News

Techland "really confused" that Dead Island is banned in Germany
Posted: 29.11.2012 15:04 by Simon Priest Comments: 26
Producer Sebastian Reichert for Techland's Dead Island: Riptide is trying to understand why their game is banhammered in Germany, when other violent action titles sail on through to retail.

Under Germany law if enemies are "human-like then you have a problem," said Reichert. Zombies are of course former humans, and hacking at them post-death is "mutilation of corpses." Big no-no.

Continuing to attack an already 'dead' Undead though is punished in-game. In fact any attack is 'punished' by way of losing durability, forcing us to strike conservatively.

"We have no censored version of the game," Sebastian Reichert told PCGamesN, "so we cannot release it in Germany. It feels f**king awkward to have one of the most successful games in years and nobody in your country knows it."

"There are laws that prohibit violence against human-like characters," he continued. The nature of the enemies are irrelevant, "as long as they're human-like then you have a problem. For Dead Island in particular it was a problem that you could attack the zombies when they are dead, because that's mutilation of corpses."

"We even punish the player if he does it," he explains, "because if the player tries to stab and slash everything that lies around him, his weapon will break and he's fucked. We're not even rewarding him, we're punishing him for that stuff."

Reichert has a bone to pick with the Germany authorities as Microsoft and Epic Games' Gears of War 3 had no trouble getting to retailers, despite the Locust clearly being humanoid.

"At the moment I'm really confused that you can buy Gears of War 3 in stores in Germany, but not Dead Island. Because where's the difference?" The primary enemy in GOW 3 are the locust and they're "human-like, and the things you do to them... ah, they really have nice finishers! That flamethrower finisher, he rams the flamethrower into the body, pulls the trigger and the flames come out of every body part. That's in stores."

Sebastian Reichert 'hopes' Germany gamers are being savvy consumers and getting hold of Dead Island anyway. Dead Island: Riptide releases on Xbox 360, PS3 and PC April 23rd in the US, 26th in EU; it's a direct sequel.

Source: PCGamesN

Comments

By Chosen_One (SI Elite) on Nov 29, 2012
Chosen_One
How stupid this is...
By SirRoderick (SI Elite) on Nov 29, 2012
SirRoderick
It is ze law, and ze law is ze law

That's german authoritarianism for ya
By SiyaenSokol (SI Elite) on Nov 30, 2012
SiyaenSokol
Quite intense if you ask me. I can understand if you want to put a age restriction on the game and making it only possible for the correct age to purchase it, but banning the game doesn't solve anything.

Everybody is just going to get the game by different means, and we know by now that games doesn't force people to act violently, so seriously, I also do not understand this ban.
By Chosen_One (SI Elite) on Nov 30, 2012
Chosen_One
oh well, I clearly do not want to live in Germany ^^
By HenoKutus (SI Elite) on Nov 30, 2012
HenoKutus
Maybe they should make the blood green like in Mortal Kombat On Snes anyway its a stupid decision of the germans and their loss.
By LukeDion1987 (SI Veteran Member) on Nov 30, 2012
LukeDion1987
Don't worry Techland, whole ''other'' world is waiting ;-)
By herodotus (SI Herodotus) on Nov 30, 2012
herodotus
*scritch, scritch*
We feel for you guys and gals from the banned Aussie beaches.
By SiyaenSokol (SI Elite) on Dec 01, 2012
SiyaenSokol
That is true... Auzzieland has got the same problems.
By SirRoderick (SI Elite) on Dec 01, 2012
SirRoderick
at least the germans can pop into Belgium, Holland, France and what have you to pick up an english version. The Aussies first have to brave the beaches, which is sheer insanity :P
By lichlord (SI Core) on Dec 01, 2012
lichlord
European open borders ftw? :P
By SirRoderick (SI Elite) on Dec 01, 2012
SirRoderick
I bought this PC in Germany! Less taxes there :)
By Hammerjinx (SI Veteran Member) on Dec 03, 2012
Hammerjinx
Law is law everywhere. Authorities follow the letter of the law, because that's all the law is. There's no leeway to say "but it doesn't make sense in this case".

That said, Germany has some odd laws. A lot of these filter down from the treaty requirements they signed at the end of WW2. I'm not sure if it ever got fixed up, but laser tag was illegal due to being too similar to war training. I'm not clear on why that's a problem, but they can still have an actual army.

Could be worse. A few years back Greece decided to crack down on online gambling but had trouble wording the laws... so they just banned all online games. All of them. Words with Friends? You're nicked!
By Hammerjinx (SI Veteran Member) on Dec 03, 2012
Hammerjinx
Australia gets the R rating soon. Hopefully we should see less banned or censored to hell games in the future.
By SiyaenSokol (SI Elite) on Dec 03, 2012
SiyaenSokol
Maybe it is some way of keeping Germany from becoming a Super Power again. Read an interesting article the other day, that we only look at the war from a point of devastation (which makes perfect sense of course). But the actual battle was between Nationalism (Nazi Germany) and Internationalism (Globalization of the Jews).

Interesting theory that this person has, something in my opinion worth reading. How true it is, doesn't matter because in the end Nazi Germany lost the war. I don't have a link for this page, so I can't provide this page, but Google is your friend :)

But I have to say, after the war, Germany has been battered time, and time again about the events that took place during the war. You don't see Britain getting battered about the Anglo Boer War and the fact that it is they who introduced the Concentration Camps, and what they did to people is horrifying. But then again, history is written by the victors.
By Hammerjinx (SI Veteran Member) on Dec 03, 2012
Hammerjinx
Have you seen Fatherland? (or read the book, I guess)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109779/

Set in the 60s in an alternate Germany, where they won the war. It's not exactly cinematic perfection, but it's interesting none the less and worth a watch/read.

The difference with committing attrocities and then winning is that, by the time it becomes common knowledge it's generally been long enough that people can say "Oh, what a barbaric past we had." or "That's terrible, but it was a different time back then."

Stuff worse than this happens in Africa everyday, but the world ignores it because it's too hard to fix, and they have very little that we want. Very few middle aged rich white men come from Africa also.

Still.. WW2 was over almost 70 years ago. I think it's ok to let Germans play laser tag now.
By herodotus (SI Herodotus) on Dec 03, 2012
herodotus
I saw the movie some time ago (and read the book even further back), and today it makes mores sense than ever. Just ask Spain, Greece and Italy what they think about Germany ruling the European economy and creating Lower Class countries held in debt to Deutchland. Might sound 'over-the-top', but the mass rallies and marches in those countries a few weeks back argue strongly for it.
On a brighter note, I do hope the new[R18+] rating Aussies are getting will be all that it promises, and not simply a political move to re-rate previously [MA15+] games as [R18+], like "CoD" for example. They would the still have the authority to RC certain titles. Nothing changes, in other words except kiddies won't be allowed to buy "CoD" in-store.
By SiyaenSokol (SI Elite) on Dec 04, 2012
SiyaenSokol
I will take a look and see if I can find Fatherland. It sounds like an interesting film to watch.
By Hammerjinx (SI Veteran Member) on Dec 04, 2012
Hammerjinx
On the Aussie R rating, there's certainly a few games that would have been R if we had the rating, but they slipped is as MA rather than banning. I doubt any of them will be re-rated. Upcoming games should be treated fairly, in line with guidelines. It's pretty on-par with film, with a few provisions for whether it's something the player witnesses, could do, is encouraged to do, or must do.

There's people on both sides of the fence that think the R rating is a carte blanche to publish whatever sick crap you want. It's not. That said, if Human Centipede can be an R movie here, I think we'll be able to have games that exceed my personal taste for grim.
By herodotus (SI Herodotus) on Dec 04, 2012
herodotus
That was a sick film, and worse was the sequel "The Next Sequence" (not only incredibly sick but absolute trash on top of it). This is the sort of stuff that should be banned, simply as it is depraved and has no value at all as entertainment, opening up a social commentary or provoking conversation/debate (the salient justifications for Arthouse projects).
Bit off topic, but what the hell. Ban me, or give me an [R] rating:)
By lichlord (SI Core) on Dec 05, 2012
lichlord
makes me wonder somethimes how the economy here would be if belgium sticked with the netherlands both countries have a strong economy(ofc - the effect of todays problems)

My teacher was a firm believe that the economy would have been the strongest in europe if we didn't seperate
By SirRoderick (SI Elite) on Dec 05, 2012
SirRoderick
We do both have a strong economy...we also couldn't quite stomach Dutch rule. What with all the protestants, massive unemployment and the lack of French speaking officials. Not to mention that the politics seemed pretty much directly opposed between North and South in every regard...

Basically we'd like our strong economy to stay OUR strong economy thank you very much. We've game them dutchies a go and didn't like it :)
By lichlord (SI Core) on Dec 05, 2012
lichlord
yes and to think our Belgian independence all happened by an opera show...

anyways not like today were doing that good tho with that whole car industry problem in Genk playing ups n downs i can't figure out if they did close that factory or if they didn't lol... playing with peoples jobs like that really...

oh well no problems really tho we can shop in the netherlands cheaper for most goods lol...
By herodotus (SI Herodotus) on Dec 05, 2012
herodotus
Always thought Belgium was just a crossing point betwixt France and Germany, kinda like a rest stop. Obviously there's a whole wonderland out back of the petrol station, nevermind the Neverlands (or is that Peter Pan's Netherlands...so confusing?).
By SirRoderick (SI Elite) on Dec 05, 2012
SirRoderick
Genk is closing, that's set in stone I think. About 10000 people out of a job in my home region :/

I'm glad I've got my job and I'm not letting go for now.

Also hero, you know very well there's a beer garden all around that ptrol station you'd hate to miss :P
By lichlord (SI Core) on Dec 05, 2012
lichlord
hehe im always up for a beer :P ussually drink duvel ^^

and ok now i know that too i heard t was closing but after that i heard rumours of it staying open so i got confused what happened lol
By SirRoderick (SI Elite) on Dec 05, 2012
SirRoderick
I'm a Leffe man myself, specially the dark stuff. And once in a while I'll treat myself to some Westmalle, which is my favourite liquid ever ^^