@Vegsen said:

Have fun in the past, Germany.

Don't worry. We played all these games at release. Everyone had Doom and Wolfenstein back in the early 90s over here. And now with the internet and everything it's easier than ever. Often it's even cheaper to order import games.

So, in 2020 German gamers can finally have the sickening pleasure of playing Manhunt? Awesome.

@Superfriend: Yep, that's the sad consequence of this stuff. I have never been prevented from playing anything I wanted in the version I wanted but it sure cost me a LOT of cash to get it at times. On top of that there's almost always the 'superior' uncut, original version only a mouseclick away. Except that means just "stealing" the game and fucking over the people that deserve my money, support and sympathy in the first place. Oh well, so far there's always the UK, Switzerland, Austria etc. for at least reasonably priced and legal imports in most cases!

I live in Germany. These issues are so frustrating that i stopped paying attention and started importing almost everything. Problem solved!

It's often cheaper than buying locally, too. Fuck yeah, European Union!

@Bib said:

I live in Germany. These issues are so frustrating that i stopped paying attention and started importing almost everything. Problem solved!

It's often cheaper than buying locally, too. Fuck yeah, European Union!

I'm in the same boat with the same solution: importing almost everything. Otherwise I probably would've had to change my hobby from gaming to gardening ... that's a lot safer since nothing can go wrong with axes, chainsaws and digging holes.

It would be so awesome if they released a physical copy of DooM in Germany. I would so buy it, being a DooM collector and all :D

Germany is such a backwards country.

I feel like the limits on how far a game can go in Germany is slowly expanding. 
Now they actually can also unban Gears 1 and 2 since Gears 3 comes out there.

Germany is such a backwards country.

I dunno, I bet Yngwie Malmsteen could do a thing or two with a lute.

@Aranel said:

Germany is such a backwards country.

Yeah, right.

Only relevant at this stage of its existence as an artistic and scientific curiosity? Well there's also the whole "being the best game ever made" thing, but I guess some people aren't into that.

What can I say, welcome to our country. We have laws. Also, great beer and great cars.

In Sweden it's legal to kill people and we don't do that do we? wat

In Sweden it's legal to kill people and we don't do that do we? wat

I order through direct2drive UK so I can see heads asplode.

I wonder what we'll be tisking at 17 years into the future....

Also, gotta defend Germany, at least a bit. Violence may sometimes be censored, but boobs are never censored. And really, almost everyone will see breasts at some point, but most people will never shoot someone, head shot or otherwise.

gotta admit every country has at least one law you might find a bit absurde

I've been following this story for years now.

Doom was on GBA?

I dunno, I bet Yngwie Malmsteen could do a thing or two with a lute.

I am from Germany and can say that I own a (US) retail copy of Doom that I got in 1994. The censoring procedures are so fucking frustrating somtimes that it makes me sick. Command & Conquer had robots in Germany. FUCKING ROBOTS! 
With the rise of Amazon it has gotten super easy to import games from the UK for example and that´s where I buy the majority of my games (also because the British Pound is so weak at the moment) 
It´s really not hard to get those games when you really want them and frankly I only play the games in English as the German localization especially the voice work is usually total crap

Doom was on GBA?

I know a bunch of Germans (I live in Switzerland) and they all had and played Doom or Wolfenstein back then :D
I mean, who actually "follows" such silly laws/regulations/interdictions? XD

@mnzy said:

(2) Diese Rechte finden ihre Schranken in den Vorschriften der allgemeinen Gesetze, den gesetzlichen Bestimmungen zum Schutze der Jugend und in dem Recht der persönlichen Ehre.

So the english guys around here understand what's going on, here's the official translation of the whole Article 5:

Article 5
[Freedom of expression, arts and sciences]
(1) Every person shall have the right freely to express and disseminate
his opinions in speech, writing and pictures, and
to inform himself without hindrance from generally accessible
sources. Freedom of the press and freedom of reporting
by means of broadcasts and fi lms shall be guaranteed.
There shall be no censorship.
(2) These rights shall fi nd their limits in the provisions of general
laws, in provisions for the protection of young persons,
and in the right to personal honour.
(3) Arts and sciences, research and teaching shall be free.
The freedom of teaching shall not release any person from
allegiance to the constitution.

And yes, while (2) specifies that there are limitations in certain cases, there is also number (3) which clrearly states that there are also exceptions to those limitations applied at (2) especially if the media is considered art.

Gaming IS considered art by most people with more then 4 brain cells, so (3) should cover it. But it doesn't, because some right-wing conserative politicans in germany still believe games are only kid's stuff that can't and shouldn't adress serious mature topics.

On one side they complain that games like Call of Duty sanitize war by making it cool and look like only bad guys die in a war. On the other side they complain when a game adds things that help with a serious and mature handling of the topic war like: civilists, WMD's, Mass-graves, executions. You need controverse things like that to approach such an controverse topic and shock people.

But when you add things like this to a game you have these same conserative politicans complaining that you can't show such horrible things because it's like a murder situation.... it's really a no-win situation.

Anyway we are doing it wrong, GG5 doesn't cover what's happening with games. Just like GG5 says "There shall be no censorship" and there is no censorship by the goverment. Instead the goverment is forcing people trough economic pressure to selfcensor. So the goverment is basicly staying true the wording of the law, that's the big problem here.

1. There is a difference between banned and indexed (no advertising/public display). Doom or Gears were never banned, their sale was always legal. 

2. The banning and indexing of games in Germany only really affect the publisher. It has next to no repercussions on the gamer, you can get any version of any game cheaply and easily. This was slightly different in the days of Doom, of course. Still, as was said a number of times in this thread, I don't know any gamer in Germany that did not play Doom, or Wolfenstein for that matter (which was actually banned) back in the day.

3. There is no direct governmental censorship, all censoring is done by the publishers/developers themselves to acquire lower ratings / avoid indexing 

4. As for "questionable" ratings decision, most of what the BpjM does makes a lot more sense when you remember that ratings are not given primarily for images, but for context. There is rarely a problem with gory displays of violence against human characters - it is only when doing that is encouraged by the game where the rating is upped and the game is considered "harmful to minors". Yes, you can cut off the heads of the dead staff aboard the USG Ishimura, but the game never suggests or encourages or rewards the player for doing so. If they had given loot or if doing so wouldn't be avoidable, Dead Space would have been indexed immediatly. It also makes a lot of difference that the necromorphs are the aggressors and that the players are mostly defending themselves. These things are considerably more important for the rating/indexing than how gory the game is, or whether the enemies are human/humanoid.

Gaming IS considered art by most people with more then 4 brain cells, so (3) should cover it.

@Nethlem: Oh wow, thanks for clarifying all that. I was way to lazy to make an actual effort to translate that :)

Aaand Godwin.

I'm not sure I get it, are these games banned so no-one can play them, or is it just like here in England where its rated 18 and you can't buy it under that age? 

Only problem is the ones who wanted to get this 17 years ago are probably 30 already....
 
And found some other way to get it

I still play the first two like solitaire. I just open up zdoom and fly through an episode if I'm waiting for something. They're still some of the best fps games around.

@leebmx: There are several layers. The regular ratings work like they do in the UK. If these aren't considered sufficient, games are being put on the 'index' and have to deal with further restrictions (no ads allowed, have to be sold in restricted areas of stores etc.). And then there are rare cases that lead to games being outright banned. In these cases it is illegal to sell them entirely. Most of the latter cases are banned because of Nazi symbolism not violence but there are some extremely rare occasions of games that are banned purely based on them being deemed to violent (Manhunt, MK 1 and 2 and some other cases).

@leebmx: There are several layers. The regular ratings work like they do in the UK. If these aren't considered sufficient, games are being put on the 'index' and have to deal with further restrictions (no ads allowed, have to be sold in restricted areas of stores etc.). And then there are rare cases that lead to games being outright banned. In these cases it is illegal to sell them entirely. Most of the latter cases are banned because of Nazi symbolism not violence but there are some extremely rare occasions of games that are banned purely based on them being deemed to violent (Manhunt, MK 1 and 2 and some other cases).

Fucking Germany how does that work

I wanna see someone physically go to a store and ask for a copy of Doom 1 in 2011.