No government censorship was already in place at the local level. In 1915 there was a Freedom of Speech challenge to local censorship which landed before the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court ruled that Freedom of Speech did NOT extend to films. This kicked things into high gear and State censorship boards started to come into existence. One of the reasons the MPPDA (which later became the MPAA) was created by the film industry was to fight government censorship. The first industry "code" was created in the 1920's by the MPPDA before the Federal Government even considered stepping in. The Feds didn't even start making noises about it until the 1030's. There was no ultimatum issued by the government but the film industry could see the handwriting on the wall and acted to stop the government. The Production Code was more restrictive than anything the Fed was considering and the Fed being the lazy bastidges they are, saw no reason to continue after the Production Code came into existence.

The advantage to the motion picture industry is that rules set by an independent non-government agency, as strict as they were, can and will change but if an government agency makes a rule it is a rule for the next thousand years. This is why in my state I am required by law to pull over to the side of the road and turn off my car's engine if a horse drawn vehicle ever over takes me on the road, and it is illegal in a neighboring state for a woman to drive a car unless she has a man walking in front of and another behind the car carrying lanterns to warn other motorists that a woman is driving. People can argue that the rules and ratings as set forth by organizations like the MPAA and ESRB are behind the times, and that may very well be true, but they are lightyears ahead of where they would be if the government was running things.

But the whole point is, that if given the choice, an American publisher will censor itself before they let some unknown and faceless civil servant in a cubicle do it. It is just the way they think.

Concur. Plenty of countries have their own censorship rules as you've put it so well. Some are understandable (see the Japanese) while others are just downright absurd (see the US). Germany just has the 'No Nazis Ever!!' thing for their censorship.

And y'know what? That actually makes sense unlike how we do it here where a game that shows just one bare boob for a second or two is treated as the herald of the upcoming apocalypse and the worst thing ever.

The Japanese have absurd and backwards censorship laws. Even many people there think they are stupid and backwards.

Wait, JAPAN?! The country that flaunts the 'we're weird' flag like nobody's business and cares not one bit about it?

Interesting. Mind giving me some examples?

All pormography in Japan has to be censored, all of it, full mosaic on anything below the belt at all times.... its considered too lewd.

They also censor many references to nuking cities, for the same reason Germany bans Nazi symbolism.

Yeah I was reading some Japanese articles on "Gaijin" sites (I can't read Japanese). I was really surprised by how they approached the subject. There was actually outrage about McDonald's commercials for being disgusting. As for the porm: A lot of the posts found Western material as lewd and even disgusting. Obviously it ain't everyone's opinions, but I just found it interesting.

Ehh, I really wasn't going to go into the "correctness" of it really, but you are right.

yeah be it usk, whatever (compared to "Freiwillige SelbstKontrolle", is that the "Unfreiwillige SelbstKontrolle" then?), the point about it all still is: it's germany only.

USK = Unterhaltungssoftware Selbstkontrolle. Yes it's German only. And?

so buy your copy in ANY OTHER COUNTRY, problem solved, herrschaftszeiten...

No with Wolfenstein it really was because of the censorship. Don't get me wrong most people in Germany do like to play their games in German. There are however also quite some people that like to play the games in the original language if possible, exspecially if the german voice-over is as bad as in Wolfenstein. The thing is this was only for the censored region. You could activate an us key in the uk or spain or italy no problem. You also couldn't change the language in the german, austrian and swiz version of the game to anything other than german, which is possible in all other releases.

This is because of the overzealous attitude of some publishers i mentioned. They think, because the Swastika is illegal in Germany as it counts as nazi propaganda, that everything about nazis would be tabu in germany, which it certainly isn't. Because of this the german voice-over basically doesn't admit that the enemies are nazis. The enemie faction is called "The Regime" and all references to nazis have been removed or altered, like the Hitler salute and stuff like that. So they don't allow the other languages in germany because in those languages they are still called nazis everywhere, which again would be no problem in germany either.

Although i admit the train of thought that thinks everything about nazis would be tabu in germany is somewhat understandable, it's just not true.

Btw. The whole thing with Nazis and the Swastika in Germany is why so many german gamers are really on the "Games are Art" side. Because Art, Science and Education are excempt from laws like the one about nazi propaganda. That's why, for example, inglorious Bastards didn't have to be cut for germany because movies count as art

Would gladly do that, except some publishers are dense enough to region-lock their games so they can't be activated in germany. Which was the case for Wolfenstein another game published by Bethesda.

Wel considering how japan has alot of weird things, like a guy crawling 3 blocks throught a rain drain just to look up school girl skirts kinda thing, i can understand rules and laws are different there like pretty much anywhere. Usualy there are good reasons behind some laws, while same can be said for counter arguments.

The german swarstika is baned in germany i think due to both political embaresment for the past, aswell as people genuialy being offended by it. You can called it backwards if you look at it, since history is history and just serves as a reminder to never repeat the mistakes of the past, but i guess i can understand the law being there either way.

Yeah... because that works very well if the game has to be activated on steam and is regional locked... I would prefer an uncut version in Germany. If FO:NV and Skyrim can be uncut I don't see why it shouldn't work with FO4

It's still allowed in art, science etc etc And crossed out swastikas are tolerated too (I'm not sure how it's in the law actually). And of course Buddhist swastikas are legal too.

The Fat Man was also renamed in Japanese versions of the game.

Sounds a bit weird with region lock inside EU. Lots of people works in other EU countries for one and would then get problems playing the game.

Yep we're to blame for that one haha it does have make it less gritty being called med-x instead of morphine.

Fully aware of the history. It still isn't relevant to my point. In point Australia's laws were what made the decision to move Morphine to Med-X. So let me rephrase my original comment. USA's useless parasitic

bureaucrats were not involved. International politicians were the issue.

By the way NV was censored, hence the nogore version of NVSE.

The Ultimate edition was uncut

You do know that the Swastika is a Hindu and Buddhist religious symbol? And the SS insignia was a pagan Germanic religious symbol also?

it is regionally locked if you buy it in germany. it is NOT regionally locked if you do NOT buy it in germany.

like, go to poland, get falloutsky, NOT regionally locked, fallütli from switzerland, NOT regionally locked, fallouteken from denmark, NOT regionally locked, get my point now? dude, gotta be talking chinese or something...

again, this is germany only. NO OTHER country in the eu is affected by this in any way whatsoever, for all us others, it's either age classified or uncensored, or if it's too bad for even this (say, nazi propaganda gore or stg like that) it's downright forbidden, but this hardly ever actually happens (except if you happen to live in germany, again)

it's sumeric, actually, much older.

apart from that, you do know though that austria and germany were the real nazis, started a racist world war and murdered millions of people in an insane ideology's name, i assume?

hence, we maybe don't have an as relaxed and pop approach to these matters as other countries might...

As Hindu/Buddhist symbol the Swastika is not illegal in Germany They are illegal as symbols of Nazism. Don't tell me the Swastika in Wolfenstein is a Buddhist symbol...

It's the same what many countries in Eastern Europe did... Hammer and Sickle are forbitten in many of the Eastern European countries.