The Unfriendly Side of German Game Development

As hysterical as American media and politicians can get over 'violent' videogames, the folks making games in Germany have it a whole lot worse. Tim Partlett (a developer at Crytek) shared his experience with the Quarter to Three forums, describing what it's like to be raided for making a videogame. He describes what it's like to be hated for your job, and laments the attitude of the nation towards his chosen line of work. From the article: "At the time of the (2002 Erfurt school) shooting, we were already in development of Far Cry ... We were just across the state border from Erfurt in northern Bavaria. Tensions in the region were high ... In 2004 the Bavarian authorities sent in the state troopers... When the small tech team appeared to inspect our computers, they were accompanied by over one hundred flak-jacketed riot police, all armed with Heckler and Koch sub-machine guns. It was a total overreaction... They arrived first thing in the morning, and kicked down our doors. They even raided the nearby private residences ... I was caught just outside the office ... We were all shepherded into our Mo-Cap room, and there we were forced to remain until questioned, prevented from leaving by dozens of armed guards."

Interesting

[badenglishihave (944178)]

This explains why those villains in Far Cry all look like Germans.

Obligatory

[inviolet (797804)]

Für die Kinder, Kamerad!

So the question is

[drinkypoo (153816)]

When will the game developers leave Germany? And what will the next industry chased out of that poor deluded country be? Germany has a complex over the whole Third Reich thing - it's understandable, but let's face it, if you weren't involved or responsible somehow, you need to build a bridge and get over it. Any people could go that way given the right (wrong) circumstances.

Re:

[Elwood P Dowd (16933)]

Iduno. I don't mind people being obsessed with the failures of their forebears if it prevents them from doing similarly fucked up things. Of course, jailing holocaust deniers seems like the wrong lesson learned.

But maybe if they paid the right kind of attention, they wouldn't truck w/ this militarization of their police force. Of course, ditto for us in the states.

Re:

[MuChild (656741)]

That's the f*cked up thing, it's like they're so focused on becoming a social/political utopia that they don't notice the paradox of forcing people to be free and using a miltitarized police force to stop violence.

It's the same with us. Sigh

Re:So the question is

[TnkMkr (666446)]

Actually there is something in the Human condition that lends itself toward the Nazi like behavior. It comes from the pack mentality or the need to belong to a group. A highschool teacher actually did an experiment with his world history class, I read about it in college as part of a study of human group behavior. There was a formal paper written on the experiment but I could only find a link to this article.

http://www.vaniercollege.qc.ca/Auxiliary/Psycholog y/Frank/Thirdwave.html [vaniercollege.qc.ca]

Enjoy

Re:

[The Monster (227884)]

there HAS to be something about German culture that allowed the Nazi's to be so successfull

The irony is that when the Inquisition was literally torturing Jews to death, the states of what eventually became Germany were the most hospitable to Jews. I think this is due to the fact that the Catholic/Protestant schism kept any one religious organization from gaining the political power that could empower an Inquisition.

I really do think that just about any country is capable of becoming a totalitarian dictat

It's the blood...

[creimer (824291)]

Having the bad guys spilling green blood all the time can make even the most harden German developer think he was working on a Star Trek game instead of something more cutting edge.

Another Obliatory..

[me_mi_mo (1021169)]

We Germans are not all smiles...

Re:

[Rude Turnip (49495)]

What do you expect from a nation whose language has no translation for the word "fluffy?"

Re:Another Obliatory..

[BeeRockxs (782462)]

Haha, very funny, the only thing that's wrong is that you're wrong. Try 'flauschig'.

Re:

[heinousjay (683506)]

Thank you, kind sir. I was in danger of laughing, and it would be most unfortunate for me to find something humorous. Without your service in destroying my mirth, I could, even now, be in a good mood. I shudder to consider the consequences.

Nobody

[MoOsEb0y (2177)]

expects a Spanish^H^H^H^H^H^H^HGerman inquisition!

I liked Austria's better

[Palshife (60519)]

And this is how we develop games in Germany, Herr Jones. *punch*

Over one hundred flak-jacketed riot police

[by Anonymous Coward]

They were probably worried about those jumping mutants with those fucking arms that seem to reach out forever. I hate those!

Let Me Get This Straight....

[darkonc (47285)]

A flaming, violent neo-nazi who scrawls 'Heil Hitler' in his jail cell gets royally blitzed and kicks in the head of some poor schmuck, and you blame his run amok on the fact that he played a wrestling game?.

So what happens the next time The Summer Olympics come to Germany?

In Fascist Germany

[by Anonymous Coward]

In Fascist Germany game plays you

Its Bavaria

[by Anonymous Coward]

Note that this happened in Bavaria, by far the most conservative German state. I like to compare them to Texas, to give americans a better idea ;)

Bavaria is also the state leading the current initiative to make the laws regarding violent games more stringent, while other states are taking a much more sensible position.

Re:Its Bavaria

[BoberFett (127537)]

Which is odd, because Texas is a hotbed of game development. I'd imagine either New York or California are far more likely to ban violent games before Texas. Perhaps conservatism isn't to blame in this case?

Re:

[justchris (802302)]

What is conservative in America is not the same as what is conservative in Germany. They've been around a lot longer, they have whole lists of different things to conserve we haven't even gotten to yet.

Re:

[Shihar (153932)]

Uh, Texas is the hub of the video game industry in the US. Texas is pretty damn socially liberal. I think a better comparison is something more like Alabama.

The real tragedy is that German federal law doesn't offer up any support to such a blatant violation of free speech. Then again, German concept of 'free speech' is a lot shakier then the American version. World War II really left the poor bastards a little gun shy when it comes to anything that kinda-sorta-might imply violence.

Re:

[Vellmont (569020)]

Texas is pretty damn socially liberal.

We ARE talking about the state that wants to make it legal for the blind to hunt, right?

I'm not sure I'd call Texas "liberal", but maybe it is compared to some of the other southern states. If you're looking for an extremely conservative state, I'd probbably pick Utah.

Re:

[Shihar (153932)]

People are mangling Republican and conservative, socially liberal and economically liberal, and "liberal" is in "democrats" and liberal is in classical sense of liberalism.

Letting the blind hunt, while a fucking stupid idea, would be a form of INCREASED social liberty. It would allow one more non-violent behavior (err, providing the blind guy doesn't shoot anyone) to be allowed in society. I am not saying that Texas is the most socially conservative state in the Union by any stretch, but that are nowhere

Re:

[Vellmont (569020)]

Ok, I can accept that definition of "liberal", (though I'd really call it more libertarian). So how about a Texas law banning gay sex [sodomylaws.org], that was only struck down by the US Supreme Court 4 years ago? Is that liberal by your definition?

In the context of the United States, Texas was only one of four states that sodomy laws against gays hadn't been struck down by state courts, or repealed by the legislature. There's plenty of states ready to legalize marijuana. Nevada almost passed a referendum to allow its

Re:

[Shihar (153932)]

"Liberal" as in a democrat has absolutely no meaning. It is a mish-mash of ideas with no coherent ideological basis. The same goes with "conservative" as in Republican. A "liberal" democrat can be in favor of censoring violent video games and still be called a "liberal". A "conservative" republican can advocate an expansionist military policy.

How about we stop mangling words? If you want to talk about democrats, call them democrats. If you want to talk about republicans, call them republicans. Use th

Re:

[henni16 (586412)]

I'd probbably pick Utah.

That's probably closer to Bavaria than Texas due to the religious fundie factor.
It's not a coincidene that the pope is from Bavaria..

Re:

[MemoryDragon (544441)]

I would not say most conservative, more along the lines of being the worst Hicks of western europe. Even for Austrians which are very close to Bavaria in many aspects (But fortunately not in their boneheadedness and idiocy) Bavaria slowly becomes a joke and a part we also are ashamed of. Sorry to say that northern friends but currently you guys are a sick joke, even for us.

Re:Its Bavaria

[henni16 (586412)]

Conservative means here:

• "law-and-order" hardliners, secretary of the interior is the biggest police and surveillance state supporter there is
• "War on drugs", "War on terror", "Zero tolerance", "Glass.Parling.Lot" would really fly in Bavaria
• the same party has had absolute majority in parliament since Bavaria was founded (hello cronyism and corruption)
• that party is the most right-wing party in Germany (except for Neo-Nazi parties); actual slogan "To our right there mustn't be room for another party!"
• "christian values" as in "Think of the children!" and "video games make our children violent"
• The way to "solve" a social or criminal problem is: real solutions might cost money; instead we'll use more laws, harder punishment, prohibition of every morally bad thing we don't want to see. If the problems aren't visible, they are gone.
  To paraphrase a _leftie_ politican on the video game issue: "They support a ban of violent video games in case a game triggers some whacko kid to finally go out and kill someone. We would like to prevent the kid from becoming whacko in the first place."
• Example: media reports about school children showing each other pornos and viloent video clips on their cellphones. Bavarian solution for the problem: ban cell phones at school
• "traditional values": beer, sausage, Lederhosen isn't typical for Germany, it's typical for Bavaria
• some common things with Texas might be
  • a "the rest of you states suck, we're better; in fact, we're basically independent"-mentality
  • conservative=>dislike of immigrants (Mexican border..)
  • gun nuts - lots of "traditional" hunting and gun clubs; the yearly "shooting fair" is the social highlight in every little town
  • "shoot first, ask questions later"

What the AC refers to is that many people in Bavaria will think of what happend as a good course of action.
And that there won't be problems abusing state power for such a useless thing.
And that the main reason for those actions - including the use of riot police - is getting pictures that show "We aren't like those soft leftie cowards, we're HARD on that issue. Don't mess with Texa..eh.. us! We're taking ACTION, something is done about it, don't worry, we'll keep you and your children save."

And also: "If we make enough noise about that school shooter playing Counterstrike, everybody will ignore the fact that he was in a gun club and that that was the reason that he was good at shooting and had access to the guns he used in the first place. Everybody shut up about that! Or someone might ask questions about stuff like why we want to further loosen gun control laws or lower the minimum age requirement for childrens to start using firearms!"

And what's a Heckler versus a Rail Gun?

[darkonc (47285)]

Oh.. You mean a real sub machine gun!

"PUT YOUR HANDS IN THE AIR AND STEP AWAY FROM THE KEYBOARD!"

done!

(I really wanted to put that quote in all caps, then the lameness filter prevented me unless I added more text)

Lessons Not Learned.

[Shihar (153932)]

I swear, there has to be a Godwin's law joke in here somewhere. I mean come on. A fucking German riot squad raiding computer geeks busy making video games. How fascistic could you possibly get?

The EU has a problem. I know that the EU is all scared from World War II and what not, but they need to get over it. Violently repressing anything that might encourage violence really is not an effective method of keeping the fascist away. Further, this isn't just a problem with one little backward German providence. Many European nations have anti-free speech laws preventing various forms of 'blasphemy', racism, and ideology. This isn't an effective way to confront these forces.

The silly talk in Germany and the EU about more stringent rules against video games is going to accomplish only one thing; giving the US more German programmers and designers. Didn't Germany learn a lesson about the stupidity of driving perfectly intelligent people to the US during World War II? The Americans will happily take them in, make some product that can't be made in Germany due to fears of this Gestapo bull shit, and make a buck off of it.

This raid should be a cry for MORE free speech laws to prevent backwards providence from pulling this bullshit, not a cry to clamp down and regulate speech further. Is Germany, with its negative population growth, TRYING to drive out the few remaining young and technically minded people they have left?

No, you didn't learn any lessons...

[thecountryofmike (744040)]

The US has the highest incarceration rate in the world. It's a land where hate speech is just dandy, and inciting violence is protected, by hiding behind the 'free speech' defense. Unless it's demonstrating against the government, which these days gets you cordoned off into 'free speech zones'.

Germany, and these other countries (which of course you don't name, or can't spell, or just haven't heard of before) all have lower crime rates than the US. Their people are more aware of fascistic behaviour. And

Re:

[pilkul (667659)]

These hate speech (or 'anti-free speech', doubleplusgood) laws you conflate with fascism aren't the only thing controlling crime, but they don't hurt. And yet you 'conclude' that they're ineffective! Guess I'll just have to take your word for it, right?

What is the number one point Ahmadinejad made at his Holocaust denier conference? That countries like Germany ban denying the Holocaust, and that as a result it's impossible to objectively examine the facts. Hate-speech rules do nothing but empower racist

Re:No, you didn't learn any lessons...

[Shihar (153932)]

Western European countries with hate speech laws are clearly different than religious theocracies with laws against blasphemy and ideology. These hate speech (or 'anti-free speech', doubleplusgood) laws you conflate with fascism aren't the only thing controlling crime, but they don't hurt. And yet you 'conclude' that they're ineffective! Guess I'll just have to take your word for it, right?

Anti-hate speech laws don't make hate speeches magically disappear. The idea that you can ban an idea and some how make it disappear is insane. The Soviets tried and failed to do this for a solid 50 years with methods far more brutal and absolute then anything a European nation has tired, and they still had their ideology overthrown.

The only thing anti-hate speech laws manages to do is make debate illegal and drives any sort of discussion of the topic underground. Instead of being able to confront the racism head and exposing it is a crock of shit in the open, you pave the way for those ideas to go underground where they can't be confronted out in the open. People who are disposed to believe such racist non-sense are not magically converted to good citizens when they see police breaking down doors and throwing people in jail. When a government needs to use violence to suppress an idea, people are going to question what exactly it is about that idea that the government fears so much.

The holocaust deniers are a perfect example of this foolishness. Making it illegal to deny the holocaust just means that these ass holes can't stand up in public and take their licks. I would rather see this shit get sorted out in the open where people can respond, rather then have little underground groups that stew in their hate (rightfully) convinced that the government is out to get them.

Further, you keep trying to argue that you can some how have "free speech" while at the same time making "hate speech" illegal. Free speech means free speech. You are damn right that anti-hate speech laws are anti-free speech laws. If you can't express an idea, no matter how repugnant, then it isn't free speech. What exactly do you think the point of free speech is in the first place? To protect the common consensus as to what is and is not acceptable to talk about? The point of free speech is to protect all speech, even the speech that the vast majority loathes.

If you need a reason as to why free speech should be protected in its entirety, simply RTFA. A form of speech that is considered socially deviant by the majority of Germans just had a a few dozen police is riot gear get raided. If the majority consider this form of speech to be socially unacceptable. Does that mean that the raid was a-okay? This isn't an abstract slippery slope argument. Fucking police stormed a video game companies office.

The US might have a stupidly high incarceration rate due to our stupid prohibition laws, but you can bet your ass that we don't have police in SWAT gear kicking in the doors of video game companies for making games that might be considered too violent by the moral majority. Free speech needs uncompromising protection for this very reason.

Re:

[bockelboy (824282)]

I still think the EU (and Russia) has a long way before they "get over it" with respect to WWII, like the GP suggested.

I've visited mass graves in St. Petersburg. I've talked to people who lost family in the war. There's still a lot of emotion tied up into that war.

To too many (but not all, hopefully) US citizens, WWII was the "great adventure" that their grandfather or great-grandfather went on, and came back with a lot of stories about.

To many people in Europe/Russia, WWII was something that may have cl

What he fails to mention

[zerojoker (812874)]

http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/46094 [heise.de] (it's german, you might want to put that into the google translator). It basically says that the police raided Crytek because the Business Software Alliance (BSA) got several evidence that Crytek was using unlicensed software

Now I'm not sure what came out of this, but I think if the police raids a whole company it's quite standard procedure to come up with some armed guys.

Re:What he fails to mention

[mabinogi (74033)]

He mentions exactly that. Did you actually read the article?

from the eight paragraph:

In 2004 the Bavarian authorities sent in the state troopers. Ostensibly it was as a response to a claim made by a former employee that we had illegal software installed on our machines.

Re:

[eln (21727)]

Leaving aside the idea that racism is somehow genetic rather than learned, what does it have to do with mistreatment of people based on their occupation?

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[Eideewt (603267)]

I don't think that "Turkish" is her occupation. Perhaps you don't know that "queuing up" means standing in line.

Re:

[eln (21727)]

I know that. I was asking what his comment had to do with the topic of the article, since his comment had to do with racism, while the article has to do with discrimination based on occupation.

Re:

[Eideewt (603267)]

Gotcha. I couldn't figure out where her occupation had been mentioned, and all I could figure was that you thought she was a shopkeeper or something.

Re:

[infestedsenses (699259)]

Way to make a ridiculous populist generalization about some evil "Nazi gene" FUD (I can't believe you're being serious.. or are you?), and get this modded so high. If you're looking for some "Nazi mentality", I think this is a good display of how it works. Sad, really.

Re:The Nazi gene...

[nutshell42 (557890)]

So based on anecdotal evidence you come to the conclusion that all Germans have a Nazi gene making them racists? You are aware that this statement itself is racist? Not to mention pointless. 5 mins on Google could provide half a dozen anecdotes of disgusting behaviour by just about any nationality.

Of course, if you were German your post itself would provide another anecdote on how Germans are racists. =)

Re:

[delire (809063)]

That does sound strange given that a huge proportion of the West Berlin's Kreuzberg are Turkish, in fact Berlin itself has a huge and strong Turkish community. Admittedly there is some tension between white German Berliners and German Turks in Kreuzberg in some suburbs; but there are far worse cities for a Turk elsewhere in the world than Berlin. This is due to the same kind of racism that it symptomatic of territorial anxiety mixed with nationalistic ambition found anywhere in the world.

Anyway, what does

Re:

[henni16 (586412)]

At the end of the street was a fresh water hand pump, for the houses without running water.
That's 100% BS.
Not the existance of the pumps, but the "houses without running water".
Those hand pumps are somewhat famous relics(*) and are still maintained - actually, they have to by law.
Those pumps are deep wells and were/are a water supply system for dire emergencies. There has to be a pump for every 1500 people.



(*) Some of them are at least from the 19th century. But IIRC the main reasons for their (

Re:

[delire (809063)]

Methinks you're talking bollocks. Kreuzberg is one of the most well-tended suburbs in Berlin. Those hand water pumps are antiques, scattered throughout the parks and streets because it's always been nice to get a free drink and wash the snow of your boots and bike tires in the winter. The only houses that don't have running water are likely to be squats. Graffiti like the kind you describe is everywhere in the world, especially that which antagonises the Police. Garbage trucks don't have police escorts exce

Re:The Nazi gene...

[henni16 (586412)]

She'd queue up, and when she got to the front the store-keepers would just serve whoever was behind her. This happened frequently, in multiple shops (in Berlin).

Shenannigans.
I live in Berlin, have Turkish friends and have never seen or heard of something like that.
And the media and lawyers would be all over cases like that.
Did she shop at Nazis'R'Us or where?

Berlin is the largest Turkish city outside of Turkey.
Among the 3.4 million people (~14% foreigners) there are alone 120000 Turkish people registered as living in Berlin.
And those are only the ones without German passports. You can add several tens of thousands for 2nd or 3rd generation immigrant children or people who already obtained citizenship.

Chances aren't bad that the person in line behind you is also Turkish or of Turkish origin.
Depending on the district, that chance will be well above 50%.

Re:

[Keruo (771880)]

normal friday night..
few too many bier..
Döner KEBAB overflow -> core dumped.

Re:

[4D6963 (933028)]

We, the brave frenchmen, have genocided Armenians in 1921. Google must not be your friend, it seems.

Re:

[BeeRockxs (782462)]

It didn't get outlawed, shops were just not allowed to advertise it and sell it to minors. Big difference there.

Re:Who did this?

[vega80 (852274)]

When they came for the videogame developers, I did not speak out. Then they came for the violent videogames, I did not speak out. Then they came for the videogames with sex, I did not speak out. Now I have nothing to play but Nintendo videogames. Apologies to Martin Niemöller.