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General discussionRelease: Quake II + III, Wolfenstein 3D, Return to Castle Wolfenstein(806 posts)(806 posts)
(806 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted October 01, 2015
FPS Immortals are here.

Quake II: Quad Damage, Quake III: Gold, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, Wolfenstein 3D and Spear of Destiny - are available now, DRM-free on GOG.com. You can pick them up at 33% off in two bundles:
<span class="bold">Quake Damage</span> & <span class="bold">Return to Wolfenstein</span>.





Wolfenstein 3D (with Spear of Destiny) is widely considered to be the first true 3D FPS ever. It single handedly kickstarted a generation of id Software greats, and thus influenced just about every FPS we've played ever since. Its mazes, shades of gray, and blue hues are burned into the collective gaming memory - plus you get to kill a mechanized Hitler. Classic.
In the early days of FPS gaming, Quake II: Quad Damage was the milestone. In a spot-on review from 1997, GameSpot calls it "the only first-person shooter to render the original Quake entirely obsolete." It was bigger, better, prettier, and smoother than any clone or predecessor - it also offered one of the most playable, and by far most popular multiplayer experiences of its day.
Quake III: Gold, aka. multiplayer revolution. Despite a controversial removal of the lauded single-player experience the series was known for, Quake III: Arena became a smash-hit and (together with Unreal Tournament) essentially defined arena-style, movement-based competitive gaming for years. The shooter spawned a community that's been living and breathing to this day.
In B.J. Blazkowicz's Return to Castle Wolfenstein, another legend is born. A unique, objective-based multiplayer mode saw immense popularity back in the day - and it was actually pretty okay if you're into that sort of thing. The single-player campaign is a dark, somewhat ridiculous freak show of morbid, scientific fantasy. An ever present sense of dread emanates from the disturbing experiments and cult-like universe, just waiting to be set afire - by you.


As with any Bethesda purchase, you'll also get The Elder Scrolls: Arena & Daggerfall for free!


Prepare to fight in Quake II: Quad Damage, Quake III: Gold, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, Wolfenstein 3D and Spear of Destiny - now DRM-free on GOG.com. Return to the FPS immortals at 33% off in two bundles: <span class="bold">Quake Damage</span> & <span class="bold">Return to Wolfenstein</span>. The promo will last for one week, until October 8, 12:59 PM GMT.



The four titles released today are not available for purchase in Germany. These are legal restrictions that are beyond our control, and we're very sorry for the inconvenience.
Posted October 03, 2015
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Grargar: Hmmm, I wonder if the Wolfenstein games are regionally-locked for Germans...
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JudasIscariot: Unfortunately, they are :(
Can these games be gifted to German customers? Or are they completely region locked and cannot be downloaded from Germany?
Posted October 03, 2015
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Lifthrasil: Can these games be gifted to German customers? Or are they completely region locked and cannot be downloaded from Germany?
Gift codes work without any problems.
Posted October 03, 2015
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Lifthrasil: Can these games be gifted to German customers? Or are they completely region locked and cannot be downloaded from Germany?
No problem to gift them or buy them via VPN. Download with german IP is possible. But thats not the solution.
Posted October 03, 2015
More classic id shooters on the front page: great news!

Censorship: bad news. I had no idea this was still an issue in Germany.
Posted October 03, 2015
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PimPamPet: More classic id shooters on the front page: great news!

Censorship: bad news. I had no idea this was still an issue in Germany.
Is GOG's Medal of Honor Allied Assault censored aswell?
Posted October 03, 2015
Ahhhh was super happy when those packages were anounced via email and then.....nothing there....
Germany! :-(
Would someone gift those 2 bundles to me? Would be cool...(paypal possible)
Posted October 03, 2015
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Elmofongo: Is GOG's Medal of Honor Allied Assault censored aswell?
No. Probably because EA doesn't really care. >_>
Posted October 03, 2015
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Elmofongo: Is GOG's Medal of Honor Allied Assault censored aswell?
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Nergal01: No. Probably because EA doesn't really care. >_>
Oh sell a game in Germany where it shows ACTUAL Nazis in the most realistic and historical context imaginable and no one bats and eye.

But sell a game with a very fictionilzed portrayal of Nazis (Nazi Zombies with Chain Guns in their belly) and all hell breaks loose in Germany :P

If I was living in Germany I move somewhere else. France, UK, whatever.
Posted October 03, 2015
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Elmofongo: Oh sell a game in Germany where it shows ACTUAL Nazis in the most realistic and historical context imaginable and no one bats and eye.

But sell a game with a very fictionilzed portrayal of Nazis (Nazi Zombies with Chain Guns in their belly) and all hell breaks loose in Germany :P

If I was living in Germany I move somewhere else. France, UK, whatever.
To a country where the application of law has hasn't changed in two decades? Good luck son. I suggest North Korea.
Posted October 03, 2015
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Elmofongo: Oh sell a game in Germany where it shows ACTUAL Nazis in the most realistic and historical context imaginable and no one bats and eye.

But sell a game with a very fictionilzed portrayal of Nazis (Nazi Zombies with Chain Guns in their belly) and all hell breaks loose in Germany :P

If I was living in Germany I move somewhere else. France, UK, whatever.
To be honest, I'm surprised that nobody at EA either noticed the potential legal trouble or they simply don't care enough to do anything about it. Warner Bros. is a similar case. They have Mortal Kombat 1-3 and the uncut versions of the first 2 F.E.A.R. games here, which, under normal circumstances, wouldn't be available to German customers, either. Heck, Mortal Kombat 1-3 even vanished from the catalogue for German users for a few hours, until they returned. Probably because GOG asked Warner Bros. what to do about it and WB simply told them to keep the games available to German customers.

Warner Bros. in general seem to be pretty chill about this kind of thing lately. When Mortal Kombat X was released, nobody in Germany doubted that the game would be indexed like its predecessor. The level of violence certainly hasn't gone down between installments. Warner Bros. was like: "Look, we can't offer it on the German Steam store for legal reasons...but we aren't gonna region lock the game either. So if you can get hold of a code, use it and have fun."

Since then, the BPjM (the agency in charge of indexing media that are considered harmful to minors) has decided not to index Mortal Kombat X, and Warner Bros. made the game officially available on Steam for German users. Happy ending. :)
Post edited October 03, 2015 by Nergal01
Posted October 03, 2015
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PimPamPet: More classic id shooters on the front page: great news!

Censorship: bad news. I had no idea this was still an issue in Germany.
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Elmofongo: Is GOG's Medal of Honor Allied Assault censored aswell?
No, but then again, the unedited version of it was also never officially banned or blacklisted in Germany, although that also applies to Commandos 2 and 3. The decisions here are purely arbitrary and almost random, since no one has ever given a shit about the many other titles on GOG that are also on the index in Germany.

The real kicker is: GOG technically already violates German laws in two ways.
First, by publicly announcing the region-locking of the titles on the German forum. These laws (the ones that apply to violent games like Quake 2 and 3) are entirely in place to "protect minors" from the "detrimental influences" of the games in question, and as such, even mentioning the titles could be construed as advertisement, since minors aren't even supposed to be aware these games exist.
That's why German gaming publications always had to dance around actually naming certain games in their articles, often opting either for a nebulous "Indiziertes Spiel" ("indexed game") in place of the title or changing it to something ridiculous like "Hundsfelsen 4D" for "Wolfenstein 3D".

The second way they're violating German laws (and this also applies to the Steam store) is the simple fact that even non-restricted games with official USK-ratings are sold without any age verification. Since 2003, it's illegal to sell games or movies to people that haven't yet reached the age specified by the rating. What this means is that selling games like Star Wars Battlefront 2 or Deus Ex (rated "USK 16" and "USK 18", respectively) without any measures in place to prohibit younger persons from purchasing them is also illegal.

And yet, nobody has ever given a shit about that.

(By the way, if you've noticed by now that all of these laws are rendered entirely pointless due to the very nature of the internet, congratulations, you're already way ahead of the idiot politicians who keep this ancient horseshit in place.)
Posted October 03, 2015
If I may reveal so:
I learnt about this recent issue yesterday, and first tried to access the site through a proxy (via a Firefox addon), but to no avail. Next I deleted gog's cookies, which seems to have done the job so far.
The game page for RtCW is now accessibe and I can add it to my cart. I have not tried finishing the purchase process though, so there may be additional region checks...
Not sure, if I will go further, because 9 Euros seems still a bit pricy for a game of that age, and I don't bother for the original W3D, so no bundle discount for me.
Posted October 03, 2015
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Fredo137: If I may reveal so:
I learnt about this recent issue yesterday, and first tried to access the site through a proxy (via a Firefox addon), but to no avail. Next I deleted gog's cookies, which seems to have done the job so far.
The game page for RtCW is now accessibe and I can add it to my cart. I have not tried finishing the purchase process though, so there may be additional region checks...
Not sure, if I will go further, because 9 Euros seems still a bit pricy for a game of that age, and I don't bother for the original W3D, so no bundle discount for me.
This should work without any problems. There is one cookie with a two digit region number, I think this is how they restrict it.

Normally GOG has to verify the age. So they are already breaking the laws (Jugendschutz or protection of minors).

So no way around this to comply with german laws:

http://www.gog.com/wishlist/site/add_sofort_ident_and_post_ident_to_verify_age

They should contact some media lawyer like Christian Solmecke who is very good in media laws.
Post edited October 03, 2015 by DanielRuf
Posted October 03, 2015
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DanielRuf: Normally GOG has to verify the age. So they are already breaking the laws (Jugendschutz or protection of minors).
[...]
Well, they ask for your birthday on your GOG profile page :-)
Anyways, if something is banned in Germany due to anti-constitutional symbols or extreme violence, then this is applicable independent of age.

The point here is that GOG decided to give in to the publisher's demands, even though they had to abandon some of their former GOG principles this way.
I imagine they did some estimations beforehand: The additional sales of the recently added games to all the non-Germans vs. missing future sales due to potentially quitting of angry Germans.

I further assume that the game publisher has much bigger market power than GOG, so they would not argue with the publisher about clarifying or settling some potential legal issues in Germany.
And regional locks seem to be the easier (and quicker) solution than to start some legal efforts.
Posted October 03, 2015
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DanielRuf: Normally GOG has to verify the age. So they are already breaking the laws (Jugendschutz or protection of minors).
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Fredo137: Well, they ask for your birthday on your GOG profile page :-)
Anyways, if something is banned in Germany due to anti-constitutional symbols or extreme violence, then this is applicable independent of age.

The point here is that GOG decided to give in to the publisher's demands, even though they had to abandon some of their former GOG principles this way.
I imagine they did some estimations beforehand: The additional sales of the recently added games to all the non-Germans vs. missing future sales due to potentially quitting of angry Germans.

I further assume that the game publisher has much bigger market power than GOG, so they would not argue with the publisher about clarifying or settling some potential legal issues in Germany.
And regional locks seem to be the easier (and quicker) solution than to start some legal efforts.
This is not enough for the german law, there is no real age verification.

You can enter any date.

They are not banned, just on a list to protect minors.

Persons older than 18 years are allowed to buy and import for private use.

I bet GOG will have legal issues here and the BPjM, USK and lawyers will take a closer look regarding the protection of minors and the age verification. Until now GOG hurts many laws here.

Don't they have a german office, or at least CD Projekt?

GOG is liable.
Post edited October 03, 2015 by DanielRuf
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This is my favourite topic
Community
General discussionRelease: Quake II + III, Wolfenstein 3D, Return to Castle Wolfenstein(806 posts)(806 posts)
(806 posts)