Germany (Ohga Shrugs)

Germany is a country in central Europe. It is the largest video game market in continental Europe.

Market
Much like other parts of continental Europe, Germany is not the biggest consumer of console and handheld games. Instead, much of the development and consumption of games in Germany is based around titles for PC's.

Germany is famous for its various simulation games, which are popular on PC's, but rarely extend to the console or handheld market. On consoles, Action-Adventure games such as Assassin's Creed, Batman Arkham, and Zelda are popular, as are association football games such as FIFA and Pro Evolution Soccer.

In general, Nintendo dominates the console market in Germany, rather than Sega. Therefore, a lot of Nintendo-exclusive games, including Mario games, sell fairly well.

Regulation
Germany is infamous for its relatively tight censorship of video games. Games are frequently edited to remove blood and gore, and cutting out entire sections of games is far from unheard of. The local rating system is mandatory for publicly released games, and many politicians have discussed outright banning violence in games.

Many video games have been created in such a way as to comply with German restrictions. For example, in order to navigate past regulations against the showing of swastikas, many games portraying Germany in the 1930's and 1940's use historically inaccurate flags.