germany has been banning games, mostly WWII games what are your thoughts?

That is the reason hence I moved to Great Britain. The German government and the BPJM cares a little too much IMHO. When s.o. is 18 years of age. He should be allowed to see games that he want, not what the government want.

cheers

Craven

Germany sucks.Paul_TheGreat

lol....thats not quite what i was expecting!:P 

Germany has been banning games? Not really. Some political parties demand to ban games with violent content, but till now nothing has really happened. Its true, that in germany games with violent content can be put onto an index, but that just mean that shops cant sell those games to minors anymore. Those games are only the extreme ones, like Manhunt for example.

Despite that, we got a lot of WW2 Games and Movies here. We have all the Medal of Honor stuff, Day of Defeat, several strategie Games, heck we even got Wolfenstein. In Fact, we got all stuff, everybody else have too. The only problem with the games, is the potraying of the Swastika, because if its not in a artistic way ( in a movie for example) its not allowed to portray it, so most of the time its censored. (Remember Indiana Jones and the last crusade? Instead of Swastikas we got black rhombs in the game). Same thing with the movies, we got a lot of WW2-Stuff here. Ever heard about, "Der Untergang"? German made movie about the reign of Hitler Even one of our comedians made a movie bout Hitler The only things, that are forbidden, are glorification or propaganda of nationalsocialism, but thats kinda comprehensible, isnt it? Dont worry, germany isn't some kind of dictatorship, were they can bann any stuff they dont like, thats just not true.

P.S. sorry for the akward english, I am ze gärman.

Germany has been banning games since the '70's  -- River Raid for the Atari 2600 was the first to have been banned, but from what I understand they no longer ban violent games, they just haev to be kept behind a counter.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_Raid

River Raid was especially popular in Germany, as it was the first videogame to be put on the Index by the Bundesprüfstelle für jugendgefährdende Medien (Federal Department for Media Harmful to Young Persons in German), along with the little known German racing game Speed Racer for the Commodore 64.

In the explanatory statement for indexation on December 19th1984 it is written: "Minors should think as an uncompromising fighter and destroyer (...). A paramilitaristic education takes place in the childhood (...). With older minors, playing leads (...) to physical cramps, anger, aggressiveness, erratic thinking (...) and headaches." (BPjS-Aktuell Heft 2/84)

River Raid remained indexed as harmful to minors until 2002 when a publisher successfully lobbied to remove the game from the index in order to rerelease it in the Activision Anthology for the PlayStation 2. In a sign of how views had changed since 1984, the anthology was rated "Free for all ages" by the "Unterhaltungssoftware Selbstkontrolle".

Maybe it has something to do with the entire world generalizing all of germany as Nazi during the second world war. In which case, I wouldn't want my country's children exposed to that crap either.bugtrip

Exactly. I wouldn't be suprised if we censored a game if it were based on being an Iranian soldier killing American soldiers.

[QUOTE="bugtrip"]Maybe it has something to do with the entire world generalizing all of germany as Nazi during the second world war. In which case, I wouldn't want my country's children exposed to that crap either.rimnet00

Exactly. I wouldn't be suprised if we censored a game if it were based on being an Iranian soldier killing American soldiers.

I wouldn't be surprised if someone tried.  I'd be surprised if such a bogus law stood up in court though.

Germany has been banning many WWII games...do you think that they are doing htis because they are still sketchy on the issue or do you think they do this because they care? your opinions matter!!hellomotto1

For one thing, their legal system is very different from the legal systems that descend from English law, that is, American and Canadian law.  We would need someone who is German and a judge to explain.

I have to admit I was taught that the German legal system may be the best.  But I was also taught that the influence of Shakespeare in the three countries I mentioned before has made us immune to totalitarianism.  Perhaps instead of banning video games, Germany should increase their teaching of Shakespeare.  The language barrier would be a problem, but hey.  :)