The German Bundesprüfstelle, which had banned the first Max Payne game in 2001, has now reversed that decision. Take2 had appealed for this reversal at the beginning of the month. Especially interesting is the detailed explanation of the decision, which in parts reads like a list of specific counter-arguments to the previously stated reasons for the ban. For example, the introduction of "bullet time" was seen as especially violent 2001, but now it's seen as making the shooting less realistic and therefore less objectionable.

Source (in German): heise.de

Imagine these masses jumping to play MP1 in Germany....

blood-free, i presume?

It was particularly interesting that Max Payne 2 was released just at the time when the new Youth Protection Act came into force. Both games were rated 18 by the USK, but Max Payne 2 was protected because it came in after 2003's introduction of the new law, which prevented USK-rated games from being indexed, despite being identical in terms of violence.

A shining example of how shitty and inconsistent the censorship is here. Most of us that wanted it already have it.

Fixed.

Ah, those were the days ... :D

You Sir, have made my day!

Awesome! (Special mention goes to the cigarette, you don't see that anymore)

Yeah, I know... we here in the US haven't been able to play Max Payne for the past decade either.

Banned meant "not to be sold to minors", you could still buy the game if you were 18+.

That's a fair point. We have two levels of "banned" here in Germany:

*"indiziert", which means "indexed" but for the industry I always translate as "blacklisted", and
*"beschlagnahmt" which means "confiscated" and is the wider meaning of "banned".

There aren't actually all that many games in Germany that are outright banned.

The "indexed" means you can buy it, but it needs to be sold in a place not accessible to minors or has to be asked for by name.

wait...seriously?

THAT'S what Germans have been complaining about all this time?

-__-

It is true that you get modified versions of games, though, right?

And approx. 95% due to nazi content. Once you look for games that were banned for violence, you really have to dig. Well, Manhunt probably....
Germans like complaining, it's our Baseball.

The "modified versions" were curtesy of the publishers, because they wanted a commercially more attractive FSK 16 rating. The same reason Life free and Die Hard got two versions.

Yep. I actually thought several minutes on how to word the thread title, but finally settled on "banned" - it's not 100% correct, but I couldn't come up with a 100% correct English description that still fit into the title. ;)

This happens often when I talk about German "game bans" in international forums. Since you're a gamer and a professional translator, do you know a better way to bring the meaning across succinctly, yet correctly?

Edit: I just noticed that you actually mentioned one, which I somehow missed. ;) "Blacklisted" - got to get that in my active vocabulary. :)

The problem is not the indexing. We are allowed to buy the games, but the law makes it as difficult as possible to get them. As I say, there has to be a closed-off section which minors are not allowed to enter, or the shop can keep it behind the counter out of sight and sell it on demand.

Online shops are not allowed to sell the games openly, and they have to have reasonable certainty that the buyer is 18 or over. It can get expensive, and for a lot of publishers, they don't see it as being commercially worthwhile. For years they were censoring games to just get them on the market, until they started realising that gamers were for the most part avoiding the censored versions like the plague.
Surely you mean USK? FSK is for films.

As for Live Free or Die Hard - that situation is all thanks to the MPAA. Both the PG-13 and Unrated got FSK 16 here.

If you take a look at 2011, there isn't really anything "facepalmworthy" like in the '90 and '80.

http://www.schnittberichte.com/artikel.php?ID=56

The one thing that they dropped (or at least giving it a pass more often) was "gloryfication of war" as a blacklisting criteria. River Raid was indexed to when it came out.