Germany is ridiculous. Regarding such ganes, you can not even buy Bunny Garden here which is bascially just some hostess club with some visible Panties. And this even releases on the Nintendo SWitch. But not in GERMANY.
Dude, all Germany wants is a safe and working age verification, nothing more nothing less. And this is EU-Law, a law that is mandatory for all country's in the EU, they just don't care. Basicly all country's in the EU have to demand this on steam, That Germany dude from the Hamburg DSGVO authority who has sued steam was just the first, it is only a matter of time until someone from France, or any other country, does the same thing.
What will steam do then?
Geoblock all France users?
Steam is just lazy and don't want to put effort in it. Germany was now just the scapegoat.
Sooner than later steam (and all other online platforms) will/must/ is/are
You must be registered to see the links
out, or they will be the one kicked out in the end.
Why are AVNs in our country such a special case? I dont know, i am born here and living all my life here and still dont get what is going on with some restrictions in this country... Fucking a prosititute? No Problem. Filming a public Amateur-Porno and sell it afterwards? Nothing to it as long as nobody who doesnt want to is shown in the footage.
Minor protection is important, and as said many times now, Germans are the victims and steam is clearly the perpetrator here.
On top of that, and its not the first time that happend, 7 months ago Steam lost a case in germany because of geoblocking. Some (google translator says Kartellrecht = antitrust law, so i go with it) thing with antitrust law and so on... dont want to go to deep into it. But as it is, this geoblocking is not even legal in EU, and they still do it.
That case - afar - was going on, because a German has bought a physical copy (CD/DVD) of a steam game in Slovakia - way less cheaper - than it was available in the German steam store.
Steam, greedy bastards as they are, don't want this because of reasons and have generally put a geoblock on game keys, from the same game, that are from a cheaper region.
And that clearly violates an absolute principle of the EU:
Shopping without borders.
Within the EU member states, no customs duties may be levied or measures (geo-blocking) taken that prevent the product from being used outside the country in which it was purchased.
Quite simply for this reason, steam has been taken to court.
The fact that steam doesn't realise that their blocking will fall on their feet sooner rather than later is really remarkable, you would think that there would be smarter people in the company management.
NO. Implemtenting such a system is a huge task just for GErmany it is not feasable to do so. It also would mean more costs. I am sorry but the people decding the USK etc are the problem. We can not even buy Zombie games properly here. We were also the only country that censored Half Life. This Institution is a stupid and ridculous as our current Government. I would not seek the error with Steam and Valve.
It's still EU-law and steam has to comply. Whether they want to or not. The age verification is a thing, and there is no way around for steam in the long term.
You are right, the Half-Life thing was just ridiculous, but not so bad. To be honest, 99% of the Half-Life users had HL only installed for Counter-Strike, Team Fortess or Riccocet. Im my case, back in time, I bought a physical copy of the German Half-Life and organised me an US-Installer to enter the HL-Key - that worked perfect.
Its likely that the Steam release can happen next week cause there isnt really something left holding that back, Steam has just to give the thumbs up now. Steam release is still Number 1 priority cause there are the most customers in reach. Epic and Gog will follow suit.
You can more estimate, that the wide release is in 10-14 days because Ocean wants to send the game first to some curators first to push the game more into the broader public and have them play and make some reviews of it. But he had to wait till the age rating is final, sending the game to the curators with the assumption of PEGI 16+ to play it and then get a kick in the ball s from steam because "Surprise! Now it's PEGI 18+ motherfucker" is quite unlucky.
So, he's just using Steam/Steam users as tools... and piggy banks, of course. Doesn't give a fuck about the users but only about their money, is what you are saying, right? why would anyone want to support that? get a censored/edited w/e version of Season 1 and that's all they get?
Oh, if they want the original untouched version of Season 1 + Season 2 and beyond, become a Patreon/SS!
Ocean says nothing, learn to read and understand what you read. And for the love of god, stop spreading rumors.
I(!) have written that, that was MY(!) assumption, simply because that is the way I(!) would think of it, from the given facts and the point of view as a businessman.
The facts are :
Steam is only a one time sell.
The game client has a button build in that leads to Patreon/SS/Discord/Twitter/...
Why should the Patreon/SS buttons be there, if there is no intention of hoping that there are some players are hyped for the game and don't want to wait until the next season lands on steam?
That is quite obvious too. Lets say... you buy a game on steam, play it, liked it... but its released in episodes. Just like Summers Gone. to continue you need the next episode. but the next episode will NOT be released on steam. Only a complete season. So... ingame there is the big huge patreon/subscribestar button. What will you do? Take a look. And than you might get hooked. Many AVNs skyrocketed after they got released on steam... many customers subscribed on Patreon. Which is a way better income for the DEVs cause it comes monthly, not only once.
Patreon or Subscribestar are available anywhere in the world. They dont have the same restrictions like steam.
Someone said Steam is more like a "tool" to get things running. And that is true. Initially ocean might get a nice little income boost selling the Season 1 there, but the main-income will be Patreon/Subscribestar in the longer run. So Steam/Epic/Gog is like a fishnet in the sea... and with a lower rating the fishnet becomes larger, so more fish, and the more fish he can catch, the more of the fish will go to Patreon/Subscribestar cause they want to play the next episode and dont want to wait until the next season is complete.
*edit* oh yeah and once you are at patreon/SS... the rating doesnt matter anymore. On top of that, the patreon/SS version is uncensored while the steam version will be changed just a tiny little bit. So another reason for many to just go to Patreon/SS too if they just learned about the game via steam...
Why should Valve do this? Why should Valve risk their trust globally with such a stupid move. Germany is fucking Stupid as I said you can not even buy Zombie games uncut. And there is no fucking excuse for this. And protecting children? Children or teens will get on these things ANYWAY if you want to or not. So stop putting shit like this as reasoning.
I am already annyoed that I can not buy AVNs on Steam to support I am tired of it.
Dude, can't you understand it intellectually, or do you just not want to understand it? Whichever is the case, it has been explained more than enough.
and never will be if they dont add other payment methods then creditcard. Creditcards are not used often in germany, especially not in the internet, too much saftey troubles happened in the past. And i will not subscribe on SS too as long as they only have creditcard... at least paypal would be needed, but they will not do that because of the restrictions that will come with that.
The trend of the banking system in germany is that they are moving slowly away from the good old Giro Card, and roll more and more the Debit Card out. They work like a Credit Card with the difference the amount withdrawn is charged to the card immediately and debited two to three days later, unlike a credit card which collects the amounts and debits them once a month - and exactly this behaviour is why so many people lose control over their own finances and deep in debt.
No matter what, My bank has handed out to me two cards. A Giro Card and a Debit Card. The Giro Card is just collecting dust because I can use it only on ATM's from said bank. And in a 80km radius of my home is not a single one... So I use the Debit Card, and it works on all ATM's, on amazon.uk/us and - surpise - on subscribestar.
