Alright, I'll give it two days then based on what you said. If it doesn't show up within that time I'm going to Steam.

They did release the update early on Steam, so I didn't expect it to release early here necessarily, but I do expect it to show up on the scheduled release date which was the 25th.

I could have just bought it over the weekend on Steam, but I waited for the 25th to support GOG. So hopefully GOG isn't playing games and still is planning to release it.

Unreasonable? Once click age verification, porn sites till working just fine like that.
But you re right no one here will upload IDs or when they do, it ll be fake IDs.
At least folks in their right mind.

But i believe that is not was german law "demands" with STRONG age verification.
Since XHAMSTER did put in the same verification when the law was put in place
and works ever since.

https://www.gog.com/game/subverse

It's here.

Nice, I see it now, and Evenicle release also.

cant access the game page in germany, thanks i hoped i would be able to buy it

Just leaving this good old quote here:

“One thing that we have learned is that piracy is not a pricing issue. It's a service issue.” [Gabe Newell]

i (from germany) simply land on the main shop site when i click your link, it is geoblocked
because GoG removed the age verification question.

Same here. I thought only Steam would geoblock such games and hoped I have a chance on GoG. Why did they even removed the age verification? It feels like they dont want us to play the game.

The age verification was always that ridiculous here in Germany.

10 years ago I registered at a german blu-ray site, where you just can add movies and games to your collection list. Just to be able to see the 18+ movies and games COVERS, I had to do the "Postident-Verfahren" - go to my next postal office, show my ID and pay 10 € ...

Technically, the online ID API today would allow for requesting only age information over government servers, keeping the verification guaranteed, secure and anonymous for the end website and requiring only your ID card and an NFC-capable phone (it's how you can login to ELSTER tax returns already, though that site obviously queries more than just age).

Unfortunately, this variant is expensive to implement so no retailer bothers to, considering that adult games in Germany aren't that significant of a market (yet).
Even Google is experimenting with a system where you send them a photograph of your ID instead, which they would obviously prefer (since for Google more data = more better).
I'm kinda scared that Google might actually have enough power to get people to relent and send their IDs to use their services going forward.

It's not that German age verification laws are especially unreasonable nowadays, it's that companies don't consider it worth the dev investment or not beneficial to respect user privacy (as that is not profitable).

I wonder one thing: I know that age verification with a credit card works. Some sites *ahem* require that.
I also know that Paypal's Terms of Service, at least in germany, require the user to be 18 as well.

Would it therefore not be possible to use either one of these to verify your age?

Googles verifification seems to be very lax at the moment, @Buschwichtel. You supposedly can send them a photo of your ID with *everything* blacked out, except the birthdate, which needs to match the date in your google account, and the expiry date of the ID. I have not tried that myself yet though, but if that is true that would not be all that much better than an "I am 18" banner with more steps. :p
Though i am sure they would be able to detect duplicate photos.

I've already had to send a photo of my ID to Google because otherwise it blocked YouTube videos marked as 18+ for me. For example some of the Dead Space remake gameplay videos...

Short rant:
I am sometimes wondering if we have become way too lazy. Best example is the Postident-Verfahren. Literally only takes you a small stroll down to the nearest post office (or in my case, get to the nearest town), a small fee (although I do not remember having to pay one, but heck, it's been over 10 years since I did the thing) and bam, you're authenticated. It is as far as I know just an identity confirmation, and is actually designed to be adhering to our laws, including GDPR/DSGVO. Yet I've come across a lot of people who were whining about Postident being too complicated. It is literally a one-time thing you have to do to verify your person on a platform, forever.

And for some reasons, giant multimillion gaming/tech companies like Google, Valve and Sony are like: "Hurrdurr, instead of just using systems that are perfectly functional, this let's rile up our usebase against the lawmakers instead by just making our product a shitty user experience and blame it publicly on the 'harsh laws' "
They are able to build hardware from scratch. They are perfectly capable of adding support for a identification system. Especially if small websites are capable of doing so.

They don't *want* to implement strong age verification.

Because, what would that do? They would have to actually enforce an age check for officially rated 18+ or even worse, unrated games. Remember, games that are not rated are automatically treated as 18+.
You can buy anything, regardles of rating, both here and on steam, and i suspect on epic as well, as long it is not indexed, or porn. It is quite likely that a considerable amount of revenue is adolecents buying 18+ games after confirming their "age".

I also think that Postident, while still having a fee attached for the customer, is also not free for the store.