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Wolfenstein Being Recalled In Germany
D1gital_Prob3 tips news that Activision's recently-released shooter, Wolfenstein, is being recalled in Germany due to the appearance of swastikas in the game. Such symbols are banned in Germany, and the German version of the game went through heavy editing to remove them. Apparently, they missed some. Activision said, "Although it is not a conspicuous element in the normal game ... we have decided to take this game immediately from the German market." Reader eldavojohn points out a review that has screenshot comparisons between the two versions of the game.
Here's a huge list of screenshots of differences between uncensored and german version
Some of the changes I found a little fun too, like the hand.
It's also interesting that the game is 18+ and germans are still not allowed to see any blood.
Here's the texture they apparently forgot to modify.
Seeing how many changes to the game and to the textures they've had to do, I'm not that surprised something that small slipped in.
The interesting thing now is if they're gonna remove that texture, remaster, repackage and send the new ones to all stores again, even more so because the game is over an month old now and the best sales are already gone.
Apparently this is the reason that it has to be pulled from the market. I don't know about you but I find the rationale for this type of censorship to be utterly absurd. So much for free speech.....
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
So just release a modified version of Wolfenstein that focuses on commies rather than nazis called "Trotskydoom" wherein the objective is to blow away all of the Bolsheviks that are confiscating food from the farmers to impose the famine of 1921 on rural Russians. I mean, come on, there isn't anywhere in the world the hammer and sickle are outlawed and the commies killed far more than the nazis did so it should be even more fun than Wolfenstein!
Seastead this.
It's been over 60 years, Germany. You don't have to worry about symbolism bringing back the Nazi party; most of them are dead. Your reasons for denying the existence of history are over now. It's time to give free speech a try.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
but the invisible-to-my-eye Swastikas are not?
Don't you know that human beings are so impressionable that all they need is to see a small swastika and they will instantly volunteer to help load the boxcars? Clearly we need a benevolent government to protect us from such evil.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Stuff like this is one reason out of many I'm very wary of social progressives. Germany is a socially progressive state, and I don't think it's at all a coincidence that such censorship exists. Of course the social progressives are going to come out of the woodwork to justify it by scaring people up about the possibility of Nazis arising again and so on and so forth, but I guess sacrificing freedom in order to protect it is just a necessity to them. Individual freedom is on the down-and-out world-wide in the name of social consensus and thus niche groups (including nerds and gamers) suffer the most.
The Swastika didn't kill anyone.
A bunch of jackasses did. Why don't you just outlaw people planning to kill other people?
Do you think not having a Swastika will prevent a dictator or demagogue from choosing a different symbol to hide behind?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
If it's so bad, why the hell do they censor it when the point of the game is to lay waste to everything it stands for?
Of course, rationality is far too much to expect from a censorship board.
Shame the anti-Nazi folk couldn't give you a break
I'm anti-Nazi. Everyone here is (hopefully) anti-Nazi. That doesn't mean we should censor their symbols out of existence or try to ignore history.
As long as the game doesn't include a map to Poland, we should be ok.
Will they replace all the swastikas with walkie-talkie's? I always maintained in the bunker with Hitler and Eva, Hitler shot first. Did that get changed, too? And is the blood still green?
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
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Ignoring history (or hiding from it) seems to be the basis of these laws. It strikes me as hugely contradictory to outlaw both denying the holocaust and displaying a swastika. It's an unfortunate historical relic - Deal with it...
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
It's freaking history. The U.S. didn't respond to the history of the civil war by banning any and all rebel markings. The symbols of Germany's history will always exist. Making it so that people don't see it as often changes nothing. But the existence of law that outlaws particular symbols or words are harmful. The next step is outlawing thoughts and feelings.
Basil Fawlty: Is something wrong ?
4th German: Will you please stop talking about the war ?
Basil Fawlty: Me ? You started it !
4th German: We did not start it.
Basil Fawlty: Yes you did, you invaded Poland.
You simply have no idea of the significance of Nazi symbols in Europe; the US was never invaded, and the US Government took good care not to expose US citizens to the truth about the Allied invasion of Europe, concealing (for instance) the horrors of D-Day and the Bulge. Your Government takes good care that you don't know what war is like, especially since public reaction ended the ground war in Vietnam.
When you emerge from your bedrooms and basements, try visiting Germany and the east and actually learning some real history. Then you might understand why, to much of Europe, the use of Nazi symbols in a game is highly inappropriate. But, until you are grown up and actually know something about the world other than soundbites and games, shut the fuck up about civil liberties in a country about which you clearly know less than nothing. And yes, you do make me cross. Go talk to some of the American survivors of WW2, they might tell you a thing or two.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Seriously, fuck you. And get back to me when you can say that on American television; until then, continue denying that anyone in America ever fucked.
-- Language is a virus from outer space.
How far does this ban go? For example: the good Indiana Jones movies have a lot of Nazis and swastikas in them. Did they have to be editted for this ban?
It clearly shows that you have absolutely no clue of what you're talking about.
Being from Germany I can assure you that Nazi symbols are not banned from any history book or documentation or whatever. But presenting Nazi symbols in another context than education (or similar) is not allowed.
This ban helps keeping Nazis under control - you have a simple thing in your hands to kick their butts with this law and others. Additionally, regarding the well known history of Germany there is NO REASON to show, wear or use Nazi symbols other than for a) education (allowed) or b) propaganda for forces against the German democracy (disallowed).
Symbols do empower.
Rituals too.
The point is that banning a symbol doesn't change people. And symbol gets its meaning from people. It only suppresses expression of their true wishes. They'd find another symbol - and another scapegoat to blame for their problems - as soon as they would accumulate enough negative emotions.
What actually happened is that svastika's relation to Hitler and nazis was as good as perpetuated by the ban. IOW, you can't get over the problem by forcing yourself to stop thinking about. That simply doesn't work.
Germany would have more success parting svastika from its past by doing reverse: paint svastikas with flowers and funny colors and and slap them all over the country.
Make people smile at it - not shun it. Suppression doesn't work - reframing does.
All hope abandon ye who enter here.
This has happened to pretty much every iteration of Wolfenstein *ever*. Almost every WWII game made has run afoul of various German laws in some form or another. Between their banhammer laws on anything remotely resembling Nazi iconography and the way they ratchet up the prohibition of pixelated violence every time they have an American-style school shooting, it's really a wonder that you can buy a single game over there that's any more graphic than cartoon bears throwing marshmallows at each other and then apologizing afterwards.
Hate crime laws are (at least supposed to) look at the intent of the speech rather than it's form (i.e. It's OK to put swastikas in your video game; it's not OK to spray paint one on your local synagogue).
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Now having heard that social progressives are more into censorship .. than others etc..
I want to state some facts about germany and the background, and in the end my own opinion:
The swastika, also the posing in the public
doing the "Nazi salute", and public saying of "Heil Hitler" with a non-documentary or historic background are prohibitted.
If you do a historic documentation about the NAZIs the use of the Swastika is allowed.
But also building up organizitions and naming them
after their Nazi counterparts is prohibitted,
like
- "NSDAP" the Party also known as the "NAZI"-party
- "HJ" (Young Hitlericans(male))
- "BDM" (Young Hitlericans(female)
- "SS" (Sturm Staffel)
or stating that the holocaust never happend,
also known as "Holocaust Luege" - holocaust lie.
b.) Are there Nazis still in Germany active ?
Yes, they are. In Germany, we have two (bigger) extreme right wing parties:
- NPD (Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands) :: Republicans)
(nationaldemocratic party germany)
- REP (Republikaner
The NPD has some MPs in east german non-federal parliaments. Some days ago they also managed to reenter one of the parliaments in a row.
That's a premiere because anytime else they entered a parliament they were out on the next election. Mostly because their members had stolen
computers, office equipment and embezzled money for themselves(it was meant for covering expenses due to political work).
Funny isn't it, for a party which stands for law and order, more order than law I guess.
So these people mostly turn out to be total boneheads, the elitebrain leaders within those parties are few.
But they are connected and involved to non-offical/underground/forbidden organizations like the "Freie Kameradschaften"
sometimes those organizations gather weapons
and explosives, for terrorist acts.
The members of these "gangs" are often young and violent, they gather in flashmobs and have
hobbies like beating up foreigners, just for being foreign, sometimes they kill, or
hunt their prey in such a threatening way that the hunted people try to get into a safehouse by kicking in a glass window, accidently cutting themselves and bleeding to death.
If you have black, dark skin or look like a gipsy
you can end up as their prey, but sometimes because you look funny or do not speak german.
And if you are jewish they demolish your property or paint graffities like "SS" or "Jude verrecke"
(this means Jew die, in an extreme unpleasant way)
onto your property, synagogues and graveyards.
And all this, happens in germany still, mostly
in eastern germany - there are dangerous hotspots
where this happens, outside of these hotspots
it's mostly safe.
The prohibitions are instated to battle those
extreme right parties.
Please keep this in mind, when discussing
those NAZI-topics.
To get things into the right perspective, for germany those violent acts are _not_ common,
most foreign visitors describe germany as a
"clean and friendly country", and to be clear most of my fellow citizens are no NAZIs and won't do any harm.
But recent studies suggest 10 percent of the allowed voters can imagine themselves to vote
for extreme right parties.
So most of us try that those new Nazis will not ever rise up again, as it happend in '33.
My personal opinion about this topic is:
I think it's wrong that the holocaust-lie is prosecuted by law, because I want to know what
idiot I face from the beginning.
Perhaps after my lines below you can imagine why this is a very sensitive spot in our history even today.
Six Million people dead - selected to live or to die, after they left the train on the basis of their condition. Those who could do work, or were technically skilled were forced to work very low on food, with no medical support, so it was death by work. Those who were weak - children, elderly
Additionally, regarding the well known history of Germany there is NO REASON to show, wear or use Nazi symbols other than for a) education (allowed) or b) propaganda for forces against the German democracy (disallowed).
So which is Wolfenstein?
Earlier this year while preparing for a move I put some old Lucas Arts games up for sale on eBay.
Day of the Tentacle, Sam and Max, Indiana Jones, etc...
Well the weird thing was how the Indiana Jones auctions took off and I started getting all these international bids on it. It complicated things for me since I wasn't familiar with international shipping but anyways, I checked and they were all German. HUH! Then I realized for the first time that Indiana Jones must be completely banned in Germany.
Of course with Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls it really IS for their best that it remain banned...
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