But as much as I like dissing America, the US and the Allies had nothing to do with it. 'T was the East German government.

 

[Fiend13]

First of all i'd like someone to explain to me the appeal of gore and excessive violence. Apparently some people in this thread can't live without, which in my opinion can not be a healthy mindset to begin with.
Second i'd have censored violence over sexual content in almost any matter. Because of that i choose our (Germanys) censorship of videogames over the american equivalent since we usually get at least a rational reason why stuff is cut.
Can't say much about the reasoning behind this particular censoring since i haven't reseached it yet.
Censorship of Art in Germany (yes over here Videogames are still considered that) is done by a committee consisting of representatives of various religions and educationalists so its usually quite reasonable. If its not you can sue against and have good odds.

 

[Socken]

I wonder why that is? Do they think the new Hitler will arise if they don't? Because IF a new Hitler arises, it certainly won't be in Germany. Everyone will see it coming, now that it already happened once.

I wouldn't be too sure about that, a recent poll by some TV station revealed that 26% of people surveyed would immediately vote for the party of Thilo Sarrazin [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thilo_Sarrazin], (in)famous for his book about muslim immigrants and jews and their genetic inferiority (only worded nicer obviously), if he decided to form one.

While the book is certainly no Mein Kampf, there are frightening similarities.

 

[Socken]

First of all i'd like someone to explain to me the appeal of gore and excessive violence. Apparently some people in this thread can't live without, which in my opinion can not be a healthy mindset to begin with.
Second i'd have censored violence over sexual content in almost any matter. Because of that i choose our (Germanys) censorship of videogames over the american equivalent since we usually get at least a rational reason why stuff is cut.
Can't say much about the reasoning behind this particular censoring since i haven't reseached it yet.
Censorship of Art in Germany (yes over here Videogames are still considered that) is done by a committee consisting of representatives of various religions and educationalists so its usually quite reasonable. If its not you can sue against and have good odds.

Hate to disagree, but reasonable is not what I'd call the usual censorship here. Skate 2 had two skateboard companies (Lost and Mystery) removed for using letters similar to the SS rune in their logos. Actually the brands are banned entirely in Germany. I mean seriously, they're skateboards.

 

[Ekonk]

I wonder why that is? Do they think the new Hitler will arise if they don't? Because IF a new Hitler arises, it certainly won't be in Germany. Everyone will see it coming, now that it already happened once.

I wouldn't be too sure about that, a recent poll by some TV station revealed that 26% of people surveyed would immediately vote for the party of Thilo Sarrazin [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thilo_Sarrazin], (in)famous for his book about muslim immigrants and jews and their genetic inferiority (only worded nicer obviously), if he decided to form one.

While the book is certainly no Mein Kampf, there are frightening similarities.

He sounds like the German Geert Wilders then, except that Wilders doesn't hate on Jews.

But seriously? Antisemitism? In GERMANY? Have they learned nothing? Has the world learned nothing? How can people fall for that shit again?!?

It's as if muslims are the new jews. Nobody likes them. Everybody thinks they're dangerous. (Well obviously, to Thilo Sarrazin, muslims AND jews are the new jews.)

It's all rather frightening.

 

[DazBurger]

Fff... Thats a little bit too close to home for comfort as Denmark borders Germany.

On the other hand, if anyone here began talking about censorship they would get slapped by the general public.
I guess I can feel safe...

 

[kouriichi]

Whats wrong with a game being slightly more realistic?
I doubt your going to step on a land mine and step back off it without losing ((atleast)) a limb or two.

 

[Staskala]

I wouldn't be too sure about that, a recent poll by some TV station revealed that 26% of people surveyed would immediately vote for the party of Thilo Sarrazin [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thilo_Sarrazin], (in)famous for his book about muslim immigrants and jews and their genetic inferiority (only worded nicer obviously), if he decided to form one.

While the book is certainly no Mein Kampf, there are frightening similarities.

Funniest thing is that he calls the entire working class genetically inferior, whether they are German or not. Incidentally his biggest supporters are members of the working class, so go and figure that one out.
Guess most people never read the book and only saw his "opinion" on lazy immigrants.
Which wouldn't be surprising since that's the only thing most of the mainstream media bothered to print.

The 26% are a skewed number since the question was more along the lines of "Could you imagine voting for a party lead by Sarrazin?" which is an entirely different matter.

 

[Fiend13]

Hate to disagree, but reasonable is not what I'd call the usual censorship here. Skate 2 had two skateboard companies (Lost and Mystery) removed for using letters similar to the SS rune in their logos. Actually the brands are banned entirely in Germany. I mean seriously, they're skateboards.

You have a good point there. Thats a complete overreaction. Arguably it might have been to prevent "Neo-Nazi" groups from using the symbols in an anti-constitutional way. They do that all the time with similiar things to recrut juvenile members. Still you are completely right and a poor choice of words made it look like i said that the system had no flaws. Which is of course not the case. I just wanted to point out that it works most of the time.

 

[Staskala]

He sounds like the German Geert Wilders then, except that Wilders doesn't hate on Jews.

But seriously? Antisemitism? In GERMANY? Have they learned nothing? Has the world learned nothing? How can people fall for that shit again?!?

It's as if muslims are the new jews. Nobody likes them. Everybody thinks they're dangerous. (Well obviously, to Thilo Sarrazin, muslims AND jews are the new jews.)

It's all rather frightening.

He has the support of Germany's biggest newspaper behind him, the BILD (German equivalent of the SUN) for whatever reason. They push him like noone else, talking about freedom of speech (Sarrazin lost his job as director of the Deutsche Bank because of his stupid book) and whatnot.
It's not like he got away unscathed, and if it wasn't for the BILD he would go under as the raving madman he is.
What the BILD hopes to gain I don't know, but nothing sells like controversy, even if it means creating one yourself.

 

[Brotherofwill]

What the BILD hopes to gain I don't know, but nothing sells like controversy, even if it means creating one yourself.

So you know what they hope to gain then XD.

Bild + Sarrazin on cover = Warmer Semmel.

 

[AbsoluteVirtue18]

First Medal of Honor, now this. Brace yourselves people for playing Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood where the assassinations have all been replace with big friendly hugs.

That's what you do already.

[sub]You just stab them while you're doing it.[/sub]

Stab them with LOVE!

Cryptic Metaphor!

 

[Staskala]

So you know what they hope to gain then XD.

Bild + Sarrazin on cover = Warmer Semmel.

But anyone with a conscience or any sense of responsibility would realize that this stuff has broader implications than just the number of issues sold?

Oh wait, we're talking about BILD.
Silly me.

 

[Avayu]

What the BILD hopes to gain I don't know, but nothing sells like controversy, even if it means creating one yourself.

So you know what they hope to gain then XD.

Bild + Sarrazin on cover = Warmer Semmel.

I always thought tits, regular fearmongering and the weatherforecast was enough to sell BILD?
Well, there's always a way to raise sells.

 

[NLS]

Yes.

After World War II to prevent Germany from rising as a power again due to it's policies and behavior this thing called "The Berlin Wall" was assembled to split the country in half and prevent it from ever acheiving power again. I personally think this was a good idea, and taking that wall down was one of the few things I think Ronald Reagan did that was wrong.

Germany has only returned to power because we made that desician. They exist in their current form because we allowed it. Like it or not, it's true.
(...)
On top of that, what do you expect me to do? Pretend that the Berlin wall never existed? Claim we didn't build it for a reason?

Let me just quote this:

(Reuters) - More than half of all Russians do not know who built the Berlin Wall, one of the most enduring symbols of the Cold War, an opinion poll showed Thursday.

Ten percent of people surveyed by pollster VTsIOM thought Berlin residents built it themselves -- even though its purpose was to prevent residents of communist East Germany from escaping to the West through the divided city of Berlin.

Six percent said Western powers built it and four percent though it was a "bilateral initiative" of the Soviet Union and the West.

Fifty-eight percent said they did not know who built it, with just 24 percent correctly naming the Soviet Union and its then-communist ally East Germany.

Following mounting pressure from within the communist bloc, the wall was opened to allow people to cross from east to west on November 9, 1989, leading to the reunification of Germany 11 months later.

I don't know the statistics on this in the US, but I'm pretty sure you would be among the percentage that do not know who built (and later tore down) the Berlin Wall.

Also, the wall caused the deaths of more than a thousand people. I don't know why you would insist on having that blood on your hands.