Because gog is scared that the NSA gives away to the German government what they sell to German customers...

It has nothing to do with inspecting shipments, since it's completely legal to sell the games to germans. Even local retail stores are allowed to sell them they just aren't allowed to put it into the shelf.

Drahbor is wrong Steam does sell indexed games to German customers not all of them but they do.

Regarding the index:
In Germany we have 3 different rated 18 for games. We have USK:KJ (means USK: 18) and unrated both can be displayed in public and sold in public with the restriction that your age needs to be verified.
If something is unrated in Germany it can get indexed by the Federal Review Board for Media Harmful to Minors which is basically another rated 18 rating but indexed media isn't allowed to be sold and displayed where minors have access too. Indexed media has the same status like porn and is handled like this (in most countries porn isn't sold public). In other words index is tha "bad" rated 18. A age verification is needed anyway with the exception that USK: KJ and unrated games can also be sold from 23-6 without a direct verification.

There are also no banned game in Germany because the freedom of art has no restrictions in our basic law which is the reason you are always allowed to buy, own and sell (selling with some restrictions) even confiscated media. The only exception from this is CP.

BTW Day of the tentacle has no USK rating so it is rated 18 in Germany same goes for any other game which does not have a USK rating. You see how abstract it would be if there really would be any legal matters for GOG? A empty store for German customers would be the result.

The situation with Dying Light:
The main game is indexed, the addon is not. There was a similar situation with DOOM 3 where the addon was indexed. The DOOM 3 BFG Edition which includes the main game + addon is not indexed. Dying Light Enhanced is not indexed because it is different from the main game (which was indexed).

As example you can buy Dying Light Enhanced Edition here https://de.gamesplanet.com/game/dying-light-enhanced-edition-steam-key--2670-5 a official reseller with German employees who work in Germany. They informed themselves before selling the game via their "German" store.

The difference between GOG and Steam:
Steam says it is the Publisher who decides it (which is true) and GOG says there are legal matters (which is not true). Microsoft as example has no restrictions because you can change the store to whatever country you want and use any payment method in the EU (as example Paypal from Finnland in Germany) and even in Steam you have the ability to use another store if you have a payment method from that specific country (which isn't as good as MS handles it).

German stores aren't allowed to put it into the shelves. GOG is in Poland, so they are allowed, since in Poland is polish laws and not German laws. Or did Germany invade Poland again?

you started writing about the german amazon branch and that and that it sells games form other countries branches saying they could do this because there's no inspecting of the shipments.
I was only arguing againts that assumption.

Holy shit, just survived the first night in Dying Light. Well that shit was intense.

So it is still unclear to me: does Steam sell "Dying Light: The Following - Enhanced Edition" to Germany, or not? Yes or no?

If not, is your issue only that GOG used the wrong words when explaining why they are not selling it to Germany? You would be fine if only they had said instead that the publisher doesn't want to sell it to Germans?

It is all just semantics, you could just as well say that it is a legal problem because the publisher would sue GOG if they sold the game to Germans against the publisher's wishes.

Yes, "Dying Light: The Following - Enhanced Edition" is not sold in the German Steamstore (other German stores sell it public) and yes again using the wrong words is a problem.

Being honest GOG has no real benefit over Steam for German customers anymore just look in the German subforum. GOG integrated censorship together with the German storefront.

I did not mean to spread misinformation. I gave up Steam a long time ago. Of course, I only considered games I am personally interested in.

But as of tofay it seems that I can't buy those games from List A at Steam:
- Dying Light
- Quake IV
- Saints Row the Third (PEGI version, censored USK version is available)
- Red Faction I and II
- Dead Rising 2 (the series is on List B, so I don't expect to ever see it digitally)
- Unreal Tournament (neither 99 nor 2003/2004)

And, as already said several times, the only restriction is, that German stores are not allowed to publically advertise those games where minors could see the advertising.
Just think of the system as the adult area of any video rental store. It is there, it is totally legal for adults, you just have to show your ID to get there.

And as far as I know, Techland always encouraged the German audience to buy their games in another German speaking foreign country like Austria and Siwtzerland, as that allowed them not to have their games cut for German minors.

That one's uncensored, even if you get the German retail version. Saints Row 2 and 3, however, are a different story (you can't even activate the uncensored versions with a German IP).

DanTheKraut isn't really wrong, but there's only a handful of blacklisted games on Steam that Germans are allowed to buy, and those seem like oversights (for example, Star Wars: Dark Forces). It's just a reminder of how arbitrary and possibly pointless this whole process is.
Hell, games like Prey, Unreal 1, GTA 1+2 or Hexen have always been regionlocked on Steam, even though there's absolutely no reason for that.
Remember, this is Valve, the company that retroactively censored Half-Life 2 for Germany, even though the uncut release received a USK rating in 2004. It's all just a bunch of random guesswork on their part, probably because they don't know what those laws entail.

Sorry, i mixed that with SR The Third. I changed the list.

Yes, it is a complete mess. Most of the time I am under the impression that the people at Valve have no clue what they are doing, in the rest of the time I think they simply don't care. And a proper age check at Steam would solve many problems. But then again, they would have to suffer losses in revenue, since suddenly they could not sell "Age 18" rated games to children anymore... That or the "Yes, I am so totally 18 years old, I swear!" button works better than I thought.

Just look at what games are available as uncensored version and which are not, it's a mess. The uncencsored version of Fallout 3, for instance, is not available on Steam, although it can be found in German stores. Fallout: NV on the other hand can be purchased in the uncensored version.

The problem with Techland, on the other hand, might be a bit different. They way they are treating german customers seems a bit... strange. One could actually come to the conclusion they really don't like germans. They refused, for instance, to make a statement about the game getting a region lock or not before the game was released... while people desperately wanted to know, because they wanted to pre-order. I also remembered sneer comments toward germans in the forum. It is also nice to read that Germany was one of the countries were the game sells best, ironically, and yet every country gets a shirt with its own flag... despite Germany, of course. I am really not sure what is going on here.

Butthurt over the indexing of Dead Island and Riptide, maybe?

I meant that maybe THEY were butthurt over their games getting indexed, not YOU.