You'll note that the existence of a site dedicated to censorship in video games means this was a big thing in Germany. No longer the case as much.
Manhunt for example was forbidden to be advertised in any way (put on the "Index"), but you could sell it under the counter. Some depictions triggered rules that meant games (or videos, music) could not even present to their corresponding regulatory body, which is USK for games (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unterhaltungssoftware_Selbstko...) to be rated 18+.
I used to know much more about this topic, but it's 15 years in the past now... Needless to say there were a million ways to circumvent this including specialised shops, uncut patches and more.
Some more: For a brief time ragdolls in Counter Strike: Source were disallowed (defeated enemies lay down instead), blood could not be red in Halo (alien blood was okay), gibs were disabled in TF2 (corpses exploded into toys).
Germany had problems with gore whereas the US had problems with sexuality (Hot Coffee mode removal).
My memory is fuzzy but I think you couldn't be rewarded for killing people according to the BzKJ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Department_for_Media_H....
You'll note that the existence of a site dedicated to censorship in video games means this was a big thing in Germany. No longer the case as much.
Manhunt for example was forbidden to be advertised in any way (put on the "Index"), but you could sell it under the counter. Some depictions triggered rules that meant games (or videos, music) could not even present to their corresponding regulatory body, which is USK for games (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unterhaltungssoftware_Selbstko...) to be rated 18+.
I used to know much more about this topic, but it's 15 years in the past now... Needless to say there were a million ways to circumvent this including specialised shops, uncut patches and more.
Some more: For a brief time ragdolls in Counter Strike: Source were disallowed (defeated enemies lay down instead), blood could not be red in Halo (alien blood was okay), gibs were disabled in TF2 (corpses exploded into toys).
Germany had problems with gore whereas the US had problems with sexuality (Hot Coffee mode removal).