Censorship in games how bad in your Country ?

[Retro Doomer]

So now we get to the age old question Ladies and Gentleman how terrible is the censorship of games in your country
can you play a mostly uncensored version of the game if you bought of buy a game from your local video game marked
or is it borderline unplayable where you got to the point that you nearly Import all of your games ?
I for myself wanted to buy the so called best version of Saints row,Saints Row 2 but that version is extremely censored in Germany
so my best bet would be Importing a UK version instead as it should run on my Xbox360 as it is still pal still it sucks as I have to pay far more
often then not just to get a version that is not North Korea style censored.
Saints Row 1 is apparently worse in Germany as the even cut whole Missions from the game.

It became a bit less worse over the years but its still not good.

 

[for.we.are.many]

Censorship of games and Germany, name a more iconic duo.
I'd like to throw in Half-Life as one of my favourite example for that, where they replaced the soldiers with robots. Nowadays you can get the uncut version on Steam in Germany. The soldiers are human again. They still have the robot voices though.

 

[Retro Doomer]

Censorship of games and Germany, name a more iconic duo.
I'd like to throw in Half-Life as one of my favourite example for that, where they replaced the soldiers with robots. Nowadays you can get the uncut version on Steam in Germany. The soldiers are human again. They still have the robot voices though

Its also horrific how many games we have and had on the Index which is crazy I hate censorship and but I can understand it for minors but not for games that are USK18 meaning for adults only anyway I hate if they treat us like little children its like of course you can join the Bundeswehr and fight in warn and die but no blood or violence in game that is far to naughty and you are not mature enough for that as a freaking adult.
Also its shit that we did not even get some games at all like Earthbound (Given not because of censorship it still sucks though) and Bond Golden Eye N64 for Censorhsip If I remember right

 

[Dani.]

Hey das ist ein cooles Profilbild jetzt bist du ein Gentleman.
Hey, that's a cool profile picture, now you're a gentleman.

 

[Retro Doomer]

Hey das ist ein cooles Profilbild jetzt bist du ein Gentleman.
Hey, that's a cool profile picture, now you're a gentleman.

Truly I am in best Regards yours truly Retro Doomer
If I can't be a noble in money and title let me at least be one in manners
just in case a new king arrives and appoints new nobles.

 

[Clippy]

Censorship of games and Germany, name a more iconic duo.

Censorship of games and Australia

 

[Retro Doomer]

Censorship of games and Australia

They go far beyond censoring games in the land of the Emu Regime they outright ban games there
the Australians should have never lost the war against the Emus as they now life under there tyranny.
I also found a fun...I meant of course Epic Video about it

 

[vulonkaaz's iconvulonkaaz]

how does game censorship even work in the era of Internet and international commerce ? are the games just delisted from the Steam store based on your IP address ? what if you already bought the game do they prevent you from downloading ? how would they prevent something being sold here when everyone shop online anyway and can freely get stuff from all around the EU ?

---

I am not aware of any censorship here in France but it might be because I use the net in such a way that the local regulation doesn't usually impact me

 

[Retro Doomer]

how does game censorship even work in the era of Internet and international commerce ? are the games just delisted from the Steam store based on your IP address ? what if you already bought the game do they prevent you from downloading ? how would they prevent something being sold here when everyone shop online anyway and can freely get stuff from all around the EU ?

---

I am not aware of any censorship here in France but it might be because I use the net in such a way that the local regulation doesn't usually impact me

Yes as far as I am aware they would either Delist the game according to you IP address or only sell you the censored version.
I am also not aware of any censorship in France so I am more eager to Import French games into Germany but to be safe I just get the UK versions because I am not sure if in France the game English language support or even German one.

 

[Waffles's iconWaffles]

We don't really do the concept of censorship here in Argentina.

It's a lesson learned in blood.

 

[vulonkaaz's iconvulonkaaz]

Yes as far as I am aware they would either Delist the game according to you IP address or only sell you the censored version.
I am also not aware of any censorship in France so I am more eager to Import French games into Germany but to be safe I just get the UK versions because I am not sure if in France the game English language support or even German one.

do they also do that on pc or is it mostly a problem with console games ?
kind of a foreign concept to me to have different version of the same game depending on the region since i am used to modern indie PC games

how hard is it nowadays to get Postal 2 i know its one of the games that is completely banned, or was completely banned ? idk

how is it for Austrians do they get the censored german discs ?

 

[Retro Doomer]

do they also do that on pc or is it mostly a problem with console games ?
kind of a foreign concept to me to have different version of the same game depending on the region since i am used to modern indie PC games

how hard is it nowadays to get Postal 2 i know its one of the games that is completely banned, or was completely banned ? idk

how is it for Austrians do they get the censored german discs ?

They do it on Steam so yes they do it on PC to at least when the get to a website first where they can implement there Tyranny by blocking you based on your IP the same way some Videos are not even watchable in Germany for our protection of course as they say.
Officially I am not sure I guess if you can buy it Via GOG it should be fine otherwise I have no clue as Germany can be very strict about it.

 

[qw90700]

Since video games in my country is English versions just because it is international language which tend to be for Americanos we only suffer from what Americanos censor just because our law is "similar" in that regard, not that we agree. It may actually hurt sells here and people who really disliked Americano versions get non-Americano versions from Europe (UK) or Japan (if the censored game is a Japanese game) in their own ways. However until PS1-era or so only Japanese games reached us so we could enjoy better ways to play games. Now stupid companies assumes everywhere is America when it is not Europe or some shit so we stuck with "American shit" editions lol.

 

[Retro Doomer]

Since video games in my country is English versions just because it is international language which tend to be for Americanos we only suffer from what Americanos censor just because our law is "similar" in that regard, not that we agree. It may actually hurt sells here and people who really disliked Americano versions get non-Americano versions from Europe (UK) or Japan (if the censored game is a Japanese game) in their own ways. However until PS1-era or so only Japanese games reached us so we could enjoy better ways to play games. Now stupid companies assumes everywhere is America when it is not Europe or some shit so we stuck with "American shit" editions lol.

Always proud to be a US Citizen my good Sir now we just need the First and Second amendment over here if they where so kindly to do so.
Anyhow one things that is better in Europe compared to the US are the Ps1 games despite some censorship as the boxes looked just finer compared to the tiny excuses of a box the Americans got.
This so sad to bad

I just like the Trump impression.

Also many of our Covers with some exceptions look better then the US versions unless you life in Germany in which case your Cover gets a large thick age Restriction sticker on it.

 

[CyberRabbit]

Here in the USA it isn’t bad at all
(The first and second amendments are really handy over here ;) )
However that still ain’t stopping the big companies (aka the banks) from trying to censor our games and to take away our gosh darn freedom
Quite a while ago two big bank companies were pressured by a women’s activist club (or a better name is a censorship club) to pressure steam to take down many nsfw games and one of the companies ended all support for steam altogether.
This isn’t even the first time they tried to do this to, they tried it back in the 2010s pressuring the same banks to take down games like mirrors edge, gta5, and Detroit become human, thankfully this failed

 

[SpcDaicon]

In Brazil (and most of Latin America, I think) we had the most effective form of censorship that exists: games never even arriving here.

But in all seriousness, our age-rating bureau was so amateurish they didn't know what they were doing half the time. What really drove the gaming market around here was the gray market. Pirated games, pirated consoles, bootlegs from China, smuggled games direct from Japan, jailbroken videogames, burnt cds, you name it. In such unregulated and decentralized market, censorship couldn't work.

We did have some episodes of moral panic where the government rushed to do something. One such episode was due to a mod for Counter Strike that took place in Rio but overall, censorship wasn't that prevalent around these parts back in the day.

Nowadays things are much more official and organized, games now come with proper age rating but the gray market still rampant.

Well, as a song here goes "no sin exists south of the Equator"

 

[qw90700]

Here in the USA it isn’t bad at all
(The first and second amendments are really handy over here ;) )
However that still ain’t stopping the big companies (aka the banks) from trying to censor our games and to take away our gosh darn freedom
Quite a while ago two big bank companies were pressured by a women’s activist club (or a better name is a censorship club) to pressure steam to take down many nsfw games and one of the companies ended all support for steam altogether.
This isn’t even the first time they tried to do this to, they tried it back in the 2010s pressuring the same banks to take down games like mirrors edge, gta5, and Detroit become human, thankfully this failed

Ah the classic Americano irony. If everyone is free, companies are free to not allow you to buy whatever you want despite you are free to buy whatever you want. In America some people are free and others are freer and that's partly why American society is doomed from the start.

 

[petran79]

Not currently in Greece, but the damage was already done in 2002, leading to the premature closure of many arcades

The Greek law that temporarily banned video games in Greece in 2002

VIDEO GAMES BAN IN GREECE IN 200229 July 2002: The Greek government under the ruling of the party PASOK (a socialist party that among others was responsible for the Greek stock market crash of 1999 and the economic crisis and debt in Greece at the late 2000s) passed a new, ridiculous...

vetusomaru.blog.fc2.com

THE RESULTS OF VIDEO GAMES BAN IN GREECE

With the forceful shut down of innocent internet cafes by police there were immediately strong protesters from internet cafes owners and a huge support from their audience, especially because of the popularity of internet cafes and online video games back then. As a result the internet cafes ban was quickly lifted.

Unfortunately there wasn't the same reaction with arcade games since said games were already almost dead in Greece even before the ban with most arcade games centers closing down one after another and the few places that still had arcade games cabinets have removed most of them. The downfall of arcade games in Greece was also because of the new rising trend of online PC games and because of the competition with the new generation of video games consoles that were equally strong or even stronger than arcade games. Still the ban was the finishing touch for the death of arcade games in Greece.



The huge decline of arcade games was also a thing all over the world (including USA and Japan, the countries that created the majority of arcade video games and sold them all over the world) because of online games popularity and new generation game home consoles. While in countries like USA and Japan the arcade games somehow stayed relevant because of the popularity of arcade rhythm games at late '90s - early 2000s and because of games genres that can be enjoyed better at arcades like light gun shooters and racing games, in Greece they were considered dead. Only a few years later the arcade games quietly came back in some places although they weren't as popular as they were in the past. Apparently the cops stopped raiding arcade centers. However for some reason the law wasn't lifted yet despite the fact that the European Commission in February 2005 referred Greece to the European Court of Justice over its ban on electronic games. And it took them years to finally lift the video games ban law officially in 2011.