Political bullshit or not, the developer's story sounds unreal.
Actually, the guy's story is more or less "political bullshit" as well because he's omitting a lot of background info and facts
.
First of all, let's take a look at his little rant about the German non-smoking laws. In the context of his article, he's making it sound as if our people have no respect for each other and that our politicians are not capable of protecting non-smokers.
Well, that's not true. As far as his little story is concerned (about sitting at a table in a full restaurant and then a woman walking in and chain-smoking even while he's eating), that behavior is contrary to his claim considered extremely rude. Especially if he first sat down at the table and was sharing it with the couple. It's an unwritten "law" that you have to ask the person at the table whether they mind if you smoke and if that other person gets their meal then you should usually extinguish your cig immediately. The guy is generalizing if he's making it sound as if it was normal German behavior to show zero respect for non-smokers.
Secondly, the non-smoking laws were scrapped because they were unconstitutional and not because the harm of passive smoking was in doubt or anything. That guy is once again very imprecise when talking about this subject. We had a federal law reformation a little while back which has given the federal states more authority to regulate certain things. This was (stupidly) overlooked by our government who happily designed a general federal non-smoking law. Our president refused to sign the law because he realized that it would be unconstitutional if the law would be passed by the federal gov't instead of each federal state making their own non-smoking laws. It has absolutely nothing to do with not wanting to protect non-smokers as this guy is suggesting between the lines. It's just a legal matter and a matter of law-making authority.
On the topic of violent computer games, it is true that a lot of politicians overreacted and took the usual cheap shots at the gaming scene after that latest amok run. Nothing that you wouldn't see in the US or most other countries though. In the US they got Jack Thompson, Hilary Clinton & company. It's all the same. Gaming is not mainstream and the majority of the people still has prejudices about video games and gamers, well, and since you need the majority of the people behind you to win an election...
This Bavarian Beckstein dude (who is a known idiot
) and his colleague in Lower Saxony are pretty much alone with their radical views about banning games. Most of our politicians have remained fairly reasonable and the current debate has shifted towards analyzing whether our existing laws and institutions are effective enough to protect our youth. We'll have to see about the outcome...
BTW, it is not really true if you say that "Germany have banned games". The only games that are truly banned here are games which contain Nazi insignia. That's it. Violent games do not really get banned. It depends. Some (very) violent games get put on an "index" by one of our federal authorities, the BPjS.
However, this is very inconsistent because that federal authority has no right to act on their own behalf. They can only act if someone hands in a request to check a certain game for "youth compatibility". If a game gets put on the index, it just means that you can't buy these games under the age of 18 and that they may not be advertised. You can easily order these games (after mailing them a copy of your ID to prove you're 18+) from online shops though. They are not truly banned.
One thing that has changed in recent years is that every German (i.e. localized) game must be checked by an institution (the USK) before it is put on shelves. The USK issues an age rating for every game. It used to be an age recommendation but now it's obligatory. If a game gets rated 18+ then the sales person is required to check your ID if there is any doubt about your age.
Non-German, non-localized games (UK/US imports) do not get checked by the USK at all since those copies are not intended for sale in Germany and thus they get a default 18+ rating. So even if you're buying a copy of the US version of Spongebob Squarepants over here you got to be 18+. But once again, you can easily order imports from online stores if you're 18+.
Well, I hope that helped to clear up some of the issues. I can't comment on the Crytek raid for the simple reason that I haven't been there when it happened but regarding the rest of this guy's post, I felt that there was a need to do some "damage control"
. To me he sounds overly bitter and like someone who -contrary to his statement at the end of the post- actually hates living and working in Germany.
.
