[cencorship news] Valve deletes 28 indexed games from German steam store

[nether]

So, in the night from May 30^th to 31^st (CET) Valve has deleted 28 games from the German Steam Store. Most of these games - not all - have been indexed by the German "Federal Review Board for Media Harmful to Minors" (BPjM) and some have been on the index list for over 20 years (25 years is the maximum). 

 

The deletion was first reported on by Steam Community Group forUncut! who "live blogged" the whole thing while the keys were being edited (see full list there). They searched SteamDB.info for the "PurchaseRestrictedCountries" tag of games, and the games which were locked for Germany just kept piling up. 

 

This happened to fairly old games like the Postal series, Bloodrayne, AvP Classic, Painkiller, etc. These games could prior be bought in the German Steam Store, although being "indexed" means games cannot be actively advertised for or sold without proper age verification (technical measures - age gates don't suffice). As to why they were taken down now and not earlier, there are only speculations, as Valve has not come forth to shed light on the proceedings.

Users of the group are speculating that the games might have "accidentally" been published for Germany in the past with Valve only now realising their mistake, others say it might have been due to intervention of the BPjM or the KJM (a federal youth protection supervisory board for broadcasting systems) or even a competitor issuing a cease and desist, as EA and Ubisoft have implemented crude youth protection measures in their respective platforms (time dependant selling of mature rated games or a labelling for youth protection filtering software). As it is, Valve is still in violation of German Youth protection laws by selling USK rated 16/18 games to anyone without proper prior age verification system. In the Steam SSA it is stated that anyone of age 13 and up may freely buy anything from the platform, while there is not real age verification other than an age gate.

 

Main source: http://steamcommunity.com/groups/foruncut#announcements/detail/604985754884746774

other sources: http://www.neowin.net/news/27-games-get-pulled-from-steam-in-germany-likely-for-being-controversial, http://techraptor.net/content/26-controversial-games-pulled-steam-german-crack

[FloRolf]

Fuck. You. Germany.

 

i fucking hate our government. a bunch of dumb shitheads.

[racer243l]

12 minutes ago, FloRolf said:

Fuck. You. Germany.

 

i fucking hate our government. a bunch of dumb shitheads.

I hate our gouverment as well because of so many dumb things and then this on top of all that

[mikat]

Dick move, Germany.

Almost as shitty as Google's "you need to be 13 to create a google account"

and because i said that i was 10 years old than i really was, they wanted proof a few years later that i was over 18??

/rant

[ShadowCaptain]

sigh, its 2016 not 1830

[Murasaki]

no fun land

[ThomasD]

People who say the US should be more like Europe make me laugh, and this is a good example why, they really do not know how much of Europe actually is.  They have rules for everything.

[nether]

Well in this case it's only Germany. Rest of Europe uses the PEGI system for media classification, which is closer to the ESRB. Germany is very touchy when it comes to violence, which stems from the part it played in history.

[LogicalDrm]

16 hours ago, mikat said:

Dick move, Germany.

Almost as shitty as Google's "you need to be 13 to create a google account"

and because i said that i was 10 years old than i really was, they wanted proof a few years later that i was over 18??

/rant

Google's thing is because US laws to protect minor's privacy. As in you need parents permission to create account when you are under certain age. Here it might be 15 or 16 years.

 

Germany thing was to expect because of their very strict protection to public health and safety. And from the looks of language @FloRolf is using, I can understand why its needed.

[FloRolf]

2 minutes ago, LoGiCalDrm said:

Google's thing is because US laws to protect minor's privacy. As in you need parents permission to create account when you are under certain age. Here it might be 15 or 16 years.

 

Germany thing was to expect because of their very strict protection to public health and safety. And from the looks of language @FloRolf is using, I can understand why its needed.

Oh you have no idea....