About Germany having best groups…
There is one thing France (and also the U.S) both have and you guys don’t : it is a legal system that won’t let you mess with the telecom or software companies.
You’d hardly name one known guy in the french business who hadn’t slept atleast one night in a french jail (Ackerlight, B Monks, Angels, Paradox, Quartex, The Company and so on).
Some stayed longer, some had to pay massive bills, others got their hardware confiscated, and so on…
Do you remember of many french BBS’? (+33). In other countries you could run a BBS for AGES without a slight problem (even in the U.S tho’). Not here. It was like inviting the cops home.
As for our US mates, being caught out there for blue boxing, carding or such could be a real pain.
Police and private investigators simply protect public and private interests. The hard way.
Guys, I remember running (with my mate link) in a commercial center, the original "Another world" in my left hand, and being followed by 3 cops. The guys simply identified our contact in a shop who was bringing games out for us before they really hit the shelves.
I already went busted 1 month earlier and cops took my hardware (and cash!), left me one night in jail, prosecution and all that shit.
No risk, no fun.
In countries such as Germany, the police would send you a postcard telling you "Hey bad boy, we know what you’re doing. It is not good. You should ask your mummy about it. Also, you should stop being a bad boy or else you can forget about your Santa Klaus’ list".
Cool.
In France, every two years or so, heads were being cut by a massive police action, bringing back the entire scene to day 0.
In Germany (and almost everywhere else), you could expect to last for a decade without a single problem.
So some had a mature scene with rock solid groups/friendship/experience, doing the long run.
The others had some sort of latin anarchy – competition, where most sceners were acting like if there was no tomorrow.
It is not like you could play the "50 games counter". The police was the one ringing the end bell.