Me too, I was just being sarcastic. :)

It's just that games aren't considered as art in Germany.

Nope, but some others might think that. :D


Hey gog, you can release the surprise now, I need some solace. :P

Are they elsewhere, actually?


Fun fact: Tomb Raider 3 had purple blood, which I personally find more disturbing than regular red blood.

At least HoI 4 is cut in the German version: German source

I feel the urge to curse and raise middle fingers in all directions...

Is this some sort of Vulcan fetish?

The whole censoring is so damn pointless, especially with many of these older games....

Shadow Warrior? UT Classic? Indexed.
Outlast, Bioshock Infinite - freely available :D

Id love if GOG introduced some kind of age verification, almost none of these games are illegal to buy here, its just not allowed to advertise for them.

Answer is much simpler. German studios know the laws of the local market so don't produce anything that might be banned in the first place. For good or bad.

Nope, you are mistaken about that. German studios can create whatever they want even if they risk that they can not sell their products in their own country. Crytek (the developer of the Far Cry and Crysis series) for example is a German company.

Germany plays Northern Ireland in a few minutes. How will all of this affect the game? :P

Well, If Ireland puts some nazi imagery in their uniforms i guess the german team will have to play blindfolded.

Yeah, I don't think any game devs (other than niche studios making small games in their local language only) consider their own country the only important market. It certainly wouldn't make sense from a business standpoint the way digital distribution works today.
Hehe, what if someone made sure that for all important football matches with German teams, some anti-nazi campaign ads featuring swastikas were prominently visible, thus ensuring the games couldn't be shown on German television? How long do you think it would take before public opinion forced the German government to revise those laws?

There was an interesting article recently in which a laywer talked about the swastika thing, too bad it was in German, since it could have cleared up a lot of confusion that people in and outside of Germany spread about this topic. What at least many Germans are still aware of is that the law not only allows the display of swastikas in documentaries, but also in works of art (that aren't nazi propaganda). In movies, for example, there is no censorship or ban because of swastikas. But even the claim that it's forbidden in videogames because they are not considered as art in Germany seems to have no actual grounds in reality.

From what I understood, there is exactly one court ruling against a videogame that displayed swastikas, and that is Wolfenstein 3D, way back in the early 90's. I don't know how it was justified, but according to that lawyer from the article, the verdict did not mention the criterion of "art" at all. The ban of Wolfenstein 3D was not justified by any claim that it's not art. And all censorship that followed seems to be the work of publishers trying to avoid that their games would meet the same fate as Wolfenstein 3D. From what I understand there is no law that says swastikas can't be shown in videogames in Germany, there is only the case of Wolfenstein 3D - which seems to have been a dubious court ruling that likely wouldn't happen a second time today but that apparantly wasn't contested at the time - and there is the caution of the publishers who'd rather censor their own games than go to court (even if chances of winning wouldn't be that bad).

As for the violent games, the problem with that is (a) that the laws about youth protection forbid the promotion of indexed titles, in order to keep minors away from them, which actually kills the market for those games even among adults though - what good is trying to sell your game if you can't promote it? and the gamepage on GOG would count as promotion already -; and (b) that it's not directly the law dictating what games should be indexed for youth protection, but special committees of public officials and 'experts' whose decisions can seem pretty haphazard, especially during the 80's and 90's. But once they've spoken their verdict, the games in question are affected by it for decades, which means that the promotion of indexed titles is still forbidden long after the verdicts were considered reasonable. I doubt any of the games that are now being removed would still get indexed by today's standard, but since their ban is still active nevertheless, publishers play it safe.

Also, there is no law that dictates that blood has to be green. Things like that are most probably the work of devs and publishers who tried to play it safe, while either not quite understanding the laws, not caring about their actual meaning or secretly making fun of them.

^^^^

OP should read this.

German laws are killing the German market, not GOG.

If you have a problem, take it up with the German law makers.