Is making a game about nazi's illegal?

[BrUnO_XaVIeR]

If people complain and sht hits the fan then it’s a shot on your own foot. Everyone thinking “controversy” works well to sell games, like it does so well on television, soon or later faces reality:

1# People threats to sue publisher/portal.
2# Steam, App Stores, GOG, etc: ban your game.
3# Epic request you stop using their engine.
4# Congrats, you’ve wasted time and money.
5# Maybe some jail time if you keep going too deep.

Some people also happens to suffer “unfortunate accidents” when they really don’t know when to stop…
If you think it’s worth it, go for it, this is how “freedom” fallacy works isn’t it?! You have the right to face the consequences of your own acts.

[anonymous_user_9a913664]

@BrUnO_XaVIeR

You have the right to face the consequences of your own acts.

Yeah, like consequences of not supporting the ruling party and then being killed. Or telling people in Iran you are gay and then being killed. The fact that I have to follow criminal laws doesn’t mean these laws are right or sell-out corporations are right. This means that the world needs to change and become less totalitarian like it pretends to be. You europeans talk about freedoms a lot, don’t you? Now we see how totalitarian you are in fact. You always try to ban things, you always encourage people to support inhuman laws and never protest. Once someone brainwashed you into supporting something (like supporting blacks) - you start doing that, and still behave bad to others less fortunate like gays or people with any opinios other than yours. You are not kind or progressive, euros. You are just too easy to brainwash and manipulate and always support the majority. Majority over human rights, how this called? Pure democracy, right.

[EvilCleric]

This is getting too political. In any case, as a defender of freedom of expression, you have my full support.

And to be honest, as long you don’t make some sort of holocaust simulator or create controversy on purpose, people won’t really care that much if you play as a german.

And let’s be real guys. Most of us always wanted to play as a nazi, at one point or another.

[darthviper107]

Epic has the right to control who is allowed to use their engine, and if you use it for something extreme then it’s possible they may not want to be associated with you, but it doesn’t sound like you want to do that, simply showing things from another side is not a problem, there’s controversial games made with UE4 and so far I don’t know of any cases of Epic telling someone they can’t make a game due to the content. But again, they own the engine and have full control over what can be made with it.

[Raildex]

It is illegal in germany that’s for sure.
It is forbidden by law to display Nazi symbols or Nazi-related symbols. the only exception is art (movies count as art, games don’t). This is why Wolfenstein is always about “Das Regime” (or the “Wolfclan” in the case of RtCW) in germany instead of the , which has altered symbols and fictional ranks.

[anonymous_user_9a913664]

@Raildex

It is illegal in germany that’s for sure.
It is forbidden by law to display Nazi symbols or Nazi-related symbols. the only exception is art (movies count as art, games don’t). This is why Wolfenstein is always about “Das Regime” (or the “Wolfclan” in the case of RtCW) in germany instead of the , which has altered symbols and fictional ranks.

Germany is radical as always. Germany never changes. So looking at this radical methods of shutting down free speech I still can’t trust this country and never will.
Wait, isn’t what they doing is denialism?

[anonymous_user_9a913664]

@Raildex

It is illegal in germany that’s for sure.
It is forbidden by law to display Nazi symbols or Nazi-related symbols. the only exception is art (movies count as art, games don’t). This is why Wolfenstein is always about “Das Regime” (or the “Wolfclan” in the case of RtCW) in germany instead of the , which has altered symbols and fictional ranks.

*That feeling when they call cheap soap operas art, and things like Life is Strange, Wolfenstein, Bioschock, Dishonored not art. *

Why isn’t it art? A 3d model itself is an art. Why something that contains a lot art work, design, music, plot(writing art) is not art? This is disrespectful and stupid.
These politicians from older generations are dumb and not capable of adequately ruling countries. This applies a lot to Russia, and now I see it applies to the whole world.

[ZacD]

There’s been no legal precedent in Germany to consider video games as art, legally, in German. In the United States, games weren’t ever legally considered art until 2011 from Brown v. Entertainment Merchants. Game publishers do not want to face a giant legal battle where it could create negative PR and cost them a lot of money and time.

[ambershee]

Getting this topic back on track, and away from thinly veiled racism.

The reality is, that such a game would not be banned in any European country. To my knowledge, only Germany and Austria have legislation against the use of Nazi imagery, so in order to ship in those two countries you just need to use modified iconography (for example replacing the Swastika and Wehrmacht flags). Games like Company of Heroes aren’t banned in Germany, after all.

@spacegojira

May I ask why do you want the player to play the nazi side and not the allies, like US, france, uk, … ?

The thing is, unless people play both sides in a competitive shooter, people won’t be happy about this, especially in Europe, even more so in Germany. Fairly so, because the were the bad guys and they commited a lot of horrible atrocities.
Most people remember this, so get ready for some (or a lot) backlash and controversy.

Also be advised, if you make the player play as a nazi only, forget about Germany as a market. It will be banned right away. (I am from Germany)

The Allies weren’t exactly squeaky-clean either - concentration camps were a British invention, and they too employed them during the second world war - they also committed acts of mass genocide against civilian targets (an example: the fire-bombing of Dresden) - nobody is hiding their history there either, this is taught in schools and pretty much all records from the period are accessible to the public.

The US track record is just as spotty, if not worse.

[spacegojira]

The reality is, that such a game would not be banned in any European country. To my knowledge, only Germany and Austria have legislation against the use of Nazi imagery, so in order to ship in those two countries you just need to use modified iconography (for example replacing the Swastika and Wehrmacht flags). Games like Company of Heroes aren’t banned in Germany, after all.

This is not entirely correct. “incitement of the people” is a legal concept here in Germany and a lot of things fall under it, like revisionism, hatespeak against an population (like jews) or trying to paint the nazi acts during WW2 as less bad than they where.
And you will go to jail for that in Germany, we have zero tolerance for this kind of stuff here. Rightly so in my opinion.

The Allies weren’t exactly squeaky-clean either - concentration camps were a British invention, and they too employed them during the second world war - they also committed acts of mass genocide against civilian targets (an example: the fire-bombing of Dresden) - nobody is hiding their history there either, this is taught in schools and pretty much all records from the period are accessible to the public.

Obviously, all the parties involved in WW2 commited horrible things, but I would be careful to put them on the same level. The here in Germany love to use Dresden as a symbolic example to paint themselves as the true victims of the war.
And while I personally wouldn’t have ordered to firebomb an entire citiy, you have to understand that they had to do horrible things to stop Germany from killing even more people. Of course, you can argue if it was a morally right decision, but that is an entirely different discussion.

And to OP, you are too afraid to tell us your idea for the game here, I can only guess because you don’t want people to know what you truly think, but you keep screaming about how all americans are war criminals and the west is so rotten. To be honest, that is just hypocritical.

[ambershee]

@spacegojira

This is not entirely correct. “incitement of the people” is a legal concept here in Germany and a lot of things fall under it, like revisionism, hatespeak against an population (like jews) or trying to paint the nazi acts during WW2 as less bad than they where.
And you will go to jail for that in Germany, we have zero tolerance for this kind of stuff here. Rightly so in my opinion.

It isn’t ‘incitement’, nor is it ‘revisionist’ to accurately portray the German perspective on the front lines of the second World War; nor is it hate speech to portray characters as having racist or otherwise unsavoury opinions. You wouldn’t get a slap on the wrist for any of that, let alone a prison sentence. There’s a very important distinction between the concept of historical / dramatic portrayal and any of those other concepts.

Whether such a game would be considered to be bad taste on the other hand is another issue, not strictly confined to those territories.

@spacegojira

Obviously, all the parties involved in WW2 commited horrible things, but I would be careful to put them on the same level. The here in Germany love to use Dresden as a symbolic example to paint themselves as the true victims of the war.

I have no interest in playing genocide ‘top-trumps’ - the point is that neither party is spotless and both have a pretty sketchy track record.

[anonymous_user_f77a82de]

Getting this topic back on track, and away from thinly veiled racism.

The Allies weren’t exactly squeaky-clean either - concentration camps were a British invention, and they too employed them during the second world war - they also committed acts of mass genocide against civilian targets (an example: the fire-bombing of Dresden) - nobody is hiding their history there either, this is taught in schools and pretty much all records from the period are accessible to the public.

The US track record is just as spotty, if not worse.

They didn’t teach anybody that in U.S Schools. All they talk about is hitler and war and americans saved the day. And that Christopher Columbus founded America not emphasize on taking it “although they did talk about the trail of tears” but not to young kids that it was taken besides “found”. But I did take a personal look at history once, and that U.S started the Vietnam war… and most likely they did… although said today still no-one knows who fired the shot supposedly.

[ambershee]

@Kufi-Smacker

and that U.S started the Vietnam war… and most likely they did… although said today still no-one knows who fired the shot supposedly.

The first shots were fired by the rebels (later the Viet Cong) in 1954 - six years before US involvement, and due to the power vacuum left behind by the departing French, combined with civil unrest caused by the partitioning into Laos, Cambodia and the two Vietnamese states. Vietnam is way more complicated than that, though arguably the US should never have been involved.

[anonymous_user_f77a82de]

The first shots were fired by the rebels (later the Viet Cong) in 1954 - six years before US involvement, and due to the power vacuum left behind by the departing French, combined with civil unrest caused by the partitioning into Laos, Cambodia and the two Vietnamese states. Vietnam is way more complicated than that, though arguably the US should never have been involved.

I meant the first shot actually fired when the war ships was stationed in northern Vietnam it’s actually not really known, and they say the U.S did first. I forgot the actual location name.

[spacegojira]

It isn’t ‘incitement’, nor is it ‘revisionist’ to accurately portray the German perspective on the front lines of the second World War; nor is it hate speech to portray characters as having racist or otherwise unsavoury opinions. You wouldn’t get a slap on the wrist for any of that, let alone a prison sentence. There’s a very important distinction between the concept of historical / dramatic portrayal and any of those other concepts.

Whether such a game would be considered to be bad taste on the other hand is another issue, not strictly confined to those territories.

Yes and no. It is certainly allowed to portray racist and murderous, even genocidal characters, otherwise there wouldn’t be any film about Hitler or WW2 in Germany and we have plenty of those (or other historical movies). And I personally would love to see a (or another) story about a german soldier, struggling with his orders (for example to hunt down jews, kill innocent citizens in poland, bring down dissidents) and his own consciousness.

What you can’t do however is to create a story where these things are told in a way that they are justified, a good thing to do, didn’t happen or it wasn’t as worse as we are told. And that will most definitely get the police to knock on your door (if you’re living in Germany obviously), as that is considered “incitement of the people”. We call it Volksverhetzung, and people go to jail for that.

However, the former isn’t brave nor controversial, it has been done a hundred times already. Which doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be done again, especially in a well made game. I would likely buy it.

[Poet_11 (William K)]

Interesting thread : ).

I don’t wish to continue with politics but wanted to drop this in the bucket that may be relevant to the OP or others.

I for one am sick and tired of seeing allied forces in video games doing so called ‘brave’ and ‘heroic’ things and being the good guys who can do no wrong. It’s pathetically cheap soap opera and has stopped selling because the wow factor died long ago.

If you read history of WW1 and WW2 you’ll see more and more how evident and complex things really are or were, to this day it is like so.

Basically bad deeds where done by ALL of them and every action was a reaction of something else. The west is equally responsible and guilty for Germany’s reaction as Germany was with it’s actions, the results and consequences is another matter and human history. You have to remember WW2 didn’t start out of the blue it started for reasons of which 10% in today’s world would lead any nation to go to war with another. But that is a truth no one wants to hear today.

As for genocides go, take a look at a massacre happened a few years ago (Yazidis and others), one can argue the recent attempted genocides are worse in the sense that the ‘freedom loving’ ‘all caring’ world watched with their satellite TV’s and did nothing while eating burgers even though it was in their full power to do so while the other was in a dark age of secrecy, control and full out war. They are just good at hosting whatever is left of the victims on TV in a cheap stunt of virtue signaling.

One thing which is relevant to this day is this, the west is usually very good at being murderers in a suit with politically correct methods of deceiving one to kill the other, it was so during Churchill and Roosevelt days and it is true today., while the east/Russia WW2 Germany in general is/was more straightforward, they wont smile at your face and stab in the back, they will just stab you. And history usually sees unjustifiably the latter as the only evil deed.

That has been and continues to be an oversimplified look at things.

Will a game about a German soldier sell, I will bet it will, even though everyone else will tell you it wont, it will sell more the more they say it wont for the controversy alone. and that is where indie games can shine over the big companies, because the big companies will almost never risk it. BUT it HAS to be done well and this involves many factors on many levels.

I write this because personally I have had such an interest for the future within our team to make such a game and has been in our notebooks for a few years now.

To add salt to today’s hypocrisy in games, it is OK to play as a Russian soldier in WW2 in call of duty as long as you are fighting 'evil ’ even though Stalin takes the crown in history in outranking all monsters in the field by a most brutal ideology and murderous brutality towards his own people before and after he started with others, the result of which caused the death of up to 60 million civilian lives more so than all casualties of WW1 and part of WW2 combined. That’s OK, but playing a Nazi is seen as bad why? because the world is labeled as black and white when in fact it’s shades of lighter to darker greys and everything in between.

[docjor]

It feels like the market is all to quickly being saturated with WW2 titles again, but it’s the same problem as 10 years ago where a lot of developers think the most meaningful and interesting source material is Normandy :rolleyes:

Just don’t try to glorify the ideology or absolve the known characters of the conflict and you probably won’t have problems!

[spacegojira]

@Poet_11

That’s OK, but playing a Nazi is seen as bad why?

Because the wanted to cleanse the Earth of everyone who wasn’t arian and of clean blood, they wanted to create a master race and systematically wipe out everyone who doesn’t fit into that concept.

Stalin was a paranoid madman, who arguably killed more people than Hitler, but it wasn’t his intention to cleanse the Earth of everyone non russian.

If you compare these two, the where certainly of the more “evil” intentions. And pretty much all Germans knew what was going on, people knew about the concentration camps and that the jews were hunted and killed. And yet the absolute majority still did nothing to stop it.

@Poet_11

You have to remember WW2 didn’t start out of the blue it started for reasons of which 10% in today’s world would lead any nation to go to war with another. But that is a truth no one wants to hear today.

I am not sure what you are talking about, but there hasn’t been any outside reason for Germany to start the war. Probably you are talking about the story of Gleiwitz in August 1939, where polish rebels staged an attack on a radio station (and multiple other locations) near the german border.
That was a false-flag operation by german SS-agents, to give Hitler an excuse to invade Poland and start his plan for a full scale european war.

So please, stop saying there were legitimate reasons for Nazi Germany to start the war and kill all those people. There wasn’t.

@Poet_11

As for genocides go, take a look at a massacre happened a few years ago (Yazidis and others), one can argue the recent attempted genocides are worse in the sense that the ‘freedom loving’ ‘all caring’ world watched with their satellite TV’s and did nothing while eating burgers even though it was in their full power to do so while the other was in a dark age of secrecy, control and full out war. They are just good at hosting whatever is left of the victims on TV in a cheap stunt of virtue signaling.

And the recent massacres / genocides aren’t worse, by far not. Only people who never visited a concentration camp can say things like that…
Yes, the people these days are very ignorant of the suffering of others, but mainly because they feel powerless. We can’t always stop the massacres in the middle east because Russia (and sometimes China) is vetoing any uniliteral actions.

[anonymous_user_9a913664]

@spacegojira

Stalin was a paranoid madman, who arguably killed more people than Hitler, but it wasn’t his intention to cleanse the Earth of everyone non russian.

Is that what kids in european and u.s school and taught? Cheap propaganda for idiots. That’s lie. USSR was always helping less fortunate nations, building them schools and hospitals, giving out millions of rubles to africans. We fought for weak nations againts U.S occupation, our medicine was the most advanced in the world, and we were dreaming about cosmos. All what you say is propaganda that billionaires forcing everyone to believe into. USSR was heaven. There was no one in need, no homeless, free houses for every family, free medical service, free universities. REGULAR WORKERS could live in a mansion if assigned “Hero of Labor” award. There were no rich and no poor. Everyone had the same opportunity. Sportsmen were not paid more than teachers or fabric workers. Anyone could be famous, even a butcher if they work well. Ofcourse all those filthy billionaires didn’t want to lose all their power and special attitude towards them, so they were promoting living in a slavery to buy a house as “good” and living a decent life, having a house and uni degree as hell. Do you know what differes good and evil? We all know that one thing is good to someone, to other it is bad. Like killing someone for money is good for the killer, and bad for the victim.
The difference is egoism. Caring only about yourself. Egoism is evil. Egoism is capitalism. Where on one street you can see a man in 10000$ suit, and a homeless begging for food. Capitalism says: “it’s not my business. I owe him nothing, let him die”. Communism says: “We are community, we all care about each other. A person shouldn’t live like that. I will take him to my house, feed him, find him a job. It’s our duty to keep every citizen occupied and happy” All people in their soul are socialists as I see the world going left-wing, talking social justice and etc. USSR was left wing, if someone is curios. And it was heaven. Utopia.

[spacegojira]

@QurbanOlum

Is that what kids in european and u.s school and taught? Cheap propaganda for idiots. That’s lie. USSR was always helping less fortunate nations, building them schools and hospitals, giving out millions of rubles to africans. We fought for weak nations againts U.S occupation, our medicine was the most advanced in the world, and we were dreaming about cosmos. All what you say is propaganda that billionaires forcing everyone to believe into. USSR was heaven. There was no one in need …] USSR was left wing, if someone is curios. And it was heaven. Utopia.

lol, way to discredit yourself. At least we now know what kind of game you had in mind.