Lusche said:
Because now suddenly they are allowed to. (again germany haven't changed any laws regards to this) |
In Germany game ratings are regulated by USK. So they decide what can happen.
And from their website:
In accordance with the Youth Media Protection State Agreement, providers of the contents of online games are responsible for ensuring that "material which is likely to harm the development of children or young people (…)" are not generally perceived by these age groups. Whoever infringes this regulation "may have a fine of up to € 500,000" imposed. This applies not only to games content such as pure online games which can be played directly over the internet or downloadable games, but also to films, texts or images.
This duty is expressed in the Youth Media Protection State Agreement in the following terms:
In material for children, only contents may be made available which do not have negative effects on development for children up to the rating "12 and above" , in other words are rated with "all ages" or "6 and above" (cf. Art. 5, Sect. 5 of the Youth Media Protection State Agreement). If products are not directly aimed at children and are not rated with "16 and above" or "not under 18", they may be offered without distribution restriction.
In order to comply with the legal obligations on prejudicial content "16 and above" and "not under 18" years of age, providers have the following alternative possibilities available (cf.: Art. 5 Sect. 1, 3 and 4 as well as Art. 11 Sect. 1 of the Youth Media Protection State Agreement):
-Programming the website for a recognised Youth Protection Program (not valid for "18+"). The programming can be done by the USK's Label generator.
-Using scheduling
Contents "16 and above" only accessible between 22.00 and 6.00
Contents "not under 18" only accessible between 23.00 and 6.00
-Using technical distribution restriction, e.g.: using a positive rated age verification system
Content harmful to young persons, e.g.: pornography, or media on index list, included by the Federal Department for Media Harmful to Young Persons (BPjM) in Lists A and C, may only be disseminated for adults in closed user groups (cf. Art. 4, Sect. 2 of the Youth Media Protection State Agreement). Content which constitutes a criminal offence and is extremely harmful to young persons as described in Art. 4, Sect.1 of the Youth Media Protection State Agreement is generally not permitted to be disseminated.
Apart from these essential, core regulations, further regulations apply, such as youth protection in advertising (Art. 6 of the Youth Media Protection State Agreement).
The only thing that has changed is that the USK now considers Nintendo's parental controls to be good enough to handle the situation.
