It seems some games here are subjected to the German censorship rules, mostly cuts for violence (GTA series has various things missing). Is this just because the games have been made for the German market? Or does Switzerland have it's own censorship laws?
Are films also cut?
Does anyone know which titles are affected?
There are several websites out there which will list info on banned/restricted merchandise (mostly movies and music). One is zensur.org
A couple of years ago, I was at a death metal show in Pratteln (at the hellish club Z-7). The venue did not allow one band to play, saying their content was "too violent" - yet Cannibal Corpse (one of the bands mentioned on zensur.org) was the headlining act and played without incident.
Films are cut, magazines are edited, album covers are changed....
BTW, I'm not looking for anything nasty here, just like to see the stuff as it's intended.
I order online pretty much exclusively from Amazon in the UK. Have never had problems with customs & the stuff is always spot on. No censorship here (as far as I am aware)
Trick with customs is to arrange for your treats to be parcelled in packages of worth less than 200chf. I receive 3 or 4 deliveries a month & have never had any issues in the last 3 years. Hope this helps.
At the moment there's a self-regulating system in place in Switzerland. The game industry and retailers act according to the PEGI guidelines (and Swiss law rather than governmental institutions).
But this spring, exponents from virtually all Swiss parties except the FDP/PRD tried to promote governmental intervention in one form or the other. Most public attention was scored by this Social Democrat who sued and lost against the director of a Media Markt shop for the distribution of "killer games".
what is missing in that game?
I knew i had not gone crazy just yet!!!
I bought a new copy of Mr & Mrs Smith as the one i had was buggered and i could of sworn it had a scene or 2 missing.
cheers
SC
this is funny. i mean, what can be more "cruel" beyond head shots, battering, sex scenes, heavy swearing? the whole game is an offense in it itself...this is pointless...will try n check this.
In rampages, you earnt tons of money by murdering as many people as possible with a certain weapon, I think some people considered this a step too far. Although it's possible to engage in random violence when you want in GTA, you don't get extra cash for it, at least not in IV anyway.
I order lots of books for the kids and DVDs for me via amazon UK and for our commune at least (in Valais) it seems to work that under about CHF80 value, they just pop the goods in the letter box. Over about that value they knock and ask for payment of VAT and a customs clearance charge of CHF10.
If you order/package things under the value that triggers the import bill, there will be no customs clearance charge or VAT. Above it, it seems a bit random, but we get hit for it maybe 50% of the time. (Obviously more smaller packages means more postage costs though)
In any case, the UK vat has come off (if it was vat-able) when it was ordered for delivery to Switzerland, so that is a 17.5% saving, so adding back CHF10 + 7.6% still means in many cases it is still cheaper than buying it in the UK and paying the UK VAT. ie goods of £100 + UK VAT would be (at the moment) about CHF200 + CHF 15.20 VAT + CHF 10. (ie about CHF225, which is still a bit less than £117.5 - at todays rubbish exchange rate!
I find Amazon very reasonable with postage to Switzerland - hardly any different from the UK.
Also the Swiss customs do seem to be sensitive to the Vatable nature of the goods, so if it is zero rated items like books, then they don't charge the VAT, but will still charge the CHF10 clearance fee.