Most developers without prior experience with German and Austrian authorities cannot imagine which problems occur in developing and - even more - advertising and publishing certain games there. In Germany, violent games can be be put on an "advertising ban" (which includes showing them on shelves in stores) or even be declared "strafrechtlich bedenklich" which means ANY distribution (including loading up free demos or giving the game to a friend) is punishable by federal law.
German players often order their FPS games from Uk or Austria / Switzerland to avoid getting a heavily cut version. Austrian gameshops near the border to Germany make good business out of it. However, in both countries you have to be extremely careful when working with WWII themes. Of course it’s forbidden to have any Swastika on the cover, in the game, inside the manual. I wouldn’t rant about that, I don’t need big swastikas anywhere, even if they are only there to show "Here is the evil! Kill it!".
The German version of RtCW was stripped of all symbols.
The US / UK Version is not even allowed to be owned in Germany & Austria.
Interesting point: This affects games only. In literature and movies all these symbols can be shown without altering the age rating because of the assumption of an educational value. Indiana Jones movies with all the 3rd Reich symbols being hissed are running on federal TV even if everyone agrees that they have no educational value at all. On the other hand, the Indiana Jones adventure games from LucasArts had to be censored heavily. The live-action movie cut-scenes in "Anderson" - our first game - had to be censored in order to blur all symbols out. We had a court order and guidelines from a German federal prosecutor, actually very strict guidelines we had to follow step by step in order to prevent federal lawsuits against us. If we had released the SAME Movie cut-scenes as Direct2DVD-Trash-Movie WITHOUT a game, it would have been ok to show them.
Strange, isn’t it?
Passing around the U.S. uncut version of "Anderson" could bring you to jail in Germany.
But the law goes by far more into details that affect our daily job - even now with "Into the Dark". Sure, the game is set in 2011, but in some levels we have Nazi-Zombies or at least zombiefied former Wehrmacht soldiers that were brought to the USA after WWII. On some of the uniforms, the "SS" runes are visible. What would never give any thoughts to an US or UK gamer (as the ones with the runes are the bad guys to be shot anyway), leads to the following points we have to take care of:
- A lawyer is checking regularly what to alter and what to keep in order to be on the safe side
- When we send out promotion pictures, German / Austrian media get others than the rest of the world
- When we send promotion pictures WITH some content that could be critical, we have to use a non-German, non-Austrian mail server (Czech free mail, as example).
- We cannot give playable code with any CHANCE to see a forbidden symbol or a symbol that is similar enough to be confused with a forbidden one (which is the quote from the law, guess how easy you can be punished under that) to reviewers / beta testers in Germany & Austria.
- Before we release the game, we have to make a special one for Austria / Germany where all this stuff have been removed. That means also we have 2 different code bases to handle for further updates...
- When we send links to our German and Austrian friends & Fans (and most of them are form these 2 countries) with the latest screen-shots and news on IndieDB (what we do on a daily base), we have to include anonymouse routines.
- Instead of sending them in Skype or via mail
We send
and so on...
Although "Into the Dark" has no WWII setting, we still have to be careful.
PS:
If you`re right now in Austria or Germany, you can of course watch, print out and keep in your private papers a screenshot like this one:
But as soon you copy it and pass it to others, it gets critical...
Interesting, I really didn't think the german law is still causing so many problems for developers. Still, two points of your points aren't as serious as you think. The one about symbols resembling svastikas is so that you can't do something like changing the direction of the hooks and calling that thing aztec sun cross. I think the first call of duty had black crosses instead of svastikas, didn't even notice it at my first playthrough. You can't give out games in public places to strangers, but giving a game to a friend is never a problem, or at least nobody cares about that^^
But the whole problem lies elsewhere. In german law, games still aren't considered art, or at least not to a similar extent as movies or books. And if you don't have artistic liberties, you have to be careful and might need to take precautionary measure. Which usualy means self-censorship.
Still, you can't blame developers for being unable to cope with such unclear and archaic laws. But there has been some progress on some parts. The usual problems with gore are declining. In the last years some games passed through the review when even the developers didn't expect success. It was never planned to release Clive Barker's Jericho in germany, Dead Space and Gears of War 3 where also surprises. The last one in particular, since the first two games aren't avaible in germany. Luckily, there is always still the uk and the games are even mostly cheaper over there^^
Games are more recognized as art in the last years, too. With a bit luck in near future you don't have to cope with such nonsense anymore.
Greetings from Germany
Temeter, you`re right, but I have some problems with agreeing to
"You can't give out games in public places to strangers, but giving a game to a friend is never a problem, or at least nobody cares about that^^"
Usually noone does, right, the problem is that it`s still illegal if you take the law down to the strict rules. And if you want to make a living in games, one single incident in that one can endanger your existence.
Sure, commercially developing takes you in another position. I just wanted to clarify that, as strict as your text sound, there is still a difference between what you do with a game you bought and something you develop or distribute in public.
Although i wonder if you really can get sued if you give a bought game to a friend. Well, actually i don't really want to know^^
I don`t care if you want to know: Yes, you can be prosecuted, as this is called "Weiterverbreitung".
Noooo.......... :(
Not that it changes anything for me. And making a copy of a game isn't allowed anyway.
Well, it's not like you didn't knew that laws before starting to make the game in the first place, so why you still choose to do it and instead go for a less "controversial" theme?
It's same as making a mainstream game for the US where you show nudity and the ultra-conservative republicans start screaming about it.
Tseng, you probably don`t understand. I MADE games for the US and I included partial nudity, but the worst thign that could happen to you on that was getting an R rating. You don`t have to be afraid of federal prosecution at all.
Quite a strange country. From what I understand they (basically) outlaw holocaust denial and then they implement other laws to cover up the fact that it happened.
It just strange because you don't understand^^
For example, although I'm not sure about the exact historical origin, the law to prohibit the display of svastikas is more a result of the ambitions of allied powers which tried to erase everything connected to the nazis.The law wasn't abolished since then because there was never really a need to. Before games, the artistic freedom was more or less guaranteed anyway. And really, germany has a few complexes about the past, but in general we are more mature when it comes to the nazis if you compare it to a few other countries where many people think that nazis were just bad people and hitler a demon. In reality, their rise was a pretty normal happening compared to the circumstances.
Claiming that outlawing the display of swastikas in anything but works of art is to cover up what happened is preposterous.
We simply don't want those who sympathize with Nazi ideology (yes, just like other countries we still have those idiots...getting rid of them without radicalizing them is harder than one might think) to start marching around with swastika flags (that's a crude simplification, but in essence what it is about).
Noone wants to see those guys marching around, but when you see that your piece of art is dealt with totally different than "Dead Snow" while having very similar content it`s frustrating.
I know! And I totally agree.
I was just a little weirded out by the comment about outlawing the display of swastikas (again, except in pieces of art...which games are IMO) being about covering up what happened.
Law is just more rigid in civil law countries than it is for US/UK/etc. based on common law principles. Games aren't (weren't? somebody here mentioned something) recognized as works of art so swastikas(etc.) can't be in them at this point in time.
That - without a doubt - has to change.
Thats why i never play games in german and the to 99% terrible syncros...
There is no censprship here in Austria, Black Ops had swatiskas as well.
I am from Austria. As a member of the Cobra you should know the law ;)
Violence isn`t censored, Swastikas ARE forbidden. Often opublishers deliver UK versions to Austria, right, and they are sold, right, but techncially it`s not legal.
Games are considered art here, everyone just fears that they'll get sued anyway, or they are too lazy to make two german localizations.
Oh yeah I just recalled, the german supreme court tulled games art, I don't know the case number tho.
Yeah, it was even declared as "art to be protected" but the court also ruled out that this has no change on the rules already in place regarding violence and "verfassungsfeindliche Symbole"
Are these symbols really so damn important for your game to be good? I'm sorry to call you a whiner but I'm personally for this harsh stance. There has anyways been too much crap done with the WWII theme so I don't see the need for something else. And especially I don't see a need for symbol glorification. Games are about "game mechanics" in the first place not putting as much irritating content (for example forbidden symbols) into it as possible. Maybe it would be worth more to concentrate on what's important in a game, right?
To cut it short, I wouldn`t care personally much about, unless it interferes with what I want to do. You can care **** about that in your SciFi Scenario, so I don`t expect you to understand. I`ll explain - my game is VERY story-driven and we always put a lot of background research in our games.
"Into the Dark" is about all the stuff the USA did in their paranoid preparations and actions against the USSR. Recruting, re-using and even kidnapping (and later comforting) former 3rd Reich people noone of us would go to dinner with voluntarly was a key element of that.
And to show that without even being allowed to use the uniforms properly is a little bit hard...
Agreed on that!
I'm from Austria, and the gaming related laws here are a lot less strict than in our neighbour germany.
Here in austria we have no own usk for games like germany does, we rely onto the european one, which is not bound by law but should serve only as an information for the buyer/his parents.
Thouth there are some shops I know who still don't give games to underaged children who are not "supposed" to play them, but that's totally in the hands of the shop to whom they sell their products.
The swatiska law is there, yes, though there are some several guidelines to follow, if I remember right it is allowed in history correct media and for sure original footage.
But tbh, I don't really care if I see now a swatiska or instead a red cross, as most producers use it as a pure seller for their products.
("hey, we just take this and that theme, and then we add nazis to it")
Oh, and fun fact: In the film Equilibrium, the symbol used for the government is (or was) the symbol of the austrian "national sozialists", thought the symbol was neither censored in germany nor in austria.