Germany Bans EU CoD: Black Ops for PC
- Thread starter John Funk
- Start date
did you know these guys are just a few kilometers away from me?! you know stuff liek this makes me worry about my hobby!
Let's not forget the bizarre case of Soldier of Fortune 2: Double Helix.... where ALL humans were replaced by cyborgs..Wolf Hagen said:
About CoD, well I'm afraid this is a step in the wrong direction. This pretty much prohibits playing this version... till now, banning a game only prohibited the sale in Germany...
A game has to be rated by the "USK" in Germany who give away legally binding labels (over 0/6/12/16/18 years). An "18" rating would have some restrictions, but the games can still be displayed and sold.
When the USK thinks the game is harmful they give no label. The game can then be checked by the "BPjM" on request and could get "indiziert" which means indexed, put on the "Index" which is the list of harmful media. A version with an USK label can not get put on the index afterwards anymore.
Now, all games without a label have to be treated as if banned. I'll use banned instead of indexed from now on, but it's more a "banned from display". This includes all unchecked games, which of course means all import versions (Yes, even the english version of "Barbies Whatever").
Banned games can still be sold to adults, but they must not be displayed, no ads, no giving to minors. Imports and ownership are also allowed!
If a game is banned, this means less sales which is why the publisher censors the game and gives it to the USK for testing again. Even the "18" rating is feared to give less sales and a game might be further cut to get a "16" or lower. A fear of public opinion might also be a reason to not even release officially in Germany, as Microsoft does (Dead Rising, Gears of War) to keep a clean image for their Xbox.
After all the explanation:
Who buys in Germany gets a cut version, who doesn't want that can buy an import.
But since a few months import versions of Cod 6 can not be activated on a steam account in Germany any longer. Now it will be the same for Cod 7, this time from the beginning.
There still is no problem to activate import versions of other games in steam. That's why I think it's Activision that have their heads up their backsides again, with Valve as an enforcer with the only platform to play the game on. Steam has no way of age verification and so we got some patronizing moves in the past. Most games are "not available in your country" when there is no cut version, but for example the banned Hitman - Codename 47 and Prototype land in my shopping cart without a problem, the later being published by Activision.
I have no real interest in Cod or any of Activisions games really, but this behaviour sucks and shows where we'll go with closed platforms that can enforce this.
Most probably it has nothing to do with fear of legal problems or even consideration of adequate media usage of minors (ha!), it's just a way to sell the overpriced german versions and get rid of cheap imports.
When the USK thinks the game is harmful they give no label. The game can then be checked by the "BPjM" on request and could get "indiziert" which means indexed, put on the "Index" which is the list of harmful media. A version with an USK label can not get put on the index afterwards anymore.
Now, all games without a label have to be treated as if banned. I'll use banned instead of indexed from now on, but it's more a "banned from display". This includes all unchecked games, which of course means all import versions (Yes, even the english version of "Barbies Whatever").
Banned games can still be sold to adults, but they must not be displayed, no ads, no giving to minors. Imports and ownership are also allowed!
If a game is banned, this means less sales which is why the publisher censors the game and gives it to the USK for testing again. Even the "18" rating is feared to give less sales and a game might be further cut to get a "16" or lower. A fear of public opinion might also be a reason to not even release officially in Germany, as Microsoft does (Dead Rising, Gears of War) to keep a clean image for their Xbox.
After all the explanation:
Who buys in Germany gets a cut version, who doesn't want that can buy an import.
But since a few months import versions of Cod 6 can not be activated on a steam account in Germany any longer. Now it will be the same for Cod 7, this time from the beginning.
There still is no problem to activate import versions of other games in steam. That's why I think it's Activision that have their heads up their backsides again, with Valve as an enforcer with the only platform to play the game on. Steam has no way of age verification and so we got some patronizing moves in the past. Most games are "not available in your country" when there is no cut version, but for example the banned Hitman - Codename 47 and Prototype land in my shopping cart without a problem, the later being published by Activision.
I have no real interest in Cod or any of Activisions games really, but this behaviour sucks and shows where we'll go with closed platforms that can enforce this.
Most probably it has nothing to do with fear of legal problems or even consideration of adequate media usage of minors (ha!), it's just a way to sell the overpriced german versions and get rid of cheap imports.
It's not banned. Can't you read? All it does is make you play the censored version, it doesn't ban the game itself.Angerwing said:
Oh god I remember the last CoD thread with Therumancer in it XD. Let's hope this won't get out of hand like it did last time.
Someone really blamed Merkel for this? XD.
Exactly. Good job on explaining the 'banning' practices in Germany. Closed platforms could potentially cause a lot of problems in the future.Scruffy said:
Well, obviously...erm...Germany's trying to prevent the rise of an oppressive dictatorship through suffocating censorship...and Australia wants to show how far it's come from being a nation of exported criminals by becoming as totalitarian as the regime that sent them there in the first place.Adzma said:
I don't know why everyone's hating on steam, it doesn't have any say in this, steam is basically the game store down the street, if a game is banned or censored in your country, you can't just waltz down the street and demand the uncensored version of a game, they are just the middleman who sells the games in the first place.
Also, als Deutscher kann ich nur sagen: Endlich wieder ein guter Grund ein Spiel nicht zu kaufen, sondern es zu kopieren. Wenn die Firma mein Geld nicht will, bekommt sie es auch nicht.
As german, i can just say: That is a really good reason for not buying the game, and copying it instead. If the company don't want my money, they don't get it.
Oh, and by the way, i buy ALLWAYS the english versions from games. Its just because the german translation sucks so hard. And most importantly, very much jokes get lost in translation.
As german, i can just say: That is a really good reason for not buying the game, and copying it instead. If the company don't want my money, they don't get it.
Oh, and by the way, i buy ALLWAYS the english versions from games. Its just because the german translation sucks so hard. And most importantly, very much jokes get lost in translation.
The funny thing is that we germans can't do anything about that, because we currently have no party in the parlament that cares about video games. Doens't matter who get elected, they all hate video games. Representative democracy ftw!
There are many reasons why I avoid Steam, but this adds one more reason to a already long list of them.Terramax said:
The worst thing about this is that a lot of PC gamers in Europe don't buy through Steam (myself included). Yet, when games are integrated with Steam, we still have to use it even when we purchase a retail copy.
Except I am preety sure the game store down the street doesn't get to enforce region locking or force me to use it's services no matter where I bought my game or discriminate me as a gamer for a particular platform. And that is on top of other flaws, such as the fact that Steam integration enforces a de facto ban on used game sales.cocoro67 said:
Even though I am not a German, I am a fellow PC gamer and this kind of news always upsets me. It just goes to show how such services are increasingly used as a means to enforce developer/publisher will upon gamers and take away the rights of said gamers. On the bright side, these kind of events might at least make people think twice if such services are really all that great in their current state.