

Germany lifts Doom sales ban after 17 years - Peroni
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-14748027

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Argorak
Arstechnica has a pretty good writeup of the censorship thing in germany:

[http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2009/12/from-australia-
to...](http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2009/12/from-australia-to-the-uae-
why-games-get-the-banhammer.ars)

Its a bit more complex then outright bans. Complete bans of media are pretty
rare in germany - this happens to media are punishable offenses by themselves.
One infamous example is a game called "KZ Manager", basically your Football
Manager for evil freaks.

What happened to DooM was that it was deemed "dangerous for the youth". That
means, you are not allowed to advertise for it or sell it openly. It is
perfectly allowed though, to have a few boxes under the table and sell them to
persons over 18. There are even special online resellers for those kind of
media that demand age verification beforehand. This is pretty harsh
punishment, but it does not render said media "illegal". It is also not a
sales ban, but a restriction. I know its a fine line, but there is one.

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FrojoS
True, movies like Andy Warhols "Frankenstein" and "Dracula" or games like "UT"
and "Q3", as well as, until now, "Doom" fall into the first, more common
category, that you describe. But titles like "Mortal Combat 1-3" and "Castle
Wolfenstein" fall into the more restrictive, where sales are completely
forbidden.

~~~
Argorak
If you read my post fully, I also mention the second category. If a court
decides that the game, etc. violates laws in itself, they can be fully banned.
That happened to Wolfenstein (display of Swastikas) and Mortal Combat as well
as some especially brutal movies (prohibitions against excessive display of
suffering).

Whether you are okay with those things or not, those are standing laws
enforced by courts. There is no institution in Germany that can ban a game
without a court decision.

Also, games that got a rating by the BPJM cannot be indexed retrospectively.

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jrockway
How do they ban a game when you can just import it from another EU country?

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Argorak
Well, thats a completely different topic :). I for myself live right next to
the french border and most media come in international versions nowadays...

The ban is usually enforced by confiscating all copies that are in stores.
Individuals are not prosecuted. Also, the customs take care that for example
british sellers are not selling those goods to germans (and yes, they can be
fined). So its not like it is a tight knit net, but it usually makes sure that
you don't stumble on that stuff accidentally.

~~~
jrockway
I thought the EU was a customs union, so there were no customs checks between
countries. Hence, the concept of contraband in one country but not in another
doesn't really make sense. It's like when Illinois bans fireworks; people just
go to Wisconsin and Indiana to buy them, and everyone has them anyway.

(Oddly enough, I've flown from the US to the EU without ever being able to go
through customs. I landed in HEL, had my passport stamped, and was allowed
back into the terminal to wait for my flight to CPH. At CPH, there were also
no checks, since it was an EU arrival. Very odd.)

~~~
joeyh
In my experience, EU borders are very easy to go thru without declaring
anything. If you really want to there is IIRC someplace to go at HEL after the
passport stamp to do it.. but it's very easy to miss.

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FrojoS
We have full blown censorship here. Some titles like Mortal Kombat 1-3 [1] are
still illegal to sell, even to adults.

[1] <http://www.bpjm.com/> (§ 131 StGB, bundesweit beschlagnahmt / confiscated
nationwide) Requires a lot of click-through in German. Sorry, but I couldn't
find an more accessible list.

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naner
_Sorry, but I couldn't find an more accessible list._

Is this accurate:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_banned_video_games#Germ...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_banned_video_games#Germany)

~~~
Argorak
No, the list from bpjm.com is actually quite complete.

You might notice that the list of full bans is pretty short.

There is no official list, as that would make a great shopping list :).
Although all entries on List A and List B are announced in a monthly letter
called "Bundesanzeiger" which is where all Laws and Decisions are published.
So what you could do is get all of those since 1950 and find the corresponding
entries.

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pavel_lishin
> Bethesda argued that the game's crude graphics had been surpassed by many
> modern titles and, as a result, the violence it depicted had far less of an
> impact.

Reminded me of Niven's quote, "Ethics change with technology."

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mhd
Germany's obsession with "If children see dead people, we'll be back to 1933!"
is getting a bit old. It was even weirder before the draft was quasi-abolished
this year…

"No, Heinz, laser tag will turn you into a killer! Now please turn your head
and cough, so we can see whether you're able to join the Bundeswehr…"

~~~
ma2rten
Still better than America's obsession with protecting kids from seeing nacked
skin, IMO.

~~~
mhd
I might be wrong, but didn't some games have three versions: One as designed,
one with covered boobage for the US and one with less blood & gore for
Germany? I think the Conan MMORPG was one example of that…

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MikeCapone
This reminds me, I've recently read the book Masters of Doom, which is mostly
about the two Johns (Romero and Carmack) and it was excellent. I'm sure most
people here would also like it.

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parenthesis
The 'SS' in the logo of the band Kiss, looks similar to the Nazi SS insignia,
the display of which is banned (or somehow restricted, at least) in Germany.
Hence Kiss uses a modified logo in Germany. Even though no Nazi reference was
intended. (Indeed, Gene Simmons' mother is a Holocaust survivor.)

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ww520
OT. Is it generally the case that people outside of a system notice censorship
in the system more easily? e.g. Americans detect censorship in Germany more
readily than Germans. Censorship works well when the people being censored
don't notice it.

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anactofgod
It just occurred to me that the restrictions on Doom and Doom II officially
expired on Aug 31st, and Sep 01st is the anniversary of Germany's invasion of
Poland.

Just an interesting coincidental juxtaposition of events.

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hackermom
Related FYI: one of the first computer games to be banned in Germany was
"Hitler Diktator", released for the Commodore 64 in 1986. The game was never
published commercially, but authorities still placed a ban on possession of
the game.

