Crack down on Crackdown, Germany refuses to issue rating

Because Germany has been a bastion for anti violence and benevolence towards mankind.

#1, don't.

Yay for free speech!

what about this game exactly makes it so much worse than others? quake 4, gears, condemned, dead rising?? have they not heard of these? crackdown is worse to them why?

turo... look at the see also links.

So they cant sell to minors. The game cant be visable on store shelves, but if you ASK for it, they'll sell it to you with proper ID.

I dont see any problem with this. Every country should do it this way.

I think where a certain Grey haired laughingstock will be moving.

BTW, whats up chilling effect? Thank you first ammendment!

Germany - opression at it's finest.

so. hitlers memory still lingers. dont want any bastard to get too violent hmm . haha. o well! ill have fun playing my copy . in good ol` America!

Good way to protect parents and authorities of their fears. It may seem like nosense, but it's bettter than seeing people claiming "GTA teached my kid how to beat prostitutes!" or something.

@5

ahhh well pointed out. silly me, lol :D. but does crackdown really seem anywhere near as violent and graphic as those other titles?

Their rating board is acting like if it was 66 years ago in Germany.

@shirizaki & diskoboy

Yeah, seriously... don't go there. Look, if the Germans want to get bend-outta shape over something stupid -- let them. (The past is the past)

How bad can this game be? How is it any MORE violent than GTA? I don’t get these people -- it’s just a game. When the next thing comes along – we’ll all be into that. If the game sucks, it will go immediately to the bargain bin, and that will be the end of it.

Shouldnt the German ratings board actually do their job and *rate* this game. Even if it gets a 18+ rating, it should still have a rating. What the hells that point of even having a rating system if any violent game (the type of games that spurred the whole ratings system) doesnt even get rated. Don't make much sense to me.

And the whole reason German is like this today *is* because of its dark past, so this is very relevant. If Germany really wants to get out of this post-WWII paranoia, then they should start read up on something called freedom of speech. But I guess they forgot about all those books that got burned too.

We, in Germany, recently had an amok run and now all politicians, again, blame videogames.
Maybe that s the reason, they try a stricter rating.

Isn't much of a problem, though.
You can always order an English version, or a version from Austria (they speak German, too ^^)

...How come nobody ever refers to the studies about violent people seeking violent media? It's always "non-violent people who play violent games tend to be in an excited state while doing so which may make them more likely to commit violent acts but our study doesn't actually link the two together it just hypothesizes that since people are in an excited state that they'd be more likely to commit those acts but we can't provide definitive proof".

I don't mind the idea of carding people for M Rated games...I think they need to have a law for that here in the States, but not displaying them on store shelves is stupid. How are adults that aren't internet surfing hardcore gamers going to find out about the game? I bet violent movies probably still have posters and advertising, not to mention alcohol and cigarettes. Correct me if I'm wrong.

For comment 4 : They choose not to rate Gears of War, Quake 4 & Dead Rising who face the same fate so check first before posting

For comment 13: The USK is not similar to PEGI (UE ratings) or ESRB (US ratings) as it is not "controlled" by video games industry but enforce a german law about youth protection.

If USK choose not to rate, it allow another German office to "index" the game (aka marketing is forbidden, sales will be really low...).

For all: Germany just have a mass school killing involving (unluckily for us) a student playing video games so they are kind of sensible to violence right now.

But anyway, X360 is a massive failure in Germany & France so Crackdown is not a big loss for videogame business...

This is simply retarded, how can Germany's politicians blame everything on games?

Crackdown isn't even that brutal anyway, nothing like Gears of War or Dead Rising. It's probably about the same as GTA or Half-Life (although HL1 had quite "brutal" things happening at points)