Well WW2 was quite some time ago and Hitler was an asshole as was the NSDAP, I for myself see no connection between me and WW2, so I do not know why I am held accountable or seen as a potential worshipper because I see some Swastikas in a game.

The common denominator: communism is bad, stigmatised, facism is bad stigmatised. Democracy is the one true form of government, the rule of the masses. Which it seems is in fact the rule of the few, mightier than you would ever think, because they do not rule a nation but start to rule the world.

...Lord of the Rings ;)

Not sure, I haven't tried to "go" on holiday to a different country to get a game (since the witcher 2 release).
I think the NZ/OZ version of the Witcher 2 (original version that is, is still cut), but I think the enhanced edition patched the cut bit back in.
But I can see hotline miami 2 is available for me to get if I want to so I know NZ is not blocked from buying it.

Definitely not many of the ones playing it on PC. Steam refuses to activate the uncut version on a German account. Same with the Saints Row series.

I have to say two things.

1. region locking is DRM so what is the difference from Steam in this case ( none in my personal opinion)
2. if GOG would follow the german law then they could not sell any game that is on the "index", which are quite some.Some that come to my mind are Blood 1+2, F.E.A.R., Shadow Warrior, Fallout 2 (i think), Rise of the Triad, Postal2, Blake Stone, Duke Nukem 3D. Beside this, if you really want to abide the german law, you could not simply sell any games that don't have an age rating from the german authority USK. And all the "good old games" don't have one. So you would have to verify the age and this cannot be done through a credit card or such easy things.

I'd say: Do it right or don't do it at all!

Regards,

John

The last ones that lived in that era should soon be dead, maybe the laws will get modified sometime, obviously the old politicians in charge still see themselves strongly connected to the NSDAP for one reason or another.

I wonder how many Americans want to forbid the christian cross, because the probably most succesful genocide in human history happened under it not too long ago. Slaughtering a whole continent is quite an achievement but doesn't seem to be a bad thing when you actually went out of it as the winner.

The winner writes the history.

You read my mind :)

Quite probably, and then you'll wish they were banned again.

I speak from experience, until the little falsetto voiced bastard died everybody was afraid to talk about the war. Then it became legal to mention it again (it officially wasn't illegal, but you know) and they just wouldn't shut up about it.

Eventually that too came to pass, but there was a time where every single drama movie seemed to be based during the civil war. It got very tiring very fast.

Oh people are talking about WW2 all the time here, we had this topic in history class for 3 full years in school and went to 4 different concentration camps (which are now nothing more than "museums of guilt"). People here are very tired of it, believe me, it does seem to get less a bit just now in the year 2015.
Having to talk about it all the time from a very young age and not being allowed to make fun of it is weird for kids to say the least.
Lack of humour is what got people into the whole situation and they don't seem to have learned.

as I said above: Commandos2+3 would be without a doubt banned if the publisher would let the uncensored version enter the german market. Unlike with games which are under scrutiny for excessive violence there is no room for discussion when nazi symbols are involved. There is a reason why game developers these days don't even try to publish such contents in germany. Instead the game is censored before the german authorities can even look at it.

Yes, that is totally stupid and frustrating.
But blaming GOG doesn't help.

The main culprit is _our_ law (and our politicians).
If only half the anger vented into gaming & movie forums would instead be directed at our parliament ...

Though, quite honestly, when talking about a more relaxed handling of our nazi history, I don't really see a lot of public support for that in Germany.

that's nonense. Those are still allowed to sell, just not to anybody under 18.
And I think the GOG User Terms say have to be 18 to buy a game here, so ...

//edit:
what is rather puzzling though, is why GOG doesn't sell at least the german version they have of Commandos 1.There should be no legal problems with that.

No, there is no reason for it anymore.
The reason for preemptive self-censoring was, that publishing games was really expensive on physical mediums and losing all this money for nothing and probably having to pay for getting the stuff from the market again was a problem.
With digital distribution, there are not millions of CDs pressed anymore and put into nice little boxes with nice little booklets that cost a lot of money in big numbers. All they'd have to do today is pulling the plug by not distributing anymore.

They could sell indexed games, BUT ...
they have to adhere to some regulations.
1. GOG has to make sure that the person who is buying the game is over 18. (And just writing on your webpage that you have to be 18 is not enough! And using a credit cad is not enough as well! Look at how difficult it is to buy a simple 18 movie or game from amazon.de. There is someting called "postIdent").
2. GOG cannot advertise indexd games on their page without making sure that only people who are over 18 can see them (no public advertising is allowed and a page who is sell a game is advertising it). So there has to be a mechanism in place to "unlock" the game page.

Regards,

John

That, historically, has not been a plea well-received. :/
[url=But every time I see it, even when I've screwed up and am on the receiving end, I think "good luck and godspeed"][/url]