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German Ban On Doom Finally Lifted
An anonymous reader writes "18 years after its debut, Doom, the game that almost single-handedly popularized the FPS genre (remember when we just called them Doom clones?) is finally seeing the light of legality in the nation of Germany. The lifting of the ban also applies to the beloved sequel Doom II. A release date has yet to be set. I recommend that Germans who have not found some way to play this game over the last 18 years, please do so upon its release. Despite its age, it's still fun as hell. (Pun very much intended.)"
I can see wolfenstein (well actually I can't) but doom?
"People don't want to learn linux" hasn't been a valid excuse since '03.
Congrats Germany! And if you guys enjoy Doom, just wait for Quake & Duke Nukem 3D!!!
It was never "banned". It was not allowed to sell it to a person under the age of 18 (which was enough to discourage publishers from even trying). This was now reduced to 16. Apparently id filed a request to reexamine the old rating.
Captcha: massacre. How fitting.
Doom was on the index of the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Department_for_Media_Harmful_to_Young_Persons. When something is on the index is can be bought and sold but cannot be sold to a minor and cannot be sold in a shop that frequently has minors. This sort of law was originally intended to apply to porn but as a matter of implementation is a bit more difficult for videogames since minors are likely to go to videogame stores. Similarly, restrictions on how indexed media can be advertised make it difficult to advertise videogames. So the de facto result is that very few copies of games on the index are sold. But saying that the game was banned is incorrect. Prior to this appeal it was legal to buy and sell copies of Doom.
...the German economy is the last stable, and largest, economy in Europe: they haven't been introduced to the FPS yet. They'll be eating Cheetos and shitting in bed pans while screaming "M-M-M-M-Monster Kill!!!!!!" before you know it now.
"I hope you know how very lucky you are to know me, because I am so incredibly incredible."
They had to change the paddle graphics in the German version. It was said the straight lines were too similar to the branches of a swastika, so they had to change them to parentheses.
Doom was not banned, but put on the "index", meaning you needed to be 18+ to buy it (and it was not allowed to be advertised). The information regarding the consequence of indexing is even linked in the article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Department_for_Media_Harmful_to_Young_Persons#Legal_consequences
In the USA, DOOM was released in 1993.
SIX YEARS LATER ... Columbine
You saw it here first! Germany on track for a major school shooting in 2017!
I did nazi that coming!
The more you know, the more you have to say and the more you should listen.
Coming to a server near you. Anyone for retro?
Slackware- Its not just an OS; its a lifestyle
BFG-9000 was perfect in every way. Powerful enough to kill everything in the general direction you point it, but so little ammo on any level that you almost never got the chance to use it... But when you did. :)
If I were God, wouldn't I protect my churches from acts of me?
This is a good move, but the fact that it was banned at all still tells me that the Germans have a problem with authoritarianism.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Eighteen years on and it's still more fun it's closest contemporary equivalents (e.g. the CoD series.) WTF has the games industry been up to for the last two decades?
> "Despite its age, it's still fun as hell. (Pun very much intended.)" - i don't get it. where's the pun?
Because they still are Doom clones. I haven't seen anything meaningful introduced in the last decade+ worth of Doom clones that wasn't already done in Doom.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Illegal speech is a Nazi concept that Germany has embraced since before WWII.
Germans were fine with the nazis until they lost. The ban on speaking of them was bad enough that they finally realized that the gag on nazi 'symbolism' lead to German children who had little idea what nazism ended up becoming and gross confusion on why evil old national socialism was bad and green socialism is good.
They did correct some of that but still had the gag in place. I assume they didn't want nazism to look too bad since green socialism skirts closer than most to the ancient national socialist teachings. Just replace "jew" with "meat eater" and/or "jew" with "conservative", etc.
Spell checkers that capitalize nazism or socialism should have the code printed out and rammed up the developers ass. I am unsure if jew or "jew" or jews or "jews" is capitalized or not and it's probably racist to ask.
I despise the green nazis as much as the old nazis; same results but one is full of polyester bunnies, rainbows and cinammon and sugar lies.
Rainbows and fluffy bunnies nor purple pedosaurs and gags on free speech do not make it better. It just makes malinformed children fodder for statists.
Anontra
idspipopd?
Is the length of the waiting period to be allowed to ask for an appeal or reconsideration of the indexing. 10 years seems to be a little excessive. IMHO, a period of 2-5 years seems more appropriate.
Should the games have been indexed in the first place? Maybe. Maybe not. I think that question is best left to parents in Germany who were raising their children circa 1993-1994 and later.
As a Yank having spent the last 10 years (and possible y the rest) of my life in Germany I really don't care. I have never thought that that game was banned here but never really cared to try it. I order *alll* boxed video games I play out of the UK and pay with my American credit card to download them from US Server when possible.
Who needs German censorship? (meh)
Germany is Doomed! DOOMED, I tell you!
I believe wolfenstein was banned in Switzerland
For your information, Switzerland didn't even take part in World War II and never had a real Nazi party. Thus, there are no Nazi-hunt/anti Swastika laws similar to these in Germany.
The absence of Wolfenstein 3D on iPhone in Switzerland might be due to other reasons, like localization: ~75% of the population speaks German (actually local Swiss-german dialects, but they most can understand standard German too). As Switzerland is a to small market, you seldom see Swiss-specific localizations of software. Very often, the software company will simply market the Germany localization (and piss the 25% remaining of the population) or sometime the France version too (in the rare occurrence when they notice that more than 1 language is spoken in Switzerland).
As no localization of Wolfenstein 3D exists for Germany because of the Swastikas laws, and because Switzerland alone is a to small market to bother doing localization for it, there are no localization which could be sold in Switzerland.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
the swiss position in world war ii was very complicated and by no means devoid of nazi influence. there have been some great books come out in the past 10 years on this subject (the 'realpolitik' of a few swiss leaders at the time, forging the pseudo-alliance with various nazi officials in order to keep pressure off them)
It was all because of that Commander Keen!
I went to Germany recently and found out that you can drink alcohol pretty much anywhere you like. On the street, on the train, whatever.
I'd trade that freedom for Doom any day.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
If only you weren't busy tying your boot-laces into little nazis that hold better for steppin'.
Many city Doom as the first FPS, when Wolfenstein 3D clearly predated it. And Ultima Underworld was released before either of them, with a more advanced engine than ran on even weaker hardware (including its RPG elements).
Doom was more popular and for many people, it was the first they played, so it is seen as the first overall. Just the same as many people have said Goldeneye 64 or Halo was the first time they ever played a FPS game in multiplayer, so thusly that inherently makes it the greatest game of all time, even if others did it better before hand (like Half Life or Quake).
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
Beloved? Doom was amazing at the time, but Doom II was kind of disappointing.
People still buy games in stores?
The game CounterStrike is also censored in Germany. You can play the game as normal, but when you shoot your opponent, they lay down and peacefully surrender with their hands over their head. There is no actual depiction of death.
There never was a ban on Doom ...
If at all it was "rated" over 18 or over 16 ... sigh in what stupid world do you live that you believe we had "banning" of anything in germany?
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
>cannot be sold in a shop that frequently has minors
Since Doom is a video game and by law couldn't be sold in video game stores, that's effectively a ban. No matter how much you try to sugar coat it.
``OK, we don't like this thing being associated with the Nazis, because they were fascists and consequently authoritarian. What can we do?'' :P
``Ooh! Let's tell people they're not allowed to use it!''
Now you can jump.
Atlas Shrugged : Thematic Story
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intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it