Fallout 3 No Longer Banned in Germany - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 16 February 2016 / 4,857 Views
Fallout 3 was banned in Germany, however, seven years later the ban has been lifted, according to IGN Germany.
Bethesda appealed to the Federal Department for Media Harmful to Minors (BPjM) to have the game unbanned before the 10 year statutory sentence expired.
"In the case of Fallout 3 the request for de-listing was granted even though only seven years passed since the game was banned," the BPjM said in a statement to IGN. "The Big Council decided at its meeting on February, 4th that Fallout 3 will be removed from the list because its content is no longer classified as harmful to minors from today's perspective."
Bethesda told IGN: "We cannot give a statement at the moment, but will answer your questions in a couple of weeks."
Bethesda's statement could mean that a re-release of the game is in the works.
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A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel dedicated to gaming Let's Plays and tutorials. You can contact the author at wdangelo@vgchartz.com or on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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I'm pretty sure everyone in Germany who wanted to play it found some way to play it already.
The game wasn´t banned. It was "indiziert" ("listed") , which means the game can not be publicly displayed in a store or commercial. However stores are still alowed to sell the game to you if you are 18 or older. You simply have to directly ask the clerk for the listed version of the game. Also this only applied to the international version.
Oh noes! Don't put ideas of a nuclear war in their heads now!! They are hurting Europe enough as it is :P
Germany really is a fussy parent when it comes to censorship.
Why did they ban it in the first place?
Only the uncut version was banned. I bought mine in a shop from Austria. But there's a cut version available for the game here in Germany. The reason for banning the uncut version were the gore elements. In the german version is no blood and gore.
I think the nightly news should be banned in Germany. Surely the constant content of ISIL beheadings and other real world violence is more harmful to minors than a video game.
There's no banned games actually.
Indiziert (like Fallout 3 uncut): The game can be sold from 'under the counter' but no ads are allowed and it's not to be sold openly.
Verbreitungsverbot/Beschlagnahmt: You're allowed to own or actually buy but not sell it, which is a bit weird.
Everything that's rated by the USK is never going to be 'banned'. But while USK rated Fallout 4 as 18+ Fallout 3 was only rated in the cut version. Funny thing is, Skyrim is 16+....
Kinda late on this one guys.
