German versions of violent games

[Tolil]

EPIC LONG POST!

Dude, I'd totaly play that. A Chain-Slapper? Cream-thrower? Permanent Markers? I wouldn't play it all the time, but I would sometimes to get a laugh. xD

I say, screw the German censors. Do what Murphy said, have a way for people to patch in the gore. I know it would be kinda risky, but I think that any German gamers that would play this game would want their gibbing/blood/etc.

And add in that joke as an expansion pack too. I'd buy it.

 

[sherka]

Im also from germany and bet you dont cut the game! I knew a lot of people who are pissed of the cut-versions of games. No one like it and the most people order they games from uk, at or elsewhere. But on steam there is nearly no way to get the uncut version.

I hate my cut-Version of red orchestra. I dont wanna play it anymore because i always think about that all players worldwide get bloody limbs but not me. That sucks!

The USK dont like if you shoot on humans, but they dont have problems if you shoot on zombies and undead. Look, Dead Space is released uncut in Germany.

If this game would come cut in Germany i wont buy it. Im sure you would get a lot more money if you sell the game uncut in germany. Its a zombie game, its for adults, so let blood and gore inside.

SO I BET YOU PLEASE RELEASE THE GAME IN GERMANY UNCUT!!!

 

[Innociv]

The best option for you would be to release a heavily censored German version (can be butchered down to aim at a 16+!) and then make it possible for seasoned players to circumvent the censorship and re-enable what was "cut" via an "illegal" bloodpatch or better yet make it some obscure option in an .ini somewhere so players with a bit of technical knowledge can do it themselves. You do not have to condone or support this and you don't have to tell anybody how to do it. Just make the game not check this when players join a server and don't make steam overpatch this constantly.

IIRC with UT3 the german version forces low gore ini setting. You can fix this by just installed an english version patch.

And with UT2004 epic released an official illegal gore patch themselves.

Technically uncut games aren't supposed to be sold on Steam. But they do it with tons of games, like UT2004 and UT3. Deadspace too. Steam checks ip to see if it's a german one, and gives them the cut version, but if the cut version isn't even availible on steam it gives them an uncut one.

Nothing has happened towards it with the big games.. why would it happen with an indie one?

I'd just not do anything and forget about having it on store shelves in germany. Is it really worth the time and fees?.. Germans can buy it off steam. Or maybe it's possible to have a cut version on shelves but you can still sell uncut to germans on steam.

Or make a "germanversion=1" ini setting. XD


The other option is still making it nice without the gore.
Make candy and confetti shoot out of bodies and neck holes instead blood.

 

[NativeOne]

No place to Start threads yet?

No place to Start threads yet?

i recently became a member of forums.

Where do one Start threads here?

And it's kind of hard to even find posts!

Thx

 

[Dastard]

The orange box was cut probably only for the reason that they wanted portal and TF2 (probably especially TF2) in a lower category or somesuch for marketing purposes. They probably figured that those two were the major sellers of orange box, so they should focus on making sure they do well even if it's at the cost of HL2's gore.

If anything, the chainsaw could have a second skin getting rid of the teeth on the chainsaw, and the flamethrowers emitters could be replaced with lightning or something, with a simple ini edit to swap out the skins, and the USK would be fine.

Decapitation is kinda iffy, but if no gibs are generated, it just looks kinda goofy. Anyways, the specimen redesigns seem like they're inhuman enough to pass the test. If it were 2.5 I'd say gray zone, since they, clots especially, looked a lot more like simply diseased humans, but I think the redesigns are demonic enough to pass muster with an easily bypassable gorelessness.

 

[dudeeaterkiller]

If its only on steam just don't cut it whatsoever. They can advertise it right? They already are!

 

[Nethlem]

1. The reason why the USK gives no rating/high ratings are not really clear. Dead Space got released uncut there is no german cut version of dead space.

L4D got cut but that could be because valve just wanted to make sure it passes the USK.

2. I highly doubt that you will be able to sell it on steam without an USK rating. The reason for that is simple: Every game that's not rated by the USK automaticly gets rated "adults only". And because steam can't/doesn'T check the age of the buyers valve would break german law by selling games with an "adults only" rating without an age verification.

For the same reason you can't buy games like Doom or Serious Sam in the german Steam store. Steam filters out stuff for german users the same way they sell cut versions to german users.

3. Leaving in a backdoor for a bloodpatch is an option, but be warned that by german law developers are told to make blootpatches as difficult as possible. Building in an easy to change .ini file or an illegal bloodpatch could backfire. It's unlikely but it's possible.

4. I know you wrote "leave out politics" but i have to expand on point 1 and this won't work without going into politics a little bit.

The USK is influenced by politics and the public in their decissions.. most people deny it but it's a fact. Another fact is that since an recent school-shooting the whole topic of "violent video games" is back in the public again with politicans and "experts" going crazy all over the place going as far as even calling Warcraft 3 an "killergame" that turns people into mindless killing machines.

And Killing Floor won't be something they just overlook that easily and it's coming out at a rather bad time, so it will be difficult to get it trough the USK without cutting much stuff.


Your best bet would be to send it to the USK at least 1 time to see how they react to it. But my guess is they won't react well to it because there are some things that just won't work.



- If the main goal of the game is to kill stuff, stuff that looks like people. And you get points for killing that stuff.

Counter Strike barely managed get around getting on the "index" (that's the rating you want to prevent because you can't advertise the game and sell it on selves) because in Counter Strike you can in theory win the game without killing somebody (defusing the bomb/planting bomb). I doubt you could do that with killing floor after all the main goal is to kill the waves.

- Ragdoll is no-no.. especially on dead bodies. While this is nothing "for sure" it's something that had to be removed in alot of games.

- Cutting limbs off basicly the same as with ragdoll.

- Gore/splattering blood, even if the blood sticks to walls this can get you a bad rating. Sometimes changing the color of the blood helps.

- Enemies that look like humans or ressemble humans.

- The chainsaw is something that could get you into trouble.



Especially considering the goal of killing floor i doubt the game is gonna get trough the USK without changing lots of stuff. Personaly i don't care.. i'm just gonna let a friend in the UK buy it and gift it to me so i get an uncut version for sure.

 

[roman2]

2. I highly doubt that you will be able to sell it on steam without an USK rating. The reason for that is simple: Every game that's not rated by the USK automaticly gets rated "adults only". And because steam can't/doesn'T check the age of the buyers valve would break german law by selling games with an "adults only" rating without an age verification.

Valve already is violating the german laws by selling (for example) audiosurf and zeno clash which don't have a usk-rating (check here). They're also selling games like L4D, UT3 or CoD without any proper age verification, which is prohibited too.

- Gore/splattering blood, even if the blood sticks to walls this can get you a bad rating. Sometimes changing the color of the blood helps.

Well, no. afair i've read some interview with an usk guy who states that changing the color of the blood doesn't change anything. It's just something the publisher/developer do without having enough knowledge of the criterias.

And to add some point:
- ZEDtime could be real problematic. As far as I understood it its only a cinematic feature and therefore some kind of no-go

But well, I'm not working at the usk either...

 

[Utarefson]

As far as i know, the USK checks the whole context&background of the violence.
If the game is really just like "uh,here are some zombies, here are some weapons, go shoot 'em" then gore will be a problem.But if the splatter is only circumstantial or you have a good reason fpr shooting their limbs off, then it's most likely going to be OK.
And i can remember the Jedi Knight games having a rating of 16+, and there was no blood, but you could use your lightsaber to chop their arms/legs/heads off.
About this slowmotion feature: if you are still in control and it's part of the gameplay, then it's a problem.But if it's only a cinematic effect where you can only sit back and watch it anyway, you could simply put a blur filter/fade to black over it.
And by the way,the usk testers play the game, fill in a formula and prepare a presentation for a special and random commitee, and this committe then discusses about the rating, and if they want,they even play a few rounds of the game.But i've heard multiple times that the testers also gives advice to the developers after they tested their game about what should be done for which rating, however, since the committe decides, the newly censored version could still get the old rating (or no rating) again.

Or you could simply put an cel-shading filter over it and go the team fortress way:
[url]http://schnittberichte.com/schnittbericht.php?ID=4539[/URL]

oh, and one of the german political parties wants that addiction is going to be considered in the rating (they also wants an 18+ rating for world of warcraft, by the way)

I hope my english was understandable.

 

[TheRookie]

Hi I also recently signed up on this forum cause I'm looking forward to this game. I live in Germany and as it looks I'm able to buy Killing Floor via Steam. So it looks like there was a decision in terms of violence etc.

So I have to question if its cut or not. Would be great to get an answer from you

 

[Nethlem]

It's true that these games get sold without age verification but that doesn't mean it works that way. Saying "look they are doing it too!" just doesn't cut it when you are breaking the law

Especially considering that the original version of Killing Floor most likely would end up getting on the index and than it's an whole other story.


And the color of the bloed DOES matter no matter what some usk guy says. It matters for a simple reason: To make the enemies look less like a human. Command&Conquer is a goodexample on this.

In the german command&conquer version all infantry units got changed from beeing humans to beeing robots. So they added a "-bot" to all their names and made their blood look like oil by turning it black. You really think it would have worked to leave the blood just red and claim "well thos are fairly advanced robots they use red oil!"?


Changing the color of the blood is just one more tool to make the enemies look less human.

 

[Utarefson]

I've got another idea for cutting of the limbs.
You could simply make them look a bit cripple instead of having them cut off from the body:
International version: Arm gets shot off.
German version:Arm looks crippled, has a few holes in it, and is just loosely hanging around on the body, but it's still part of it.

I hope you get what i mean.

 

[Mkilbride2599]

It's going to be.

Can't let the German bloodlust be quenched, less the end of the world!

 

[TheRookie]

Thanks for your answer. I think i recognised you before on the neotokyo-forums. And something funny - paint-ball/gotcha will be forbidden by law in germany in a few weeks. Where else should i quench my bloodlust?!

 

[Mkilbride2599]

I dunno man. I think it's just the fear that Germans may get into their old habits if they're to violent. Haha, man, that's so wrong, but I don't care, it's funny.

 

[kycro]

L4D in german cut:

- Dead Bodies disappear as soon as they touch the ground
- less Blood
- The Bodies stay in one part, you can

 

[Zetsumei]

2. I highly doubt that you will be able to sell it on steam without an USK rating. The reason for that is simple: Every game that's not rated by the USK automaticly gets rated "adults only". And because steam can't/doesn'T check the age of the buyers valve would break german law by selling games with an "adults only" rating without an age verification.

Steam is by default 18+ as in you need to own a creditcard or something similar.

 

[CSWorks]

My thoughts on this:

- Killing Floor is too violent to apply to the USK's standards (axes, chainsaws, humanoid enemies)
- if you cut it german customers will be running storm because of false advertising (probably valve's fault too)
- it IS LEGAL to PLAY such games in germany SO IF YOU MANAGE to get us the game somehow else (i.e. direct download + key purchase)
- it is therefore not neccessary to use IP based gore reduction
- the pre-order should not have been available in germany before these things are clarified
- you should talk to customers so that we know whats going on

Our questions are as someone stated in the STEAM forum:

censorship - yes/no

castration of content by ip - yes/no

if castration by appid - ability for presale buyers to be refunded, since there was only a single app-id at moment of transaction

if castration by ip: refunding due to false advertisement

Thanks

 

[Steppenwolf]

And to add some point:
- ZEDtime could be real problematic. As far as I understood it its only a cinematic feature and therefore some kind of no-go

Oh yes, the ZEDtime could be a REAL problem.

As far as I know the SlowMo (where you can "celebrate" the death of your enemies) in the DOOM 3 Expansion Resurrection of Evil activated by a special artifact was the only reason why there is no german version of this Expansion, while the Original Doom 3 is sold Uncut in germany. This SlowMo was the only gore related difference between the two.

[Edit]As someone else mentioned: If some of you TWI-Guys can read German, the site http://www.schnittberichte.com is a really good place to see which games (and films, TV-series and comics) are cut in germany and in which way![/edit]

 

[CSWorks]

My thoughts on this:

- Killing Floor is too violent to apply to the USK's standards (axes, chainsaws, humanoid enemies)
- if you cut it german customers will be running storm because of false advertising (probably valve's fault too)
- it IS LEGAL to PLAY such games in germany SO IF YOU MANAGE to get us the game somehow else (i.e. direct download + key purchase) that would solve the problem
- it is therefore not neccessary to use IP based gore reduction
- the pre-order should not have been available in germany before these things are clarified
- you should talk to customers so that we know whats going on

Our questions are as someone stated in the STEAM forum:

censorship - yes/no

castration of content by ip - yes/no

if castration by appid - ability for presale buyers to be refunded, since there was only a single app-id at moment of transaction

if castration by ip: refunding due to false advertisement

Thanks