Quick question about selling shareware to people in Germany. Are there any requirements about removing or locking out blood and gore? I am Australian (and so is my business), and the webserver is in the US. Basically the question is - do I need to detect German downloaders and provide them with a different download?

No, you don't have to provide them with a different download as long as your webserver is in the US (or another country except Germany).

Quote: Original post by Jockel
No, you don't have to provide them with a different download as long as your webserver is in the US (or another country except Germany).

Well, that's good news. Hooray for blood!

You have to realize that no government has the legal right (some do have the military 'right' though) to regulate outside their country.
So you don't have to obey their laws as long as you conduct your business outside Germany and you don't live there.

Quote: Original post by Raduprv
So you don't have to obey their laws as long as you conduct your business outside Germany and you don't live there.

Important to add: and don't plan to visit there. Once you enter the country they can prosecute you. but i don't know anything about the game laws. OP should check with a lawyer.

-me

They can't prosecute you as long as you don't have any business in Germany and you broke none of their laws.
They can not regulate what a website outside of Germany is selling, and they have no way of legally finding out who is behind that site anyway. Unless you sell child pr0n or something from that server, and they have a legal, international warant.

Well, perhaps if we produce a German localization, we can lock the "blood" option off.

I heard that there is a large tax on games with swastikas in them. Something to make the German consumer say "Hrmm do I want this $50 game or this $500 game with a sqastika?"

And the people who told me this were US citizens who only wanted to distribute their US-made game from a US-based company in Germany. So I'm weary about the whole "Only if you stay out of Germany" thing.

I would definately check this one out with a lawyer. Google also has to filter out some results in Germany, even though they are not based there.

There is no "No Gore" law in Germany. There's only a goverment organisation that can ban games from shelves and bank all advertisment for those games in Germany. However, they only act if there's a complaint against a certain game. Note that these games can still be sold to adults if they ask for it, but stores are not allowed to put them on display or advertise for them.

Many game companies choose to remove blood and gore, in order to not have those bans on their game, because it would cost them a lot of sales if they're affected by such a ban.

So, in your case you have nothing to fear. It is highly unlikely that someone will file a complaint against your game and if so, you're not allowed to advertise it in Germany anymore, which I guess you didn't plan to do in the first place.