Good on Codemaster for standing up for them selfs and basically saying FU to the USK :p .

Germany can suck it.

i hope all the game companies currently there move.

Good for them. Now if only Take-Two would follow this action and not water down Manhunt 2.

I think i might check that out, I would only get the PC version anyways.

I do have to say Jericho is probably going to be one of the bloodiest and goriest games to come to out. I was playing the demo and there is a scene where you are climbing down a hole in the ground via buttons sequences (think Spiderman 3 or God of War). Miss a button and you fall, hit the ground, and blood just seeps out of your corpse, in first person. It was impressive. Not to mention the main menu being on living flesh, realistic at that. Some of the stuff I saw made movies like Saw look fake.

I was impressed in that regard, but I can see why because of this people would want to ban it. Good for them for standing up.

Well it's good to see that some people in the industry are standing up against censorship and scapegoating, I hope that this contiues and other companies follow suit.

Something tells me that if this game had gotten an AO in the U.S. we would be hearing a different story.

Nevertheless, where might I get a demo of Jericho.

Well, of course there is also Gamespot.

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/adventure/clivebarkersjericho/downloads.html?...

Of course, I played the XBox 360 demo. So I downloaded the demo from XBox Live Marketplace.

Nightwng2000
NW2K Software

Matthew
Ann rice= bishie vamps FTW

0-o

LOL

Doom also had great gibs. ^_^

"...germans can go next door..."
"...kudos for codemasters for standing up..."
"...germany not learning from the past..."

Hmh.
its not that easy folks, its on the contrary quite complicated.

To clear one or two or ten things up (inhale):
There are three players rating/censoring in Germany.
1. The USK ("Independent Board for Self Regulation") is an independent organization financed by the publishers (you have to pay to get rated). The USK is under the authority of the state agencies "protecting the youth".
There are 6(+1) ratings: "approved without age restriction", "approved for children older than 6/12/16" and "not suited for minors"(18+). The seventh rating is the non-rating (more later). A non rated game is not banned. They are treated like 18+ games (only that the console manufacturers dont allow them, but hey, we Germans really like our PCs!). Hans Gamedealer is liable to verify the age of the buyer. No company policy: it is the law (since April, 1st, 2003). To get your 18+ games per mail order you have to verify your age in very burdensome way. Why dont they just rate every offensive game 18+? Hmh. Player 2 entering the scene:
2. The BPjM ("Federal Inspection Authority for Youth Endangering Media") is part of the Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth. The BPjM can "ban" (german: "indizieren": "put on an index") a game, i.e. put it on list of media really really not suited for minors, if the BPjM decides, it will be potentially harmful for minors (on what grounds you ask? good question. they ban when the violence level is to high. Or the content is quite possible against german law (see player 3), like using swastikas in a non-documentary fashion etc.). Advertisement for "banned" games is illegal; you can get into real legal trouble selling these to minors; its even illegal to GIVE THEM to minors; if you sell these in store, youll have to ensure that minors dont have access to them (separate room, closed cabinet etc.). BUT (since 04/01/03): the BPfM only "bans" games NOT RATED by the USK. So the USK will rate a game that is not suited for minors 18+, but a game that may be potentially harmful for minors somehow getting their sneaky little hands on it "18++". The USK, a non-profit board, does not rate these games, so the BPfM, a government agency can decide, what offensive games are so offensive that they have to get banned to ensure the proper social and ethical upbringing of all the little German children.
So we have the independent publisher paid bord USK, the ever-worried federal nurse BPjM and what the heck...a third player?
3. The LAW. Under special circumstances media can be "BANNED":
Media that: a) show minors in an unnatural position that highlight their genitals (aka soft child porn); b) glorify war (e.g. inhuman attitude against non-combatants in a realistic scenario); c) are "pornographic" (in a narrower sense: sex with minors, animals...) OR give guidance to commit a felony OR induce racism OR are "volksverhetzend" (sedition of people; e.g. the symbols of Nationalsocialism like the "Hitlerkreuz") OR glorify or TRIVIALIZE ACTS OF VIOLENCE.
E.g. any racist, antisemitic, antihispanic (this border control piece of s***) or whatever game, movie, book can mean prison time for the author, the publisher, the salesman, even the father letting his son play, watch, read. Its BANNED.
How do you "BAN" media? Long story short: a state attorney can petition in court for "BANNING", e.g. SEIZURE (german: "Beschlagnahmung") of the media, when he thinks it is violating the LAW. If the judge agrees, all copies intended for selling are confiscated (conficating all private copies is legally possible but in reality far to cumbersome). It is no longer legal to import the game, but if the customs guy finds it, he will only confiscate it. Manhunt is even in Germany no child porn, so you wont go to prison for being in possession. But if you own 2+ copies -> intent to distribute...no joke.

But why do we Germans have these stupid, complicated laws?
They are a combination of common law (child porn), attempts to destroy the possibility of Germany waging war ever again (nazi-symbols, glorifying war) and the typical "nursing" mentality of the (continental-) European countries ("I am taking care of you AND know what is good for you and what not. Period".

Three players, but what about the games?

Take for example the "BANNING" of Manhunt:
Take2 wants a rating, the USK refuses to give one. Manhunt is now not rated. In March 2004 the BPjM "bans" Manhunt. In Juli 2004 a judge rules: "Predominantly the game [Manhunt] communicates the message, that the killing of human beings provides exceptional gratification/fun, that increases with the level of violence." So Manhunt gets "BANNED" because it is glorifying/ trivializing violence.

Or another example: C&C Generals (yes, Germans even ban RTS).
Rated 16+ by the USK in februar 2003 (Remember, that the "safe harbour because USK-rated"-clause was coming into effect in april 2003?)
Feb/25/03: Generals is "banned" because it is found suited to desorientate minors in their social and ethical uprising. According to the report Generals glorifies war by its realistic but misleading scenario (war in iraq; a regime in bagdad with ties to wmd wielding islamic terrorists; war as the only answer), lifelike visuals (beautiful explosions), playful handling of weapons of mass destruction and GLA mission 2. In this mission the player is repeatedly encouraged to destroy civilian buildings, to commit acts of crimes against humanity, without the dire need to perform these actions. If you are not following the instructions, youll only loose time but not the mission. The reviewers finished his report stating, that Generals is one of the most dangerous games they have ever "banned".

Why was Generals never "BANNED", you ask, because I told, there is this German law against glorifying war?!?
I dont know. Maybe no attorney heard of the game, or no parent saw the danger because its no FPS.
In the end EA replaced all human ingame characters for robots. no joke.

I hope i didnt bore you all to death, but with all due respect...kudos for standing up against the USK is fighting the lesser evil. The USK and the ESRB are in similar situation. At the moment they both are fighting an uphill battle against further legislation. They try to stay independent, and appear effective in the eye of the public. Only the atmosphere in Germany is far more poisoned. All mainstream media calls FPSs "murderer games" (German: "Killerspiele"). And they mean it. The next head of the state of Bavaria Guenther Beckstein wants to sue developers like Crytek for making "murderer games". He is not a lawyer on his personal vendetta. He does not want to punish retailers selling M-rated games to minors, hes gunning for the developers, the artists! An independent review board reviewing the USK on behalf of the German "Congress" praised the German system as one of the most effective in the world (maybe to effective). But it is for no effect. Some German politician even wants to make hurting a virtual AI-controlled human a felony.

So please cut the USK some slack. Ranting against the USK for not rating Jericho is like ranting against the esrb for AO-rating manhunt 2 (only that the USK never rated Jericho 0 but the esrb Manhunt 1 :) )...
(exhale)

One could argue that the German State, and the USK, are learning from their past; but they are being ultra cautious. To learn is not to forget the unharnessed power of imagery and language.

The US is obsessed with sex, see the MPAA, whereas Europe is troubled by a violent history of genocide and 'ethnic cleansing'. Each brings its own ideas of 'censorship' and 'appropriateness'.

Think on.

"Jericho won’t take too much of a hit to sales from this, since it’s only rated M in the US, and Germans can always go next door to fetch a copy of the game. Still, it’s a symbolic stand."

Well-said.

As symbolic as their stance is, in the end, Codemasters is still out to make money. This move's a pretty well thought-out PR stunt if you follow that logic.

Not that it's a bad thing - this is just seems to be a good business move.

Yea I meant Doom 1. Doom 3 had crappy gibs. The Imps just burned away. I was disappointed. I wanted them to explode like in Doom 1.

Daniel
Quake had even better gibs both 1 and Q2 had moon gravity zones...gibs on thos levels were awesome ^0^

Unreal 1 and UT99 are damn fine gibing games too.

I don't think this is a matter of publishers standing up to a ratings board in spite of the almighty dollar as much as the exact opposite.

I'm single. I've tried quite a bit of stuff on dating sites. I found that when I had a generic profile that anyone could reply to, I'd get no replies, but when I had a more specialised profile that talked about the specialised parts of me that were unique but would turn a lot of people off, I got tonnes of replies.

If you were a game developer, would you rather tone down a game and make it generic, or would you keep the stuff that makes your game unique in there? Given my experience, I know what I'd choose.

The point of a rating system is to mark games as non-censorable because they comply to out laws against glorification of violence. Once a game is rated it cannot be indexed anymore, the rating is a guarantee that it is not over-the-edge brutal.
Generally, USK is doing a great job, however ratings refusals have increased the last 12 months, starting with Gears of War.

I wonder if that's becaue of a trend in gaming publishers (more violence? more realism?) or in the USK (more censorship?)

Didn't Germany also ban Quake1 when it first came out as well? I remember something like it was taken off the shelves after a week or two?

I may be imagening it but I think the same happened with Hellraiser (possibly Barker's most famous series).

having said all that, Clive Barker's Undying was an excellent game, so I'll most likely be getting Jericho, although if it is a bad port a la 'Call of Cthulhu, Dark Corners of the Earth' ie. ridden with bugs, many of which are non-progression level then I'll give it a miss.

I remember one section in COC,DCOTE where if you had a certain type of graphics card and resolution set at 1024x768 or higher then the framerate dropping, causing you to move slower. And since in that section you must run away from a pursuing Shoggoth, you always died - killing the game.

ijed
A word of warning Jericho is not a normal FPS its a cross between a team based FPS and a 3rd person game (not so much 3rd person shooting but 3rd person button mashing) over all is a bit unfocused its not bad but could have been better if they polished it more.

Glad to see the anti-German sentiment has toned down. I find it ridiculous that people are beating up on all of Germany simply because of their ridiculously censor-happy software ratings board. Are we playing Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon or something?

1. Germany has a censor-happy software ratings board.
2. Adolf Hitler used extensive censorship throughout his reign.
3. Therefore, the USK is run by Nazis.

Flawless logic, indeed!

@Daniel from Germany

Thanks for that. That was a very interesting read. It also proves that the USK isn't the one who gamers should be screaming "stupid krauts" at. If we are more than able to criticize American politicians for trying to induce legislation towards video games, why can't we do the same for German politicians? Judging from what Daniel said, the USK just wants to ensure that they don't take flak from neocons who hold the long-since reversed stereotype that video games are for kids.

And that is why the USK is essentially the German BBFC, albeit censor-happy towards video games instead of films.

Now can we go back to criticizing Lyndon LaRouche? At least I can laugh at him.

http://forum.echeadwear.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=3