Geralt_of_Rivia: And that should immediately be removed. Both games are on the German index so not showing them like GOG is doing is the right thing.
Steam is either doing it wrong or (which they are also sometimes known to do!) they sell a heavily censored German version to people with German IPs without pointing out the differences between what they sell to Germans and to the rest of the world.
Snolus: They are available elsewhere, they go on the list.
NecroVision, for instance, is shown on Steam with the notice "Low Violence: German low violence version only available with German language". It is not on this list here because we can't seem to agree whether a crippled (i.e. censored) game is better than no game.
I disagree with that. Since the only possible solution would be to remove the game from Steam. And I don't think that's what you want to encourage with the list.
tremere110: My problem with this is that the problem isn't really fixable. Most of the problems on this list can be fixed by the game dev/publisher. The fix for banned games being sold when they're not supposed to is to remove said game from a platform. I don't think that's a good thing to be encouraging.
MarkoH01: Just a tiny correction: FarCry is NOT banned in Germany.
The original version is. Let me quote:
German version
The German government agencies for the protection of children are not to be trifled with – a lesson that publisher UbiSoft learned the hard way with Far Cry.
Due to realistic violence, especially with regard to the ragdoll model of the enemies, the full English version of Far Cry was banned in Germany by the federal agency BPjM on April 2nd 2004, meaning that any kind of advertisement for this version is forbidden, and it may only be sold on request to persons aged 18 or older.
UbiSoft and developer Crytek had anticipated this, and created a special version of Far Cry for the German market – the usual procedure to abide by the strict German standards. In this version, ragdoll models were disabled. As expected, the modified version was rated “18+” by the USK, the official German rating board. Any game with a USK rating may only be sold to persons of the specified age group, but is protected from being banned. UbiSoft produced and shipped a large amount of copies of this German version, which hit stores on March 25th 2004.
At that time, the BPjM judgment on the English version was pending. The BPjM testers quickly found out what was already widely circulated in the Internet: Crytek had not physically removed the ragdoll model from the German Far Cry, they had just disabled it -- and every user could turn the feature back on with just a few simple modifications. This made the German version identical to the English one. Identical content is the one criterion that would allow the BPjM to ignore a USK rating and ban a game. That, however, had never happened.
Up to now. On April 2nd 2004, the BPjM banned the German version of Far Cry along with the English one, on accounts of identical content. From one day to the next, stores nationwide were no longer allowed to display the boxes of the most popular, extremely successful action game.
UbiSoft’s reaction was feverish, yet professional. As soon as word had spread that a ban was imminent, the company started the production of a new, non-modifiable German version to replace its now worthless predecessor. This second edition retained the USK rating “18+” and was distributed two weeks later, on April 15th. UbiSoft took back all copies of the previous version at its own cost.
The German second edition cover of Far Cry is easily recognizable by a big red box in the upper right corner containing the line “Deutsche Version” (German version). If you happen to own one of the banned first editions, you should probably hold on to it; over time, it may become a collector’s piece.
