Hello guys!
Recently, the players from Germany may have noticed that the Store page was not available in the region.
The problem was that without a prior warning, a regional restriction was set by Steam due to the game having “images of Hitler”. When we talked to them about the situation and explained our view on the topic, we were asked to follow one of the three scenarios available:
- Leave it as is and keep the German region locked
- Remove all “images of Hitler” from the game
- Get the USK rating as proof that in our game images of Hitler are not forbidden. (The thing is that showing “Nazi symbols” is allowed in Germany if that is a work of art (a film, a historical study, or a game), but the restriction for games was lifted only 2 years ago, and the legislation is kind of murky about it. So, the USK rating would have served as a proof that we qualify for that paragraph of the German law.
We thought that getting the USK rating was a good idea anyway, so we should try and get it. At the same time getting the USK rating could take quite some time, and we did not want to leave the German players unable to play the game over an extended period of time. So, we decided to come up with a quick solution to lift the restriction and then apply for the rating.
We had to create the special German-only version of the game and blur all Hitler images to make it available again. It took us quite some time to pass all Steam reviews again, but now, finally, the restriction was lifted.
We are sorry that we have to blur the Hitler images and create a separate German version of the game.
Yet, we think it is more important to keep the game available to German players. We will do our best to get the USK rating and restore the unblurred version in Germany, but we have no idea how long it would take us, as we depend on other organizations to make it happen.
We would like to remind, that in all versions of the game all symbols were “denazified”, following the “denazification” process in Germany after the war. For example, swastikas were replaced by Prussian cross, etc. So, we did not expect any issues in that regard.
Feel free to ask any questions — we will gladly answer them.
Have a good day!
With best regards
Starni Games team