German Law to Blame For 18+ Rated Wii U Content Block In Europe

[S.Peelman]

wfz said:

Viper1 said:

I think you may have mised something.

Nintendo of Europe is bound by German law because it is headquartered there so all its operations in an online capacity are restricted to German law.

Other companies are not HQ'd there so the German law only applies to their sales in Germany.

Yeah, I'm still a bit confused. So...

1) Company A: Based in Germany, has to follow German laws for every country.

2) Company B: Based in UK, only has to follow German laws in Germany.

 

I don't understand that. Why do they have to follow German laws for distribution outside Germany? In the first scenario, it seems like the only law that matters is Germany's, since it's upheld then across all of EU. In the second example, only German laws are enforced in Germany, which makes sense.

In these things, the EU is very complicated.

I think it's basically that any company always has to uphold the laws of the nation they are based in and the laws of the nation they are selling in. The laws of the nation they are based in are more important however than the other country's laws.

Nintendo has to uphold Germany's law first and foremost since they are based there, even in the UK because Germany's law in this matter is more specific. For example, if you would turn it the other way around; If Nintendo were to be based in the UK (or someplace else), they would be allowed to sell this content during the day because that is allowed by UK law, except in Germany. Then, if the UK had the 'stricter' law, like say the UK banned all video games, Nintendo wouldn't be able to sell anything anywhere in Europe. If they were based in Germany like they are in reality, Nintendo would be able to sell videogames everywhere except in the UK.

I believe taxes for companies work in a similar way.

Also, I'm not sure the US M-rating equals to 18+ per se. Most M-rated games are 16+ here in Europe. We have ratings for 0 (all ages), 3, 7, 12, 16 and 18.