4 ms·

Germany banned Wolfenstein 3D when it came out in the 90s. What happened? Wolfenstein became one of the most viral games in Germany. If people want to get Teleg

• hnbad 5y ago
  Wolfenstein became "viral" because there was no legal way to obtain a copy and peer-to-peer spread is by definition "viral". I'd wager Wolfenstein significantly underperformed both in sales and number of players compared to if it had been commercially available. Remember that this was pre-WWW, also PC gaming was much more of a technologically literate hobbyist space and copying floppies was fairly straightforward. Most Android users probably don't sideload apps at the moment. Telegram is a vital communication tool for the Querdenker (antivax) movement as well as far-right extremist groups. Extremely motivated extremists will surely jump to another platform, but censorship is amazingly effective at hindering recruitment and keeping out the "normies". FWIW the ban of Wolfenstein was informed by an understanding of games as pure entertainment for kids in the vein of Tetris, Pacman or Space Invaders. "We put swastikas and nazis in this video game" was a legitimately horrifying prospect at the time. If modern Wolfenstein games insisted on not modifying the releases for Germany, they would likely initially be banned but be able to overturn this ban once and for all given we now understand games as a narrative medium like film and nobody ever had to worry about removing the nazis from the Indiana Jones movies.