why is the game blocked in germany?

[kroi_k]

it got banned in germany like some days ago, maybe 2 weeks. How what and why?

[Verwunscht]

It's a shame! :(
I guess it's because of money. Doesn't it cost something to keep it on Steam? I suppose it wasn't profitable enough... but I'm not sure.
It should come back or should never have been removed from the store. It's such a great game, and people still love playing it.
It's a masterpiece, and every Plants vs. Zombies title that came after it was trash.

[Cop Unit 12]

Germany recently changed their game rating system. Many many games have been affected. As Plants vs. Zombies: Game of the Year is almost 16 years old now it's likely the new legally mandated review process folks did not get a legal copy to "review" it.

[spaceweezle]

Germany is just weird lol. Their social and political status went from one extreme to another.

Kind of true for most demographics. Ideology and principle swings wildly like a pendulum spending the least amount of time at a point of balance.

Hopefully they don't dilly-dally too much screening it again. Might take a while if they process games alphabetically.

[Dadadudu]

"Plants vs. Zombies" was removed from Steam in Germany due to regulatory changes affecting games without a USK (Unterhaltungssoftware Selbstkontrolle) rating. As of November 15, 2024, all games without a USK rating are effectively delisted and prohibited for sale on digital platforms in Germany. This means that titles like "Plants vs. Zombies," lacking such a rating, are no longer available for purchase on platforms like Steam within the country.


Also Fun Fact since Germany voted the CDU again as the main political Party the USK is most likely only going to get worse because the CDU is very harsh on 'Jugendschutz' 'Youth Protection' i.e. censorship of Media including Video-Games which unfortunately also affects adults; they are the ones why Germany is so notorius for having such ridicilous Censorship of Video-Games and its in their program to increase it even further.

[kroi_k]

Originally posted by Aaron:

"Plants vs. Zombies" was removed from Steam in Germany due to regulatory changes affecting games without a USK (Unterhaltungssoftware Selbstkontrolle) rating. As of November 15, 2024, all games without a USK rating are effectively delisted and prohibited for sale on digital platforms in Germany. This means that titles like "Plants vs. Zombies," lacking such a rating, are no longer available for purchase on platforms like Steam within the country.


Also Fun Fact since Germany voted the CDU again as the main political Party the USK is most likely only going to get worse because the CDU is very harsh on 'Jugendschutz' 'Youth Protection' i.e. censorship of Media including Video-Games which unfortunately also affects adults; they are the ones why Germany is so notorius for having such ridicilous Censorship of Video-Games and its in their program to increase it even further.

It's weird that it got removed like a week before i wrote it, but ig they wont add a age rating anymore.

[☆⋆Eunkura⋆☆]

Xd

[B-36 convair (hmruser)]

what?, but this is literally having no blood, no swearing, no pornography, which idiotic moron decided that?

[DeZi]

Originally posted by Captain slow:

what?, but this is literally having no blood, no swearing, no pornography, which idiotic moron decided that?

Yeah but the dev / pupblisher needs to fill out a like 2 min list. An official rateing isn't required. They afe just lazy if it got delisted

[Nachtari]

Originally posted by Aaron:

"Plants vs. Zombies" was removed from Steam in Germany due to regulatory changes affecting games without a USK (Unterhaltungssoftware Selbstkontrolle) rating. As of November 15, 2024, all games without a USK rating are effectively delisted and prohibited for sale on digital platforms in Germany. This means that titles like "Plants vs. Zombies," lacking such a rating, are no longer available for purchase on platforms like Steam within the country.


Also Fun Fact since Germany voted the CDU again as the main political Party the USK is most likely only going to get worse because the CDU is very harsh on 'Jugendschutz' 'Youth Protection' i.e. censorship of Media including Video-Games which unfortunately also affects adults; they are the ones why Germany is so notorius for having such ridicilous Censorship of Video-Games and its in their program to increase it even further.

This is not possible. I had a physical copie of this game as a child and physical copies of games have to have an USK rating to be retailed in germany. The game can also still be purchased in physical form since I found a copie on Amazon that ships to my address in germany.

[Clawyer]

Originally posted by DeZi:

Originally posted by Captain slow:

what?, but this is literally having no blood, no swearing, no pornography, which idiotic moron decided that?

Yeah but the dev / pupblisher needs to fill out a like 2 min list. An official rateing isn't required. They afe just lazy if it got delisted

That is not exactly the way it works, the USK rating will be given by a federal agency which charges between 1500 and 3800 EUR depending on how fast you need that rating.

Since PvZ is not very likely to generate that amount of money it would be understandable that they would rather let it vanish from Steam in Germany.

If there already is a PvZ USK rating (which there seems to be, some web pages suggest a rating of 6+?) it might still be too much effort to present the necessary documents to Steam?

[DeZi]

Originally posted by Clawyer:

That is not exactly the way it works, the USK rating will be given by a federal agency which charges between 1500 and 3800 EUR depending on how fast you need that rating.

That is not entirely true. You don't need an USK rating to sell on steam. No new indie dev could pay that.
You need to fill out a form where you declare the probable rating and stuff like violence etc.

[kroi_k]

Originally posted by DeZi:

Originally posted by Clawyer:

That is not exactly the way it works, the USK rating will be given by a federal agency which charges between 1500 and 3800 EUR depending on how fast you need that rating.

That is not entirely true. You don't need an USK rating to sell on steam. No new indie dev could pay that.
You need to fill out a form where you declare the probable rating and stuff like violence etc.

thats what i mean, just used wrong term

[Murr [DK]]

LMAO

[B-O-N]

Based Germany blocked the game for censoring the MJ zombie

[Cat]

Germany has weird video game laws. Surprised we didn't get robot zombies and mechanical plants instead. Devs probably had to rework the jack in the box zombie into a bomb with wheels since that's how EA dealt with suicide bombers from another game for their German censorship.