Tonight when I sleep, I will dream about having sweet, sloppy sex with Steam.

I'm guessing that was the watery breasts of that one character, right? It's funny how Germany and America are basically exact opposites of the censorship coin. I actually agree with the German idea more (violence is bad, the human body is not) but since most games feature violence and very few feature the naked breasts of a water nymph goddess thing, Germany get the short end of the stick.

And "Singles: Flirt Up Your Life" whose only claim to fame was its supposedly explicit sex scenes which caused an uproar in the UK, US and Australia and yet sailed through with ease with a 16 rating in Germany.

The face of Steam is Gaben, so I think that's a bit of a risky dream.

To be fair, it was more about encouraging sexual activity between the very young demographic of Wii owners, if it's the game I'm thinking of. The people it showed in the trailer were all 30-something Platinum Card owners, not the kind of people who (a) have a Wii (b) play shitawful party games.

OK, let me rephrase:

but remember that your country (is one of the predominant countries in the world where games are frequently censored and) has a certain legislation concerning videogames, depicted violence, insignia, censorship etc.

Better? :-P

Nope, wouldn't solve anything.

As said above (by Ubivis, I think), publishers could _already_ list their as "18+". A game that is listed as 18+ _cannot_ be blacklisted in Germany unless the game outright violates other parts of the law (that aren't concerned with youth protection).

Publishers could, if they wanted, sell their 18+ games in Germany as such. Steam could do so as well. They just don't want the potential bad publicity that some political partioes might then leverage against them.

The fact that a service provider like Steam succumbs to this, without need and without warning its customers, _is_ pretty disturbing.

Were the swastikas shown in Inglorious Basterds in Germany? Be kind of weird if they weren't. What about Indiana Jones?

Misplaced rage, attack your censoring government.

In the films, yes. In the advertising (such as posters), no.

Also interesting to note that the game of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade did have all of the swastikas removed, while the corresponding film remained untouched.

Part of the problem with a 22+ rating is that German law sees the transition to adult as being at the age of 18. The USK ratings are only enforceable within the scope of the Youth Protection Act, so any descrimination by age above the age of 18 would be illegal.
The problem is that the government hasn't censored anything. Yes, they've put the uncensored version on the blacklist, but for the time being, this doesn't affect the legality of actually selling or buying it, only openly marketing it. And it certainly doesn't affect purchases already made in legal terms.

For clarification, the government may only influence the distribution of such games within the boundaries of Germany, not the ownership or import. (at least under this particular law)

Eww.

I'm still pretty sure that Steam replaced all of the police in Saints Row 2 with unarmed New Zealand police.

Oh - If Steam did with Sleeping Dogs what they did GTA for us here in the Down Under - You should have a dormant uncensored version also that you can activate if you're even accessing Steam from a non-censored country.

Noooo. You've retroactively altered this thread, and I only posted in it because of the profanity in the title, thus you've just voided several minutes of my life. I'm taking you guys to court now for a copy of HoMM3 and Ultima Underworld.