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[angry axe]

i thought Germany had the largest gaming market in Europe?

[BostonGeorge]

yeah that is correct for the market situation but within the society and esp. in the politics there is a huge group of people who do not accept games as objects of cultural value. Games over here still have the status of beeing another kind of toys for kids. If you are over 20 years old and still want to share your passion for videogames you'll get blamed as a nerd or something.

A couple of months ago we had "The german Videogame Price" here. It is a price, which should encourage young developer teams and the whole gaming industry in germany. The Price is sponserd by the government and so every game which had a dash of violence in it, like Uncharted 2 (which shows so much violence like Indiana Jones) was disqualified. So the winner for "best foreign game" was in the end Anno 1404 (which is from germany and do not need any support because the title itself and the developers are already big names in the businiess). That is so ridiculous as if James Cameron would have won the Oscar for "best foreign film" because Avatar where shown in france with french synchronization.

The best word to describe the gaming situation in germany is: schizophrenic.
Well, the situation has changed a bit the last years but there is still a LOT of work to do.