That sucks for you guys in Germany with oppressive laws. Well, at least you can circumvent this bullshit with a VPN and F95 and if you find ways to support Ocean along the way, great.
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As said, the problem is less the German laws (which can be quite forgiving on some things), even if Steam tries to paint it that way sometimes, but their cheap and easy solution to the verification problem they have with several nations.
- Aug 19, 2019
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Make sure you keep your steam account region listed as something other than Germany, you should be okay. They aren't, in my experience, limiting you based on your IP range, because people usr VPNs all the time.Man, don't tell me this, I gonna move from another country to Germany soon-ishThis sucks.
im here to announce myself as a proud member of characters building gang!
- Nov 28, 2017
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- Jun 14, 2020
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It's not our law. It's a law of the European Union, but only for german based customers Valve act like this. If the law would be the problem no one in the EU could buy these games on Steam.
- Aug 1, 2018
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Domestic laws and European laws are very different and this is a law of Germany and valve has to abide to it otherwise it can't sell games in Germany.
And it has to do with age rating since Germany is very strict on it. Since everyone can fill in there birthday as 1-1- 1900 Valve said fuck it not going to follow that strict protocol just not gonna sell those games
- Jun 14, 2020
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No, that's wrong. I know Valve told this story to everyone who asks about their shitty behavior but they lie. They lie straight in your face. But it is what it is. The more you told a lie the more people believe this lie. In fact there are ways to buy at Steam these games if you're in Germany. I did this myself more than once. All you need is VPN.
- Dec 3, 2020
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Most germans get their game from us in Austria anyway. Like it happened back in the L4D area time. Where they had to censor shit in Germany lol.
- Oct 27, 2020
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Damn, I love the Chetto, although kind of reminds me as myself with her crude humor haha
Hmm, kinda weird. I was just reading through a few writeups on this and maybe those were wrong (I admittedly am not that familiar with this issue). Sounds like the beef is with the age verification - Germany wants Steam to enforce a more stringent policy and Steam basically says fk you. I see both sides of the argument if that's the case.
Assuming that what I said above is the crux of the issue, I applaud Germany trying to make sure little kids aren't getting access to adult material, but on the other hand, Steam shouldn't have to change their system, and I'm not a fan of draconian censorship measures, either - the last thing we need is more regulation & oversight, parents simply need to be responsible for what their kids are doing. I say punish the parents for not regulating what their kids are doing - don't trust them not to access porn, then don't give them unsupervised access to the internet, or a cell phone, etc.
If I lived in Germany, the way I'd look at this though, is "great, free games for me" - I'd just use my trusty VPN and pirate everything - F95 for adult content, and Fitgirl repacks for everything else - I'd look at it like, ok German government, you don't want me to be able to buy stuff...then I won't. German government won't get the tax revenue on purchases that they've banned, and Steam will miss out on those purchases as well - lose lose for German government + Steam, and win for consumer.
- Jun 14, 2020
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That's pretty much what's going on with the only restriction that it is only about having an age verification at all. Most companies do this by checking the credit card. But Steam don't want this. It's a little bit funny because every member state of the EU have ratified this EU law. It's exactly the same in every EU member state. But only for Germany Steam goes nuts and they haven't even had any problems with the authorities or any state institution. There were no court cases or anything like that. They just pee their pants in front of Germany. As stupid as that sounds.
- May 29, 2017
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News in the latest Dev Update just now:
"I'm around 70% done with the full version of Chapter 4.5."
"I'm around 70% done with the full version of Chapter 4.5."
- Jan 29, 2020
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You must be registered to see the links
Hello,
(I attached the new Steam/Ambient Trailer. Watch it in 4k. Otherwise, it looks like pixel-mud thanks to the YT compression.)
So... First of all sorry for not doing a Dev Log when it was supposed to be out. The last Dev Log date fell exactly on the date I moved across the country.
Then a week later, I flew back and spent Christmas with my family.
I'm currently pretty damn sick. Not sure if Covid or the Flu... But it also doesn't matter. It'll go away eventually.
I finished setting up the PCs etc. not that long ago. Got my desk, and everything that's needed for work.
One WiAB hard drive died, but I didn't lose anything game related. (I had a backup.)
I'm around 70% done with the full version of Chapter 4.5.
All that's left is the college part plus Amber/Bella.
2. Steam
Summer's Gone is coming to Steam next year. The first Season will include Chapter 1 to Chapter 5.
If you want to support the game beyond Patreon, consider wishlisting the game. (Even if you don't necessarily plan on buying it. It still helps a lot with no additional costs attached.)
You must be registered to see the links
3. Music-related stuff
So, the biggest headache in development again...
I met up with a law firm and discussed quite a bit of music-related stuff. In the future, I will never ever use a site like Shutterstock, Epidemic, etc. again.
All deals will now be made directly with the artist/label.
I mentioned before, that I was in the process of making a deal... Well, besides their very dubious actions towards me. (Promising me stuff that wasn't in the license agreement and would have gotten me into serious legal trouble, I will remove A LOT of music again for Season 2.
Summer's Gone Season 1 will keep all the music. (Chapter 1 to Chapter 5.)
But with the start of SG Season 2, I'll look for new music, far away from these fucking licensing sites.
That's why I'll work with a law firm in the future. Secure the licenses, etc.
It's very possible that music will take a place in the back for a year or two... I just really don't wanna deal with this permanent anxiety of breaching some weirdly designed line in a contract, that is open for all sorts of interpretation.
The lawyer said, that the best way would be to create original soundtracks for the game.
But it's way too expensive at the moment.
But someday we'll do it.
And Steam has the potential to be the first big step toward original soundtracks.
3. Previews
Old
New
Old
New
Anyways, I'll try to finish the rendering part for Chapter 4.5 Full in the next two weeks.
I'm currently taking it easy to recover from my flu/covid. So I'm not at 100% efficiency. (Also still have to take care of a lot of stuff due to the move. I don't even have a bed right now.)
See ya then.
- Ocean
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- Sep 4, 2017
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Hopefully we can see more regular updates !
This game and WIAB have huge potential
This game and WIAB have huge potential
- Jan 10, 2021
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I don't understand.
Dr Pinkcake uses a shit ton of licensed music from PremiumBeat and doesn't have any problems. 199$ per track.
Oh but DPC did have licensing problems and had to remove many of the game's most popular songs. What I can't remember for sure is if it's related to specific licensing sites or directly due to the artists.
- Jan 10, 2021
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No it wasn't related to any website, just one band asked to remove their songs from the game
- Nov 4, 2022
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Correct. They originally shared their music on Soundcloud under a CC BY-SA 3.0 license, meaning it was free to use, even commercially, provided credit was given to the band. DPC still wrote to them at the time, asking if they were okay with him using their music in a game with adult content but they didn't reply so he went ahead with it.
It wasn't until a few years later that they got back to him and asked to remove their content from his game. Apparently, they misunderstood the license types and Creative Commons by Attribution wasn't what they had in mind for their music...
As for Ocean, dealing with the artists directly is definitely the safest option. Having to contact and negotiate with each artist individually is quite a hassle, but if you're upfront with them about the type of content their music will be used in and they give you the green light, there won't be any unpleasant surprises in the future. And it's beneficial to the artist as well, as normally the intermediary would take a chunk of the license fee.
Many of them actually don't mind their music being used in adult games; when Leap of Faith was hit with a DMCA claim after making it to Steam, Drifty pulled the game's entire soundtrack and went on to talk to the artists directly and in the end was able to secure licenses from most of them. It's the various music libraries' restrictive ToS that are the problem.
They can still be useful, just not for getting the licenses. Those that offer membership for a monthly fee can be used to find tracks that interest you. Then just reach out to the artist directly and see how it goes.
It pains me to see some of the brilliant tracks SG had removed from the game, especially those that had entire cutscenes built around them... I can only imagine how frustrating and disheartening that must be for Ocean. But hey, I would likely never have heard any of those songs otherwise so there's that, at least. My playlist is bigger now.
- Jul 18, 2020
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So much for end of December oh well with this time of the year really can't get mad about a missed date