Germany Bans EU CoD: Black Ops for PC

[Irridium]

I'm sorry, but are you EFFIN' kidding me??? I think we should invade Germany again and beat the stupid out of them. Seriously.

Also, Valve, what the hell is wrong with you???

Well if they don't comply there's a chance that the EU could stop Steam from operating in Europe, cutting off a very large revenue stream.

OT: Well that sucks. In this situation I'd say buy the game like you normally would, then get the less-then-legal version. They get their money, you get your game, its all good.

Of course not sure how that would affect the multiplayer, but there it is.

EDIT: Also $5 says they just looked at the name of the song and freaked the hell out, banning it.

 

[dancinginfernal]

Those Stones, perverting our youth! They should be banned everywhere, they've brought nothing but decay to the morality of nations!

I do believe I witnessed that which you were enacting in that general area.

OT: Knowing that Sympathy for the Devil is in it now, I may rent it to find out why.

 

[Squilookle]

Content removed from the German Black Ops includes: scenes of gratuitous violence and torture in the campaign, the ability for explosions to blow characters' limbs off, and - for whatever reason - the Rolling Stones' "Sympathy for the Devil" from the soundtrack.

Hmm, oh well...uh huh... wait... NOT THE ROLLING STONES! HOW COULD THEY!?

 

[theriddlen]

German government was stupid, is stupid, and will be stupid.

 

[Onyx Oblivion]

It's published by Activision, ergo it sucks. Especially if you don't want to give Bobby Kotick any money.

I have a boycott of Activision...which sadly means I have a boycott of Blizzard, too.

OT:

Well, I'm sure the localized version of the game will still be perfectly functional.

 

[ph0b0s123]

Many games have been banned from Germany for ages, so this is nothing new. The colusion of steam is though. So PC players get screwed not console players, nice. Also I take it as an English speaker, if I lived in Germany (which I have in the past), I could not get a copy of the game in my native languge without breaking the law. I see an EU court of human rights case comming...

 

[Fall from Honor]

The worst thing about this isn't actually the cut down version, but the fact that we have to listen to the dreadfull German voice acting.
Any game not made in Germany seems to specifically look for terrible voice actors. This is my current main gripe with all the cut down versions, I don't give a crap about limbs flying of or persisten bodys and the like, but whenever a game, or movie for that matter, is translated, a lot is lost in that translation. That is the reason I haven't bought fallout new vegas yet, for fear of having to listen to these idiots.

 

[Wolf Hagen]

Yep, but those rules ever existed. Never played a fully uncensored one from the German market without usind Cracks (like Austrian Datas, they are just "all stuff yay!" German Versions) or well, was playing titles that I didn't care about.


And sure, wish we could change that, but Imagine that: some politicians even may wanna Ban FPSes as a whole under the Label of "Killergames".

 

[beema]

WTF they cut a classic Rolling Stones song??? That is absurd.
Thank god for bittorrent eh?
It's sad that Steam is cow-towing to these stupid laws. I suppose they have to in order to operate in the country, but still. It feels along the lines of yahoo reporting users to the Chinese government and things of that nature (to a lesser extreme of course).
It's ironic that the country that came up with scheisse porn and other nasty shit bans stuff like this.

Also, is this not in effect for console copies? How does that make any sense?

 

[AngryMongoose]

You'd have thought, of all people, than the Germans would want to avoid Authoritarianism.

 

[Harbinger_]

This is the first that I've heard of germany banning certain games, have they always been this strict and weird? (Weird being the Sympathy for the Devil song) Also this is the first that I've heard of Steam bending to a country's specific needs (IE North Korea demanding that Steam make each game have it's own North Korea government rating/stamp of approval.)

 

[GiantRedButton]

This is the first that I've heard of germany banning certain games, have they always been this strict and weird? (Weird being the Sympathy for the Devil song) Also this is the first that I've heard of Steam bending to a country's specific needs (IE North Korea demanding that Steam make each game have it's own North Korea government rating/stamp of approval.)

It isn't banned, actually but steam only allows german users to download the censored version if it is available.
If a game has a censored version, both are allowed to be sold freely there are 11 games however that actually did get banned like a kz managing game.
but Steam only allows the censored version because they don't check for ID.

 

[Fall from Honor]

This is the first that I've heard of germany banning certain games, have they always been this strict and weird? (Weird being the Sympathy for the Devil song) Also this is the first that I've heard of Steam bending to a country's specific needs (IE North Korea demanding that Steam make each game have it's own North Korea government rating/stamp of approval.)

Is defenitely not the first time, Doom & Doom II as well as the Quake seires up to Quake III and a lot of other games that were considered too violent were restricted. That meant you could not show any advertisements and were only allowed to buy them informaly, so any store that kept these games could not openly display them, but was allowed to sell them when someone specifically asked for that game.

 

[JourneyThroughHell]

Sucks for Germans.

The game sucks too though.

Prove it... right now... go on.

OT: Feel sorry for you Germans =\

It's published by Activision, ergo it sucks. Especially if you don't want to give Bobby Kotick any money.

Prototype, Singularity, Guitar Hero, Call Of Duty 1,2,3,4 and, yes, Modern Warfare 2, Jedi Knight: Jedi Outcast, Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy, here's a list of games, I'm pretty sure you don't hate all of them, need I go on?!

OT: My apologies to Germany, but your government perplexes me. Seriously, what's your bone with games, guys?

 

[GoGo_Boy]

No news including "German" or "Germany" without someone putting some random nazi attempt in his comment ;x

Apart from that,
yeah kinda sucks. Not for me, I wouldn't buy a shooter anyways. Well apparently I got Dead Space which wasn't censored for some reason :> (probably because you don't fight humans but 'zombies').

As I'm pretty darn sure that the violence they put into the game will be exaggerated and mostly just for the sake of it (because children love violence if it's authentic or not).

So yeah apart fro the fact that censoring games at 18+ for reasons like this is kinda stupid I couldn't care less

 

[Scabadus]

OT: Well that sucks. In this situation I'd say buy the game like you normally would, then get the less-then-legal version. They get their money, you get your game, its all good.

I'm not German and I'm not going to get Black Ops (legally or otherwise) but if I was and were then why the hell should I pay money for a game with bits missing? They'll happily censor parts of the game but I bet they won't lower the price for it.

No in this case I would feel no guilt in pirating the game; the polititions responsible for censoring it (and let's not even get into THAT in a EU country; if it's good enough for the ratings board of every other one it's good enough for Germany) can pick up my tab.

 

[Shycte]

I don't get this thing cencorship. I mean, it's rated M and I thought adults could think for themself?

Shame Germany, shame. Then again, it would seem that Angela Merkel is loosing it...

 

[thegermanguy]

hm. normally i would be defending my home country. but I won't.

there were several occasions where the officials cut certain parts out of a game, for example doom 3 (if i remember correctly). but on the other hand, games like god of war haven't been cut at all. anyway, this was never a problem since the internet always had a quick solution for this. but now with steam...well, shit.

oddly enough, certain games are not cut at all. like god of war.

well...lets just say our government is not very popular here at all. but hey, I guess here are enough americans who know what I mean and know how it feels to hate the government! right?

 

[Labyrinth]

I'm going to assume that you're being incredibly sarcastic with this.

Sarcastic and ironic. After all, the generation who grew up with the 'Stones, and hence most liable to influence are in their 50s and 60s. This is the dominant policy-making demographic and while the Stones were particularly popular in England, above that of their popularity in Germany, the joke retains humour despite integrity flaws.

 

[Sabazios]

Ve are a docile and peace loving people, and vill lock up anyone who says otherwise.