Did Ubisoft just deactivate all german copies of SH5?

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Nordmann

Does this mean that you must return the game, or is it a request? Because if it is a request, I would ignore it. It's not as if the political enforcement agency are going to come and dig through your games, checking for illegal iconography, right?

That could happen in combination with predating, more serious investigations against you, for example if you are under surveillance due to a suspicion of being a distributor of Nazi stuff, or the Office for the Protection of the Constitution (a national intelligence service) has listed you as a member of a Nazi organisation. It could also happen if you get raided by police over suspicion of pirating software, and then they check your collection. I cannot imagine that ressources get unlocked to raid your home for just the purpose of searching swastikas in games. Police hardly can be assumed to have these ressources free these days - they are short on personnell and money.

Theoretically, possessing the version that features the "unconstitutional symbol" is illegal in Germany and could lead you to getting sued. The legal basis is like that indeed. Downloading and possessing a swastika mod for IL-2 for example also could get you into trouble.

that is, if the law enforcement authorities would learn that you own such an illegal thing.then they have an obligation to examine.

Maybe it is clever then not to tell them, or anyone else.

Which leaves the interesting question what the legal grounds of German Amazon is if they know you have not returned your copy. Obviously they know that you ordered it, and if you do not return it, you still owe it.

Maybe they agree to not use their sensitive information against you if you agree to pay them a monthly fee.

However, nowadays that your internet data is stored everywhere for eons to come, it certainly is a clever idea if you are German or austrian not to boast in forums with your downloaded Swastika patch, and your collection inclduing titles featuring these unconstiotutional symbols. The circumstance itself in principal can be legally used against you.

I personally think people on both sides of the law make too much tam-tam about Nazi swastikas being shown in games. It is an unimportant visual feature that neither increases realism and functionality, nor immersion. It simply is not important for the game. and people having suffered under the rule of the swastika, are still living. One must not confront them with the easyminded use of these symbols again.

It's a question of piety - not historic accuratesse. And a game like the SH or IL series has no educational value about the why and how of WW2, so whether swastikas are shown or not adds nothing to the realism at all. You could as well demand to have only recordings of original death cries in game, for reasons of "realism". I think that realism debate over critical symbols in a game almost always is an excuse often made in the same way like a man claims he only buys the Playboy or Penthouse magazine because of the good journalistic quality of the articles in it.

Originally Posted by Nemesis43

Yes, it does sound rather peculiar
However, the german wording is "verfassungsfeindliche Symbole", and "verfassung" = constitution, and "feindlich" = hostile. I suppose it's really "Symbols hostile to the constitution", then, but "unconstitutional" seemed the nearest useful approximation thereof

"Verfassungsfeindliche Symbole" means symbols standing for ideas and content that are hostile to the German constitutional order.