Deutsche Qualität: will the renewal of the quality gaming industry come from Germany?

[Mysterious Stranger]

Aren't Germans incapable of making games except more boring Gothic clones?

Occasionally, zey bring ze quality incline.

 

[Fedora Master]

There's also of course SYNTHETIK.

Still, compared to what a first world country could do, Germany is at the tail end as usual.

 

[Lord Commissar Alexer]

Sonderbar dass sich Keiner an die ganze Killerspiel Debatte erinnert...

There was (probably still is to some extent) a very hostile attitude towards Shooters and basically every game that has something to do with Violence and War. I remember as a kid back the witchhunts from the Meida regarding Shooters or as they called it "Killerspiel" (Killergame). Motherfuckers literally frabricated things about games you must do, like killing a women and then defiling the corpse (GTA Series). Stuff like that in the news and some reports.
Not to forget the insanity of the censorship of games. In Half Life the Soldiers were replaced with Robots und Guards who are dead actually sat down and shook their hands, Command and Conquer's plot was rewritten that instead of Humans (All human soldier were replaced with cyborgs, blood was changed to oil) Cyborgs fought in the wars, same with Soldiers of Fortune (Replaced by Robots). There were several others too.

Lack of talent, funding and somewhat hostile attitude...yeah no suprise actually.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

 

[1451]

Why are they so conservative about fps, is it because of their Catholic upbringing? I would imagine the Protestant places would be more lax.

 

[Fedora Master]

The - supposed - German aversion to violence is indeed something that should be investigated. Generally speaking it stems from clueless boomers having a death grip on any and all media plus a greater willingness to do what the government ordained.
German boomers and Gen Xers are confident that the government only wants what is best for them so questioning their decisions is frowned upon.

 

[Cromwell]

Generally speaking it stems from clueless boomers having a death grip on any and all media plus a greater willingness to do what the government ordained.

one may remember that you need a TV liscence if you want to start a stream which isnt cheap and additionally you need someone you need to hire to make sure your program is in accordance with youth protection laws, or else pay the official bureau of the state that checks that for you.

 

[Fedora Master]

Generally speaking it stems from clueless boomers having a death grip on any and all media plus a greater willingness to do what the government ordained.

one may remember that you need a TV liscence if you want to start a stream which isnt cheap and additionally you need someone you need to hire to make sure your program is in accordance with youth protection laws, or else pay the official bureau of the state that checks that for you.

Which is good because German YT is utter cringe.

 

[Lady Error]

One of the best RPG series was created in Germany (Realms of Arkania).

But the creator fled to the US as soon as he could and stayed there. I can relate.

 

[Zarniwoop]

So we're discussing good German games but not mentioning the best ones?

The entire X series
The original Far Cry and Crysis
ELEX aka EELIX

 

[Tavar]

Mimimi Games got funding from the Federal government for their next game. What Thac0 was saying seems to be confirmed by the bolded sentence.

https://www.mimimi.games/the-future-of-mimimi-games/

The German government believes in Mimimi Games!
Now, certainly some of you will ask yourselves: How will Mimimi Games, a studio based in Munich consisting of around 30 people, finance their next project?

Well, financing Codename Süßkartoffel will be made possible through different building blocks. The core block, which is making all of this possible in the first place, is an undisclosed and independent investor that we will talk about at a later time in more detail!

One of the others is the German government. Yes, THE German government officially approves our real-time tactics game and our plan to self-publish our next project. This means, we are going to be one of the first (!) studios to receive governmental funding as part of the official games industry grant program, which was initiated and is managed by the “BMVI” (Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure).

We strongly appreciate this initiative by the German government. This is not only great news for us, but for all other German developers that have been granted funding as well. Also, our managing director Johannes has actually invested countless hours in association meetings to get this grant started. Therefore, he rejoices twice over.

Interestingly, this isn't the first time Mimimi has received tax money: They got some money from Bavaria to build the prototype for Shadowtactics which they used to secure a publisher. They never even tried getting a bank loan because they had enough problems getting a bank account (!). Such is life as a game developer in Germany.

 

[JarlFrank]

They never even tried getting a bank loan because they had enough problems getting a bank account (!). Such is ilfe as a game developer in Germany.

Increasing bureaucracy has been stifling small business in Germany for decades now. The days of Wirtschaftswunder Germany are long over, these days it's a fucking chore to found your own business and get it running because of all the red tape in your way.

 

[Cromwell]

Increasing bureaucracy has been stifling small business in Germany for decades now.

 

[Peachcurl]

Yeah, what a fucking disaster. That's not just entering the field of excessive red tape, it's leaving at the other end going straight into the area of plain evil.

(And the NDR camera dude REALLY didn't bother to tell him about the hole in his pants? Or he just didn't give a fuck? Probably the latter. :D)

 

[Cromwell]

Yeah, what a fucking disaster. That's not just entering the field of excessive red tape, it's leaving at the other end going straight into the area of plain evil.

(And the NDR camera dude REALLY didn't bother to tell him about the hole in his pants? Or he just didn't give a fuck? Probably the latter. :D)

the guy was on tv on some political talk (for whatever fucking reason they invited him). He was asked about the docu and told them he still doesnt have a permit and just does it illegally while they decided to lok the other way.

these days it's a fucking chore to found your own business and get it running because of all the red tape in your way.

ironically its also one of the best way to save on taxes and leech from the state for all they are giving (which is quite a lot if you know with what you can get away). To stay a bit on topic, for all these reasons I wouldnt enter into a risky business like making a game in germany.

 

[Humanophage]

Western Europe is OK on games, better than the US, but still not great - at least when it comes to RPGs. It still seems to be the case with the new Pathfinder, new ATOM, Encased, Disco Elysium, and whatever: https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads...-american-rpgs-visualised-with-graphs.139485/

 

[zool]

Edited the OP with Battle Brothers, which I've just started playing and is, as everyone knows, amazing (yes, I have a habit of playing games for the first time several years after their release. At least I get a fully patched, fully-DLCed game for a few bucks).

Another proof that Deutsche Qualität is stark / kräftig in the Berlin-Munich-Hamburg triangle.

 

[Outlander]

It's funny that so many complain that PB has been making the same game for 20 years when so many other studios that tried new things and failed either getting dissolved or losing what made them great.

Also Egosoft with X: Rebirth, they could recover with X4, though.

 

[Lucumo]

Sonderbar dass sich Keiner an die ganze Killerspiel Debatte erinnert...

There was (probably still is to some extent) a very hostile attitude towards Shooters and basically every game that has something to do with Violence and War. I remember as a kid back the witchhunts from the Meida regarding Shooters or as they called it "Killerspiel" (Killergame). Motherfuckers literally frabricated things about games you must do, like killing a women and then defiling the corpse (GTA Series). Stuff like that in the news and some reports.

Yep, absolute media frenzy and politicians, being as retarded as they are and wanting to divert from actual problems, backed it. So that resulted in games being seen in a worse light, more censorship (also on TV) and games/DVDs being defaced with giant USK/FSK logos on the cover, leading to people buying less locally and either importing or not buying at all.

What initially started it was some school shooting in 2002.

 

[N0rn]

Sonderbar dass sich Keiner an die ganze Killerspiel Debatte erinnert...

There was (probably still is to some extent) a very hostile attitude towards Shooters and basically every game that has something to do with Violence and War. I remember as a kid back the witchhunts from the Meida regarding Shooters or as they called it "Killerspiel" (Killergame). Motherfuckers literally frabricated things about games you must do, like killing a women and then defiling the corpse (GTA Series). Stuff like that in the news and some reports.
Not to forget the insanity of the censorship of games. In Half Life the Soldiers were replaced with Robots und Guards who are dead actually sat down and shook their hands, Command and Conquer's plot was rewritten that instead of Humans (All human soldier were replaced with cyborgs, blood was changed to oil) Cyborgs fought in the wars, same with Soldiers of Fortune (Replaced by Robots). There were several others too.

Lack of talent, funding and somewhat hostile attitude...yeah no suprise actually.

I still remember how one guy on Youtube back then actually checked all of the German media's claims about violent games and what you can do in them. It was really fucked and shameless how the publically funded media could just pull claims out of their ass without any consequences. I also remember how they claimed that you have to kill the patients in a sanitarium level in Hitman even though you actually get a negative rating for stuff like that in game.