Australian lawmakers have banned the performance of the Nazi salute in public and outlawed the display or sale of Nazi hate symbols such as the swastika in landmark legislation that went into effect in the country Monday. The new laws also make the act of glorifying OR praising acts of terrorism a criminal offense.
The crime of publicly performing the Nazi salute or displaying the Nazi swastika is punishable by up to 12 months in prison, according to the Reuters news agency.
Mark Dreyfus, Australia’s Attorney-General, said in a press release Monday that the laws — the first of their kind in the country — sent “a clear message: there is no place in Australia for acts and symbols that glorify the horrors of the Holocaust and terrorist acts.”
German and Austrian versions of the new Wolfenstein games have swastikas and such removed/replaced.
I remember being pissed off the version sold on Steam to Switzerland was the censored version for no reason other than Switzerland is often stuffed with German and Austrian markets. When I blast sci-fi Nazis to bits, I prefer they look authentic.
Since the last Wolfenstein game was released, the law has been changed in Germany lifting the total ban on Swastikas in video games.
I don’t recall any more recent WWII games where I’ve seen a swastika though.
I recall that even after the ban was lifted, most companies preferred to continue self-censoring.
I find it even more irritating that it is banned in the German version of Bollywood movies. It looks different and more importantly has a different meaning.
That’s so silly. Not that censoring a game based entirely on brutalizing Nazis makes sense.
German laws allow swastikas in media under freedom of art and/or education. So depending on the context, it is legal in games. Foreign video game companies just don’t want to take any risk and have their game blocked because of nazi symbolism so they rather just remove it than hope the courts see their game for the form if art it may be.