Can anyone say Neo-Nazis? You'd think that Germany would have learned that an overbearing, over encroaching government was a BAD thing from that little debacle they had in the early to mid 1900s...

Ok, new comment to replace the wiped one.

Come to Canada! There's a few provinces here that are itching to entice developers to set up shop here. :)

Well as a person that has lived in Germany for the past year, I can tell you that I nor any of the gamers I talked to have seen any thing on the subject. And I have been looking. There was an upset in the South-Eastern Germany after the shooting in November, but all legislation that I was aware of was on the state and not national level.

@Snakestream
Can anyone say Idiot? Please keep your ignorant comments to yourself.

@ Snakestream

Now, now. Just because Germany is too harsh on video games doesn't mean we need to scream, "goddnam fuckin jerry kraut bastdras oprrwssni r gamz bucnha nazis LAWLZ". They have Kraftwerk. Everyone loves Kraftwerk.

I find it depressing that 1 out of 5 people do not trust Germans, simply because they used to be hardcore, conservative nutbars. That was over 70 years ago. It's 2007, not 1937. Whatever happened to "forgive and forget"? We don't kick Japan in the face for Pearl Harbour (a certain JT comment notwithstanding), and even further still, I don't see anyone calling the Italians "a bunch of fascist wops" because of Mussolini.

Seriously, dude... if you don't want people to stereotype you because you play games, don't stereotype Germany simply because they were Nazis. That's pretty hypocritical.

And I thought people learned from the "RE5 black zombies" debacle...

Erm, Germany considering a ban on publishing or distributing all violent games? I know they don't have a First Amendment giving nearly universal protection to speech, but even Thompson only advocates such restrictions for minors...

Weatherlight
SO its just poli blunderbusing that amounts to nothing? I hope so,Germany seems to be better balanced than most sure M rated games cant be sold in shops openly but the point is they still can be sold,and thats very important.

I swear I read about this about 5 months ago in PC Gamer UK.

Still, at least someone is highlighting the evils of Germany, I mean, video game legislation.

Sorry to say this, because it is playing on national stereotypes, but thats the Germans for ya.

@Sidewinder
German gamers are not turned off by the Nazi's being depicted in games especially as "evil". There are very few people that have any pity for the Nazi's, there is however an understanding that people were weak and didn't stand up because they were afraid. The Government has a ban on the Nazi symbol being used for purposes other then educational or historical purposes. That bans most WWII video games, notice DoD doesn't use either country's threads.

@Amarkov
Reading the article there are a couple of inconsistencies. I am guessing that there is an error in the translation, because the "ban" only appears to effect the sales of the game at normal stores and preventing advertising to people underage. This is something that the German Games are already used to doing. Going to special "game shops" is not a big deal and the limited advertising is already in effect, in essence this is just a redundancy.

@ZippyDSMlee
Thats pretty much it, the big push was right in the area of the tragedies in the south east. Its known to be a very old school conservative and religious area. The upset only lasted a couple of weeks and is nothing. Ive told you in the past what games I found on the shelves, and since I have gone to a game store and there are a ton more titles

@Nathan: "Germans, simply because they used to be hardcore, conservative nutbars."

The example that comes to mind is that in Giants they had to turn the blood green to be able to sell it. You're telling me that they *were* conservative nutbars?

Germany has 2 levels of bans,1 is baned they try and prevent it from being sold, the other is merely blacklisted and sold with other mature rated games behind the counter away from minors.

There is a misconspection about the way they handle games,Austrila is far more harsh baning any game they dislike altogether, do not import, do not pass go.

lol@this article

It is a bad translation of a bad interpretation of a biased interview.

I just read the original interview that Heise(hawt) online is referencing, the interviewer is totally hostile and asks them stuff like: Why they don't make 'harmless' games like car racing and stuff, why make these 'killergames'? and why does there need to be blood in the fps games?

The two people being interviewed respond by asking what is a 'killergame' and saying it is the stupidest expression they have ever heard, and no gamer has ever died from playing a game. And that blood is in the game so the player knows that the enemy is being hit, or that you're being hit by the enemy, that it functions as realistic visual feedback.

The interviewer then states that blood in games scare politicians, and that (i'm not sure how to translate this, senators i think) senators want to ban fps games.
(i'm not sure where the Heise online 'reporter' got the idea of a 'unanimous decision' I'm sure i would of heard of this, i couldn't find anything in any online german news source, and its definitely not in the interview.. also by 'countries' I think he is trying to write 'counties', but what he of course means to say is 'states'. There is a lot of bad translation, the 'reporter' clearly doesn't know english well, and is picking the wrong words with his spell checker. also if anyone is confused by the term 'Ego-shooter' this is just the german word for fps.)
To which they reply with the standard: 'generational problem', 'old people don't understand video games', 'politicians need votes', 'media hype', that we are all familiar with here.

Anyway, the interview goes on to ask: If such a law ever got passed and all violent games were banned, would Crytek start making horsey games for little girls?

Yerli: Ganz sicher nicht. ('Hell no' , being the best translation)

Interviewer: What then? (meaning games)

Yeril: We would leave Germany. That would be the logical consequence. Budapest is a nice city. . . . blablabla.

There is no law like this in the works, if there were it would never pass, a few politicians are talking about it (in a scare the old people for votes way).

This has got to be the biggest piece of bullshit I have ever seen on GP, although i don't fault Dennis for re-reporting the story from 'Hot-Online' which is about as credible and factual as everybody's favorite unemployed lawyer..
But, in the future Dennis, if you need someone to verify any german language stuff, I really don't mind a little reading.

@tempo - thanks for that, and we were relying on the translated article on Heise, obviously.

However, it doesn't seem far out of line with the earlier coverage we cited.

@ZippyDSMlee

Australia has a horrible track record of arts censorship in general. There was one case a few years back where the federal government attempted to prevent the display of a work of art it had personally commissioned - purely to cater to a moral backlash they perceived would come from a very small segment of the community. Manhunt was banned a year after its release for similar reasons. I'd already got my copy though, still not sure whether I'm legally allowed to possess it anymore.

@sqlrob

Sorry, I forgot to add "anti-Semitic".

No matter how harsh they are on violent games, I don't think they'd ever alter the games so all the enemies became rabbis.

I think this crackdown on games is another attempt by Germany to quash violence. Germany likes to do that, because they already have a bad rap for inventing so-called National Socialism (which couldn't be further separated from actual Socialism).

We shouldn't beat up on them simply because they're censor-happy. If anyone wants to beat up on a country for being censor-happy, choose the UK. The things the BBFC have done to certain movies are, in my eyes, much more ridiculous than anything Germany could alter in a game (headbutts anyone?).

@Tempo
Thank you!!! My German is not good enough to translate larger chunks of text or understand the specifics but the English articles just don't make sense or agree with the little bit of the German counterparts that I can read.

I didn't know if they were going to use the PEGI system or a new one. All I heard was that there were talks about a "new standerdized system" and a number of countries balked because they felt it was giving to much control to the EU, but I also know that Germany said they would consider it.

@Zippy
When the ratings board "bans" a game most often it entails them refusing to rate the game, they don't often use the 18+ rating. Which just means you have to go to a specialty store to buy the game. The refusal of rating just means that they store the game out of sight and you have to ask for it or there is a separate room that they keep them in. Heres a little more on the current rating system, it looks like it was written pretty fast but appears accurate. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unterhaltungssoftware_Selbstkontrolle

Here's another article by Heise Online, about the German Culture Council and how it wants to involve on computer games :

http://www.heise.de/english/newsticker/news/94784

@Weatherlight: You're the one who's ignorant if you can't see any similarities between Beckstein's and Stoiber's proposal to BAN AND OUTLAW distribution and even playing of "killerspiele" (just what that means? - from what I've heard of anti-game hysteria in Germany, some would apparantly put even Final Fantasy VII and wrestling games into that category) book-burning practices Germany had in past.

I know SnakeStream crossed the line by mentioned Nazis, but that's only because such comparison is an offence to victims of Nazi regime and because Beckstein doesn't want to kill people or to start a war. But with him wanting to put German gamers into prison for 12 months (much more drastic measure than what Federal Ministry of Family Affairs is now proposing, right?) and considering how many gamers there are in Germany, evidently there isn't enough space in prisons for them. So I would say he need to create concentration camps for them if that wouldn't be an insult to actual concentration camp victims.

You also wrote this: "there is however an understanding that people were weak and didn’t stand up because they were afraid" - apparently, today's Germany suffer from the same problem, as gamers there don't want to fight for their rights or don't even know when they are endangered, despite all the anti-game hysteria, especially in Bavaria. I KNOW that Germany *is* a free country and that they respect human rights, but if you want rights, you need to earn them first.

Some time ago, Germany rejected anti-smoking law, claiming it violates the rights of smokers. But that's because smokers value their rights, unlike IDIOTS like Tim Partlett, who only know how to whine and bitch on the Internet but have no guts to defend their views in public, even if their basic human rights are viciously violated (the line "This is a personal commentary and does not reflect the views of my company in any way." alone proves this and it's even making me think he even made all up). If he and other losers from Crytek want to flee from Germany like cowards instead of legally and morally standing for what they do, then I say "Good riddance!" - among all countries, Germany is the least one to need citizens uncapable or unwilling to fight against oppression and intolerance. I have e-mailed Crytek several months ago, claiming they need to fight more actively for the rights of gamers and giving them few arguments on how to accomplish that, but they never replied, not even with something like "thank you for your concern". So evidently they don't care about perception of video games in German society, just on how they will make money from it. I will never buy any game made by them only because of their passiveness.

Grumble typo, first paragraph at the end missing "dont"

Ok, Snakestream, you are a freaking moron...
1. Germany learned a lot from the past. That's why they changed a lot of laws so no nationalistic or racist party can get into the Bundestag.
2. How is banning violent video games characteristic for an "encroaching" government. So the USA should let everybody watch child porn for the sake of not being to encroaching? There has to be at least some control...
3. Doesn't the United States have a lot more stupid laws that intervene in the privacy of citizens? Just check out: "cuffemnstuffem.com/strange.htm" par example.

I'm not saying that the whole banning violent video games thing is right - because it is not! But is has nothing to do with Nazis!
Thanx to Nathan...