Since today Germany has blocked Adult games from the Steam store.

[Hybris]

It's not censorship, it's for protection of minors; that law has been in effect for years in Germany; it's only now caught up to Steam.

"For the children" has been over used as a rallying cry in so many fields that its lost all value. Playing that card just means that anyone who disagrees with the policy in question either hate children or actively wishes them harm as it plays on basic human nature to protect children then justify all manner of limitations including censorship.

In this context existing law or not this act is one of censorship.

 

[gamersglory]

 

[chainedpanda]

I mean... Does this truly surprise anyone? It was only a matter of time (and honestly I expected Australia to be the first). Legislations are always slow. This new law was likely in the works ever since Steam announced the change.

 

[Hadley]

I mean... Does this truly surprise anyone? It was only a matter of time (and honestly I expected Australia to be the first). Legislations are always slow. This new law was likely in the works ever since Steam announced the change.

THAT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH GERMAN LAW CHANGING! There is no German Law that forbids Porn-Games, the only problem is that there has to be a Age-Verification System in place and Valve for some fucking reason does not want to implement one...

 

[chainedpanda]

THAT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH GERMAN LAW CHANGING! There is no German Law that forbids Porn-Games, the only problem is that there has to be a Age-Verification System in place and Valve for some fucking reason does not want to implement one...

Riddle me this caps lock. If there is no law involved why the change? Why is it that after x amount of time, all of a sudden it's required to have age verification?

People are claiming Valve is greedy and this is the crux of the issue. Simply put that's absurd. What are they trying to save money? Attempting to save money by not having the developers that are ALREADY under their payroll design some sort of verification or block for underage. This makes no sense, at most they would be using a bit more server space, something a company like Valve is already accustomed to doing. Thus, that's not a real viable excuse now, is it?

Secondly, they would be LOSING money by blocking Germany. Yeah... Greed huh? Sure, Valve is absolutely greedy, they are a COMPANY which exists because of money and only because of money. No money means no Valve. Even F95 can't exist without money, hence both ads and donations. A company does NOT change something that works unless it provides them with more money, or if there is some external influence which forces them to do so.

Is it really Valves fault? Steam makes them a ridiculous amount of money. If Adult games caused them to lose money, they would shut it down. Thus, that can't really be the reason why Valve cut ONLY Germany off. This indicates to me that their previous system is working. Secondly, by removing Adult games from Steam in Germany, this does not provide them any money unless some wealthy patron donated big bucks to say "cut Germany off for me", again doesn't really make sense. This leaves only a SINGLE possibility, external influence. If Germany Law isn't the case, what is this Poland's way of revenge for WW2 or something? The ONLY logical explanation is Germany Legislation. Rather the law is already passed, or Valve is gearing up for some change in Germany Law.

 

[SirSpitz]

Has anyone see TiK Tok Vids...and Germany does what again? I don't know German's laws but in the States there are statues that protect against "unequal burden" which in this case means one media version as lesser standards to follow then another media. Or video streaming from Tik Tok verse video game streaming--or did the German laws reach out and crush both with simular standards for age verification?

 

[Fanat1c]

Hey steam friends. You can simply add games via steamdb to your Wishlist to buy it. I read it from other site and it works.

Update: or simple use the install button in steamdb and you will se the store page too.

 

[Nia Nekomae]

well the adult patches for nekopara weren't available in Germany for a long time and for vol.04 it was never there in the first place, all good VNs adult patches went away in february?

BUT for some reason something like this works:
Went to a publisherpage, obviously almost all games not shown, on the right in their news was a new game announcement….
clicked that and steam opened window with the release news which apparently had the shoplink in it. So the previewimage of the with the price and "add to cart" button was still there… so weirdly enough, it was in my cart with a note saying "hidden trough settings" but i could still buy it normally oO

i even have the tick for adult only content still just the tic wont save anymore so its deactivated for good, so as long as you have a group or the link to the publisher/developer

u can still kind of buy these games (like my yandere sister likes me too much from cherry kiss), got to their page cause a few games of them are still there, then on the right clicked the news, in the news was the button... clicked add to cart, was in cart just said to be hidden due to settings...payed and appeared in my library so i could even complete the payment(since i could expect it not letting me put it in my cart if its "unavailable" in Germany.

really odd since most very known games h patches cant be bought that way

i mean for the games now it says "that content is not allowed in your country"
despite the usual "this product isn't available in your country"

so just have someone who can post you the shoplink to the desired game in a steam group if you want to get on steam still. Just wonder how they wanna deal with stuff like dl site, who just asks for age as well, there u just cant use PayPal for age restricted stuff but u need a credit card…. steam could do the same? if you register a credit card(which checks data anyway on every puchase) you should be free to buy these games oO


(EDIT: the wishlist workaround is nice too xD)

 

[rk-47]

even though germangoogirls exists? lol

 

[Hadley]

Hey steam friends. You can simply add games via steamdb to your Wishlist to buy it. I read it from other site and it works.

Update: or simple use the install button in steamdb and you will se the store page too.

No you can't. You just get "This item is currently unavailable in your region"...

 

[gunderson]

Ick. And just to clarify for everybody here: having a law doesn't mean you always enforce it. Ever speed in a car? I'm assuming pretty much everybody with a car has at some point. But in the US for example, whether you actually get pulled over or get a ticket for it generally depends on where you are, if you're actually endangering anybody, the speed of other cars on the road, if you have the misfortune of being simultaneously black and in the south..., etc.

Lots of countries have various anti-pornography/obscenity laws. But most of the time they don't enforce them because that's incredibly stupid and directly conflicts with most freedom of speech/press laws (for a fun example of this, see:

You must be registered to see the links

, or the very good movie about it:

You must be registered to see the links

). Whatever you might think about Steam and its interest or lack thereof in making age verification better (I would tend to guess that involves making everybody's actual government ID associated with their account, which would be real bad), Germany is at fault for this. The only reason Valve would stop making their games accessible in Germany is because Germany actually decided to enforce this stupid, stupid law. Which I absolutely understand that its most puritanical citizens made it put in place, like many other civilized countries, but which it nonetheless should never ever have enforced because most of its citizens who care at all love the fuck out of porn and will happily steal it instead.

Also, as others have said: this is definitely 100% censorship. Unlike many cases of corporate entities deciding of their own volition to change or block publication of something because of its content, this is a GOVERNMENT doing it. That is the textbook definition of censorship. And fuck Germany for that. Censorship of fiction is ALWAYS BAD.

 

[Crome18]

So yes. People are right. As of rn. you can buy games over Steamdb by adding it to your Wishlist and then hitting the buy
button on the wishlist.
It will then look like this and should still be working

 

[Succubus Hunter]

I haven't tried this myself but I have heard of mail forwarding services. Basically they are companies that you pay to recieve mail for you and then they forward that mail to your actual address.

 

[Diconica]

The issue is more with German Law and not with Steam.
Steam some time back didn't offer adult games. Germany's age verification law has been in effect for a while.
If you don't like the fact you can't buy adult games over steam elect better politicians.
I'm going to tell you right now it doesn't matter what type of verification they put on it kids will get past it.
Hell, they sneak their parents driver license and all sorts of shit to get past stuff like that use parents credit cards and so on.

Friend of mine running his adult site showed me the number of issues with charge backs he had when it traced back to child in the household. I figured it happened some but never realized it happened that much.
I'd suggest parents start locking their wallets and purses up when they come in the door once they get home. Don't just take it out and set it down some place.

 

[Hadley]

That is not the fucking point. The whole system is retarded and makes no sense, Kids can just go to fucking xVideos (RIP PornHub) and watch Hardcore Porn. The only point is that Steam can say FUCK OFF we have done everything to the 70 Year old retards who annoyed them so much that they made this change.

 

[Leeduva]

I mean... Does this truly surprise anyone? It was only a matter of time (and honestly I expected Australia to be the first). Legislations are always slow. This new law was likely in the works ever since Steam announced the change.

Hey steam friends. You can simply add games via steamdb to your Wishlist to buy it. I read it from other site and it works.

Update: or simple use the install button in steamdb and you will se the store page too.

So yes. People are right. As of rn. you can buy games over Steamdb by adding it to your Wishlist and then hitting the buy
button on the wishlist.
It will then look like this and should still be working

View attachment 954985

Okay it doesn't seem like anyone my question so let me rephrase it a bit for you guys to understand. In germany can the people their can go to and buy eroges from sites, like Nutaku,Dlsite,DMM and other online store that sells eroges,hentai games,porn games,what ever you want to call it. Because if the Germans can with no problem. Then it not a censorship issue it a verification issues.

 

[Crome18]

Okay it doesn't seem like anyone my question so let me rephrase it a bit for you guys to understand. In germany can the people their can go to and buy eroges from sites, like Nutaku,Dlsite,DMM and other online store that sells eroges,hentai games,porn games,what ever you want to call it. Because if the Germans can with no problem. Then it not a censorship issue it a verification issues.

So far, yes you can buy shit everywhere else besides Steam atm. the thing is that stuff can change very fast.
Also you cannot forget about the size Steam has in comparison to the other shops at least here in the west it is literally the go to shop for games.

 

[chainedpanda]

Okay it doesn't seem like anyone my question so let me rephrase it a bit for you guys to understand. In germany can the people their can go to and buy eroges from sites, like Nutaku,Dlsite,DMM and other online store that sells eroges,hentai games,porn games,what ever you want to call it. Because if the Germans can with no problem. Then it not a censorship issue it a verification issues.

While I can't say anything as I'm not a German and unable to test it. However, I would like to point out that this doesn't mean a lot one way or another. The point is that steam is a massive company which has the eyes of just about everyone. The others you mentioned, well not so much. While law is supposed to be forced without bias, most government officials are old and out of touch with the internet. Double that for those who would be more likely to be in favor of such censorship.

We see this all the time with specific companies/websites flying under the radar while others may get nuked to oblivion. Look at Patreon banning incest games after the public backlash, yet subscriber star walked out unscathed. This is just a minor example.

Furthermore, it could be that Valve has knowledge about things that the other sites simply don't have access too. Perhaps there's a threat of a new bill being passed and Valve simply wants to get ahead of the curve while Nutaku and the others have not received the information? Or perhaps a notable party/politician wants to push for such a bill? Or, even the possibility of a related bill already being in place, but was unenforced and now some politician is looking to push the issue?

I stand by the idea that lack of verification being the issue to make absolutely no sense. In all honestly there really is no way to prove it one way or another except to wait.

 

[Succubus Hunter]

The issue is more with German Law and not with Steam.
Steam some time back didn't offer adult games. Germany's age verification law has been in effect for a while.
If you don't like the fact you can't buy adult games over steam elect better politicians.
I'm going to tell you right now it doesn't matter what type of verification they put on it kids will get past it.
Hell, they sneak their parents driver license and all sorts of shit to get past stuff like that use parents credit cards and so on.

Friend of mine running his adult site showed me the number of issues with charge backs he had when it traced back to child in the household. I figured it happened some but never realized it happened that much.
I'd suggest parents start locking their wallets and purses up when they come in the door once they get home. Don't just take it out and set it down some place.

Those are a lot of kids being raised to normalize stealing smh. I would have never thought about stealing to pay for my games or anything else I wanted to entertain myself with. It sounds like is Germany wants to "Think of the children", they should prioritize a lack of morals than the big scary porn games.

So far, yes you can buy shit everywhere else besides Steam atm. the thing is that stuff can change very fast.
Also you cannot forget about the size Steam has in comparison to the other shops at least here in the west it is literally the go to shop for games.

Agreed about things being able to change in the blink of an eye, Pornhub was a good example of that.

 

[Leeduva]

So far, yes you can buy shit everywhere else besides Steam atm. the thing is that stuff can change very fast.
Also you cannot forget about the size Steam has in comparison to the other shops at least here in the west it is literally the go to shop for games.

Good you answer my question. Now let me say this I don't think size has anything to do with this at all. Because if what your saying is the case. Steam would be that last place they would hit. Because they would be banning Dlsite,Nutaku,DMM.r18 because those site would be easier to deal with steam. The reason why they haven't been touch because their gear toward adults. You won't see these sites I listed promoting games to nonadult. Or sell games that for every one. Steam on the other hand promote and sell games to anyone. Steam promote themself as a platform for everyone (including kids).