"This game is not available in your country" !? (germany)

[Sweem]

WTF?

[Kenshiro3]

depictions of nazis.

[internet cowboy]

Check my profile ♥♥♥♥♥ then come at me with your fake news

[Kenshiro3]

Originally posted by Terry:

Check my profile ♥♥♥♥♥ then come at me with your fake news

Depicting Nazis in video games isn't illegal in Australia.

[Witch ~]

I tho australia has huge censorship laws towards videogames. Maybe its that

[chriskringel]

We could write Steam Support, because the situation around swastikas and depiction of Nazis in video games in Germany got way better. Like all recent Wolfenstein titles are now available uncensored in Germany (library and store will show both versions, the uncensored is the CH/Swiss market version but it is available without any tricks.)

Concerning Indy3 it was always funny to explain that Spielberg's movie got a "from 16+ years onwards" rating in the 80s in Germany, and in 1989/1990 the graphic adventure from Lucasfilm got even banned in its international version. But honestly I'm not sure if it was really banned or just never released. Either way it could be that the ban is expired automatically.

I just remember there were two German (while being censored with the ABSOLUTELY GREAT translations by Boris Schneider and Heinrich Lenhardt) versions: The VGA version had black boxes painted over the swastikas. And the EGA version had Iron crosses depicted instead of swastikas. If I remember correctly. The German publisher was Softgold or Softgold Computerspiele GmbH / Funsoft Holding. (THQ bought them all in 2000)

[chriskringel]

While movies already were considered art in (West) Germany and therefore much more protected than video games. That's why it was never a problem in movies (as long as it is not a propaganda movie).

A German court banned the very first release of Wolfenstein 3D. And the gaming industry just moved on from that (no objection in court, no nothing -- meaning it was never really resolved in court), and accepted: "no swastikas in Germany in video games. o-o-k.!"

Around like two years ago there was a "perfect storm" situation where you had smaller indie games with really serious ambitions about the historical era (if I only remember the title, sorry!) and those actually put some money into their hands and went to the German authorities/courts and were like "yo, about that Wolfenstein-3D ban". I guess Bethesda also did something, but it was an indie game title who started this.

[Orffy]

Yes, the law did not change. It is still a matter of interpretation. It was and it is like answering the question: Can people recognize, that it is fiction or history and generally understand, that it is not interchangeable with current events?
Obviously some lawyers thought and maybe still think, that video games (and comics and other mediums) are not considered as recognizable fiction or history. This is it about the law against symbols of unconstitutional organizations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strafgesetzbuch_section_86a

If a medium is actually motivating to apply hate and violence though, then there is another law and that is "Volksverhetzung". Probably almost every country has such a law and of course provocating hate and violence is forbidden no matter if the medium is categorized as art/fictional or as historical or whatever: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volksverhetzung

IMHO it's absurd to think, that "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade" is against the law and even the last control freaks in Germany probably slowly start to understand it ;-)

[Witch ~]

Nice necro

[Orffy]

Originally posted by Witch ~:

Nice necro

Yeah, it gets bumped now and then, because it's still relevant and the issue has not been fixed.

Also a remake would be really great! ;-)