Germany becomes top games market in Europe [update: not true!]

Isn't Germany typically a little more heavy-handed when it comes to censorship and/or straight up banning of games in comparison to other European countries? I guess my presumption would've been that something like that would be more of a hindrance on consumer sales or the industry in general, but apparently not. People like to play whatever games are available to them I suppose :P

I always wondered about German peoples' reactions to WWII games. I'm not trying to be funny or sarcastic, and I know it's a long-over part of their history, but they must see these games much differently than Americans.

Any Germans here have an opinion?

Surprising considering their strict policy on violence in media.

what will it mean for gamescom if the ban takes effect? will they move it to another country? amsterdam maybe?

fascinating. Someone should inform the German ministries about this, to see if they want to fall behind other EU nations

They're probably stocking up for when they get banned.

I thought that was the case, but I wasn't sure. There is a large American population there with multiple military bases and schools things like that, so I'm sure they've at least been exposed to the Call of Duties, Medals of Honors and so forth.

My Gears of War copy was produced and printed in Germany for distribution in the Middle East, it even has the description in the back in Arabic. Does the data exclude offshore sales like this example?

I'm from Germany, kind of funny to read something like

"There is a large American population there with multiple military bases and schools things like that, so I'm sure they've at least been exposed to the Call of Duties, Medals of Honors and so forth." Almost an insult as it sounds like ppl think we are some kind of isolated cavemen :-D got news for you, take a look at how small germany is and still we are the biggest game market in whole europe.

We've not only been "exposed" to these kind of games, they are a huge hit over here, even tho the world war scenario is getting kind of old and I personally can't stand any world war whatever thing anymore.

Also Crysis is from a German developer and there is especially a huge interest in the shooter type of games and also RTS Games but really everything else is played as well.

The violence restrictions are kind of deep-rooted because of what happend in the war. Because of that our Goverment grew kidn of overprotective and even tho nowadays everyone here grows up with that kind of stuff and plays it the politicians are still from an old generation and keep hold of their views and discriminate things they can't undestand. German youth and young adults are sick of it but still we can't seem to be able to do anythign against it. Very slowly some kind of movement come together to influence the politics but it's still quite weak and none of us modern folks seem to be anywhere where it would make a difference. In a few weeks there are elections and the german pirate party is taking part in it and I hope we finally make our coice count/ heard. But Germany has one big Problem. The demographic trend, we have way more older ppl then younger and often those are traditionally bound to more conservative approaches to anything modern and also politics. And many of us are just like "ah I don't care fuck em" and so they don't take part where they could make some influence but the olde ppl do so,...

The game violence stuff deep-rooted

Well that's the other thing, they actually can be banned for this and most likley would.

So most devs usually tone it down to avoid their game is put on the index or even worse completly forbidden (first one actually isn't much better because effectly it's almost impossible to sell a game when it's on the index because they automatically aren't allowed to be reviewd in printmedia or even advertised and/ or openly saled even tho ppl at age of 18 or over would be legaly allowed to still buy them but the bigest part of the market avoids them as soon as somethign is even close to beiing put on the index) or decide to not officially release games over here (but ppl can still order it from the UK or the netherlans or something).

Also these indexed games aren't evaluated/ tested again even after years when no one considers them harmfull anymore. So nowaday the old classic Duke Nukem 3D is still indexed and because of that you can't even get it nowadays for your iphone from Germany (at least through the official channel). So basically that means an aged junk of pixels/ technology which no one would consider dangerous to anyone nowadays is still indexed which basically means you can't get it on steam, you can't get in on the apple store and so on. Market is forced to stay away.

The index-controls go so far that even printmedia demo cd's/ dvd's are controlled and need to be tested before they can be released. Some time they even had to put black boxes over more violent scenes in videos (tho I don't know if that is still needed because the Internet completly replaced my need for printmedia). But it was and still is ridicoulous, I've seen much worse (violent) in TV, strangely the once heavy cuts of violence in movies have been reduced, don't really understand that at the same time the restrictions for games increase.

You're welcome! I think it's important to let you guys know that most game-interested ppl over here don't even support and surely have not asked for our governments course in this and we try to influence the politics to get that changed.

Also especially American publishers could help if they would listen to what their German customers actually think about it and how far off the restrictions are compared to what is allowed in movies over here. I understand it's a risk for publishers, one which is preferred to be avoided completely but we could need the help to make a change I think some strong voices to the right ppl from influential big companies could do a lot in the old guys politics. It just seems that no one wants to get any trouble for raising critical concerns. And now they even want to ban games like World of Warcraft, so I would think it is in the interest of American devs and publishers to not just blindly accept this which basically means at least passively supporting further restrictions.

that's cool. I hope the ban doesn't happen because crytek would have to move from the biggest game market in europe D:!

It's ok I came off a lil strong there myself. But yeah it's true many Americans are military based in our country (altought as far as I know many bases are being reduced; folks are called home).

The cool thing is on these bases the military has some sort of sovereign power and actually their own little exception from many rules which otherwise would restrict certain things. One example car tuning, military personal who owns tuned cars with things like car bottom lights and NOS seem to be allowed to use these on our streets, within German law both are forbidden. Been working in a town called Bitburg and there used to be a bigger base and in that town I saw all that which was kind of cool because I've never seen it before in real life (not that much into tuning cars also even if I would certain things aren't allowed as u can see).

Oh and here some of the changes in games to avoid the banhammer, the most hated I would say was back in Half Life 1 when they replaced human soldiers as enemies with robots. Or in the old Counterstrike where killed enemies just sat down (I shit u not; looks a little better nowadays in CS Source). In TF2 the cut German version actually suits the game.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkUuABNnTC0 CS Source

Some more infos:

http://www.schnittberichte.com/schnittbericht.php?ID=4539 TF2

http://www.schnittberichte.com/schnittbericht.php?ID=5975622 Dark Sector

Considering Germany has the largest population in Europe, it's now a big surprise.

THE DATA IN THIS REPORT IS INACCURATE - UK is still the biggest EU market, see http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/germany-overtakes-uk-as-largest-euro-games-market for the update, this will be confirmed soon

Sorry Germany - Media Control Gfk have admitted they got the data wrong. You're not the biggest games market in Europe. The UK is. Must be ll those copies of Wii Fit we seem to keep buying.

Check out the link to Eurogamer's story below.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/germany-becomes-europes-top-market