The Unfriendly Side of German Game Development

As hysterical as American media and politicians can get over 'violent' videogames, the folks making games in Germany have it a whole lot worse. Tim Partlett (a developer at Crytek) shared his experience with the Quarter to Three forums, describing what it's like to be raided for making a videogame. He describes what it's like to be hated for your job, and laments the attitude of the nation towards his chosen line of work. From the article: "At the time of the (2002 Erfurt school) shooting, we were already in development of Far Cry ... We were just across the state border from Erfurt in northern Bavaria. Tensions in the region were high ... In 2004 the Bavarian authorities sent in the state troopers... When the small tech team appeared to inspect our computers, they were accompanied by over one hundred flak-jacketed riot police, all armed with Heckler and Koch sub-machine guns. It was a total overreaction... They arrived first thing in the morning, and kicked down our doors. They even raided the nearby private residences ... I was caught just outside the office ... We were all shepherded into our Mo-Cap room, and there we were forced to remain until questioned, prevented from leaving by dozens of armed guards."

Comments

Re:So the question is

[Vellmont]

Germany has a complex over the whole Third Reich thing - it's understandable, but let's face it, if you weren't involved or responsible somehow, you need to build a bridge and get over it.

Eh, the way I've always looked at it is the Germans are Nazi's about being Nazi's. They don't like to talk about it, but there HAS to be something about German culture that allowed the Nazi's to be so successfull. Now they've just re-assigned that same behaviour towards other forms of control.