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General discussionHerzlich Willkommen! GOG.com goes German(641 posts)(641 posts)
(641 posts)
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Posted February 26, 2015
Herzlich Willkommen!




GOG.com goes German. Not completely, mind you, but starting today we'll be spreading our DRM-free love in one more language. Whether you're here because of the news, or you've been with us for a while, here is what we're doing to make our German speaking friends feel a little more welcome on GOG.com:




-A German version of our website. You can change your language using the drop-down menu towards the bottom of every page.
-A German corner of our forums. Your home away from home.
-German customer support. If you're more comfortable talking to us in your native language.
-More games in German. We're rolling out 25+ German localisations for our games today, bringing the total up to 350+.




No big announcement would be complete without a huge sale! This weekend we're holding the German-riffic <span class="bold">Herzlich Willkommen!</span> promo. The highlight is a ridiculous 97% off Deponia, but there are over 25 other German gaming hits available as well. There is adventuring with the remaining Deponia games, the cult strategy of The Settlers, the tough and turn-based tactics in Blackguards 1 and 2, and many, many more feats of German game design.


Check out <span class="bold">the weekend promo page</span> to see the full lineup. The promo will last until Tuesday, March 3, at 4:59 AM GMT.




Update:
Two games from our catalog had to be made unavailable in Germany: Commandos Ammo Pack and Commandos 2+3. Offering or promoting these games is considered a serious criminal offence according to German law, and we have to abide by this law to avoid the risk of serious legal action taken against GOG.com and GOG.com employees. Rest assured that if you've already bought a game - nothing will retroactively disappear from your shelves.
Post edited February 27, 2015 by Chamb
Posted February 27, 2015
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mobutu: Why browsing the game catalogue should be illegal for a child? Why hide some inoffensive pictures of some games when the child doesn't get to play it anyway? There's nothing offensive (for a child) there and they don't get to download/install/play the games. I really don't get it, it's common sense.
According to German law, minors aren't even supposed to know that these games exist if they're banned or blacklisted.
I made a post about that whole situation a while ago, here, in the Dark Forces release thread. It's all rather pointless and nonsensical due to the nature of the internet nowadays, but it's enforced by politicians who do not know how to adapt to that.
Posted February 27, 2015
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Klumpen0815: Wrong, there is a German censored version, it was even delivered in gaming magazines here.
I guess GoG just doesn't have the rights to distribute it.
no, I see the german version available for download in my account. So the version is definitely there.
GOG really should put at least this one up for sale again.

But maybe their shop system can't deal yet with that properly?

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mobutu: really don't get it, it's common sense.
sigh, you can often get the impression that common sense isn't a valid concept in german law.
Claim you want to protect the children and anything goes.
Posted February 27, 2015
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CountDandy: That would need there to be a German version and its a series that was banned for mentioning Nazis in a world war 2 setting so it never had one.
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Laserschwert: As mentioned, there is a German version. You can freely buy it on Amazon, in stores, anywhere. And they do have the German version on GOG. I've bought it a while ago and it's still in my library. They could just block download of the English version, since the German version is "fine".
Then I apologise for my mistake but I'm really surprised they did that as to me it's one of those games that makes germany look much worse when removing the Nazis.
Posted February 27, 2015
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InfraSuperman: According to German law, minors aren't even supposed to know that these games exist if they're banned or blacklisted.
That's just non-sense, stupid. I mean does a "child" not know about porn? Don't they teach them in history about hitler and all that shit? What now, we change the history to show only rainbows and unicorns in order to "protect the children"?
Let's raise the children in protective bubbles, and when they reach adulthood they'll go batshit crazy and start a real game of "Hatred" on the world.
With such stupidy and irationale this society/humanity is going to hell, no wonder.

LE. I'll read your post (seems interesting) but when I return, have to go now do some things.
Post edited February 27, 2015 by mobutu
Posted February 27, 2015
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PaladinWay: Is there an exception for use/display for religions where it was a tradition (such as Hinduism), or is it still prohibited there too? Would seem like a bit of a jerk move to tell a religion they can't use the symbol that the country misused in a bad historical period, though that could open to a lot more argument for people wanting to not follow the rule for one reason or another.
That's still a very unclear issue. There appear to have been instances where the German government did butt heads with religious groups over the usage of the symbol. As I wrote in this thread:

"The general argument from German officials is that, due to its appropriation by the NSDAP, any variation of the symbol is "burdened" by those connotations and any depiction might be misunderstood as Nazi propaganda.
[...]
In 2005, Germany suggested a Europe-wide ban of the symbol to the EU. They only dropped it after British Hindus protested."
Posted February 27, 2015
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bubbabenali: This is such an arbitrary measure.
If you realy cared about german law, you had an functionating age verification for 18+ Titles by checking the ID card of the purchaser.
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Piranjade: Checking an ID card would not be enough (you can be sure that Steam would already do that if it was an option).
here's an article:
http://www.it-recht-kanzlei.de/Thema/verkauf-computerspiele.html
Also for digital goods it would have to be a system similar to PostIdent.
but such a system doesn't really work for digitally distributed goods, does it?
if you really follow the law to the letter, you have to verify in person that the goods are delivered to the correct recipient and that that person has the appropiate age. That works for delivering physical goods where the postal service can do these checks upon delivery.
but for downloads? how is that supposed to work?

I am rather happy that GOG decided to ignore that issue( for now at least).
Posted February 27, 2015
Thanks gog for the German language support! I know there are Germans who prefer the German language version of the games and who want a German site and forum. This will definitely bring more customers to gog. Those people would not buy here otherwise. It is a pity that some games are no longer available to German customers, but that's not gog's fault. We all have to obey the law. I, personally, will stick to the English version of gog and continue to play most games in English. I am glad I can buy the English version of the games here and on Steam. At retail, you often get the German version only. The best thing to do is multilanguage support. Let everyone choose the language he prefers.
Posted February 27, 2015
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mobutu: What now, we change the history to show only rainbows and unicorns in order to "protect the children"?
They do talk a lot about the Third Reich in schools, on daytime TV and such, since there's no problem showing all these things in educational, historical or artistic contexts, but games aren't considered to be any of those.

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mobutu: Let's raise the children in protective bubbles, and when they reach adulthood they'll go batshit crazy and start a real game of "Hatred" on the world.
In essence, yes, that is the entire argument behind this. It's all about restricting media that might have a "detrimental effect on a minor's development". Most of the time, it's about violence, though.
Posted February 27, 2015
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Laserschwert: As mentioned, there is a German version. You can freely buy it on Amazon, in stores, anywhere. And they do have the German version on GOG. I've bought it a while ago and it's still in my library. They could just block download of the English version, since the German version is "fine".
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CountDandy: Then I apologise for my mistake but I'm really surprised they did that as to me it's one of those games that makes germany look much worse when removing the Nazis.
The enemies are still Nazis... Nazis in games aren't the problem (although the direct references to them were reduced in Commandos), but Swastikas are, because it's illegal to shows them in games in Germany. Which is rather incosistent, since you are allowed to show them in movies (two of the "Indiana Jones" movies contain tons of swastikas, which was never a problem, while the "Last Crusade" game had them censored in Germany). Most of the time swastikas just get replaced by iron crosses
Post edited February 27, 2015 by Laserschwert
Posted February 27, 2015
Can't wait till GOG gets the ID-libraries...NOT! Because of the region lock we will be seening jack squat in germany thx again gog...
Posted February 27, 2015
One reason i like(d) GOG so far was that i could get original versions of games that are censored or blacklisted in germany, and other distribution systems like Steam don't give me access to them regardless of my age (37).

This move angers me as a "german" customer.

And i'm not sure if it's worth it. The typical german who's in the age range to be interested in classic games usually speaks some level of english. Wich means he is already a client or at least in your target group. I highly doubt that this move will give GOG more new (non-english speaking) german customers than disgruntled germans that are capable of english and just haven't heard of GOG yet...
Post edited February 27, 2015 by Hatman
Posted February 27, 2015
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PaterAlf: I'm pretty sure (I have a collection of several thousand comic books). Of course there are still exceptions, but the general trend is to keep swastikas and NS symbols untouched.
Well, good to know that they finally started to get rid of this asinine practice.

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PaterAlf: Not sure about the recent Watchmen edition. If it is still censored, it's probably because it's a simple reprint from the same publisher.

Edit: Just checked my Watchmen edition from 2008 and the only swastika I could find (chapter 1, page 10) is uncensored.
Yeah, it's probably a reprint issue. I have the 2013 "Deluxe Edition", it does contain the swastika you mentioned, but it think it was simply forgotten, because they removed others in the book. The same character appears in chapter 8, where the symbol was censored every time. There are also a few instances of that censorship in chapter 10.
Posted February 27, 2015
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mobutu: Let's raise the children in protective bubbles, and when they reach adulthood they'll go batshit crazy and start a real game of "Hatred" on the world.
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InfraSuperman: In essence, yes, that is the entire argument behind this. It's all about restricting media that might have a "detrimental effect on a minor's development". Most of the time, it's about violence, though.
There's some truth in the bit about the protective bubble, but batshit crazy is only mobutu's reasoning. Suggesting that protecting children from stuff that might have a "detrimental effect on a minor's development" would make them go postal when they reach adulthood is just as silly as claiming the opposite, that playing violent videogames would lead people to go on a killing spree.

It's also worth mentioning that we're talking about two completely different laws here, the protection of minors is one thing, the ban on anti-constitutional nazi propaganda is another. And IMO the ideas behind these laws are not stupid at all (at least not to a certain extent), the issues arise from the incompetence and disinterest of both authorities and people in the industry to actually understand their meaning and deal with the matters in a rational way. There is no law declaring videogames with swastikas as nazi propaganda, the problem is the lack of an update to the old existing laws adding videogames to the exceptions made for all the other artforms (because they weren't a thing yet when the laws were created).
Post edited February 27, 2015 by Leroux
Posted February 27, 2015
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Piranjade: Checking an ID card would not be enough (you can be sure that Steam would already do that if it was an option).
here's an article:
http://www.it-recht-kanzlei.de/Thema/verkauf-computerspiele.html
Also for digital goods it would have to be a system similar to PostIdent.
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immi101: but such a system doesn't really work for digitally distributed goods, does it?
if you really follow the law to the letter, you have to verify in person that the goods are delivered to the correct recipient and that that person has the appropiate age. That works for delivering physical goods where the postal service can do these checks upon delivery.
but for downloads? how is that supposed to work?

I am rather happy that GOG decided to ignore that issue( for now at least).
You got it, it is virtually impossible at this point in time.
For computer games the German market is a big one, an important one. I'm pretty sure as soon as somebody has found a solution for this problem. we'll hear about it.

Edit: Typo corrected
Post edited February 27, 2015 by Piranjade
Posted February 27, 2015
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Piranjade: For computer games the German market is a bog one, an important one.
It is indeed a bog one.
Post edited February 27, 2015 by Klumpen0815
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Community
General discussionHerzlich Willkommen! GOG.com goes German(641 posts)(641 posts)
(641 posts)