… all the games i would like to. DooM, Duke Nukem 3D, Dead Space Demo – all unavailable on Xbox Live in my region. My Region? Germany, of course.

Now i know that we have certain prohibitive laws and such that limit the amount of advertising, or lack thereof, for certain “censored” games. However, it is completely possible to order such games online or buy them in a store – then why not on Xbox Live? I wouldn’t mind registering my account with proof of my age to Microsoft to be able to download the games that are currently banned from german Xbox Live.

And yes, i know the tricks of the trade. The “credit card fraud” trick where you simply enter a valid US address didn’t work when i tried it late in 2006. Obviously the credit card now had to be a valid card from the particular country or something like that. But at least you could create a US or Austrian or even a Japanese account to get your hands on the demos and trials only available in those regions.

But these days are also counted, i can’t even download the trial for Duke Nukem 3D with an Austrian account anymore. We all know the german anti-violent games laws are criminal in themselves, mostly because they are useless. But that we adults can’t even get to these games, it not only bothers me, it depresses me. This shows where the “lowest common denominator” thinking will lead us, and i feel offended by it because it limits my freedom of choice.

UPDATE: there’s so much more to this issue … if you can read german you can read up on the private blog of the german Xbox Product Manager Boris Schneider-Johne. His blog is surprisingly and refreshingly open, well worth a read.