Why can't i play Nazi's?

[munx13]

I guess developers are afraid the game would be labeled as a "genocide simulator".

 

[munx13]

We have all seen the many many MANY WWII games in which we play as either the allies or the sovjets. But why are there so few games in which i can play as the Nazi's?

The ethical/political discussion aside, war is hell, for both sides. The Allies weren't fighting demons, the Axis suffered a great deal as well. And i think it's about time we gave Hans in the trench a little bit more of a human face.

"World War II casualty statistics vary greatly. Estimates of total dead range from 50 million to over 70 million."

+

"The start of the war is generally held to be September 1, 1939, with the German invasion of Poland"

-> I think I'll stick to playing on the other side. Whether or not the individual soldiers held the views of their regime you would be required to follow orders handed down by senior Nazi officers.

Are you really saying you'd like to be in the boots on the enemies of democracy, gunning down [insert Allied country here] soldiers?

Germany and Japan were the aggressors in the conflict (Italy is complicated), there is no grey line. If you compare the war crimes of the two sides the difference is obvious.

Death rates of POWs held by Axis powers

* Chinese POWs held by Japan: > 99% (only 56 survivors at the end of the war)
* U.S. and British Commonwealth POWs held by Germany: ~4% [65]
* Soviet POWs held by Germany: 57.5% [67]
* Western Allied POWs held by Japan: 27% [68]

[edit] Death rates of POWs held by the Allies

* German POWs in East European (not including the Soviet Union) hands 32.9%[67]
* German soldiers held by Soviet Union: 15-33% (14.7% in The Dictators by Richard Overy, 35.8% in Ferguson[67])
* Japanese POWs held by Soviet Union: 10%
* German POWs in British hands 0.03%[67]
* German POWs in American hands 0.15%[67]
* German POWs in French hands 2.58%[67]
* Japanese POWs held by U.S.: relatively low, mainly suicides according to James D. Morrow[69] or according to Ulrich Straus high as many prisoners were shot by front line troops.[48]

But what about soviets? Weren't they enemy's of democracy? I mean they occupied the Baltic states and parts of Finland and Romania. They even attacked Poland soon after Germany, yet nobody sees a problem with playing as a soviet soldier in WW2 games.

 

[PhiMed]

It's this nasty association with evil... as if you are condoning what the Nazi's did by buying and playing such a game. Yes..not all Germans were Nazi's and not all Nazi's did terrible things but the human mind likes to generalize. In the end, human beings think a lot less than they think they do.

Meh... I'll attempt to paraphrase your quote.

"Condemnation of generalizing as you proceed to generalize about all humans. Assertion that people are stupid (except you). Statement equivalent to 'all mammals are vertebrates but not all vertebrates are mammals'. Nonsense statement that seems to imply that you're a better analyst of the human condition than the plebians."

The game described hasn't been made because it's difficult for individuals today to empathize with a German soldier in WWII. Games, especially those presented from a first-person perspective, usually try to justify your actions, and they can take two routes to explaining the motivations of the main character.
The first is by making an attempt to make you feel what the character feels or at least understand how he/she feels so that you'll behave the way the game dictates you must. The second is by using popular imagery and commonly held beliefs, assuming you already understand how the character could feel that way.

Without a massive amount of exposition, it'd really be difficult to get into the head of a person who's been indoctrinated their entire life by a massive propaganda machine to believe in the superiority of the Teutonic race and the German nation. Even the modern U.S. is a few steps down on the passion-meter from 1930's Germany when it comes to nationalistic fervor, so the character's motivations would be somewhat alien. Most people wouldn't really understand the character's thought process, and the few people who could really shouldn't be encouraged.

What irritates me the most about your silly argument is the fact that the real reason people haven't made this game is the exact opposite of your statement. There are plenty of games where the main character is an undeniably evil, even demonic, force. Some games offer moral choices where you can decide to be the most evil dude in the history of time, and they reward you for it. The reason there are no games featuring Nazis or 1930's German soldiers as protagonists isn't because we think they're inhman. It's because we KNOW they're human, and that realization makes us uncomfortable. We understand that they have many of the same motivations as we do, but we can't understand why someone would want to help the Nazis. We know that they are the same as us, and that even the best of us are capable of aiding and abetting some of history's worst atrocities.

That being said, a game like this would be an interesting exercise from an artistic standpoint, but most developers probably feel there are better uses of their time than attempting to explain the motivations of German soldiers. My guess would be that the few developers who are in the position to tackle something like this don't have the resources to do it right.

 

[Xero Scythe]

Edit: This post was pure nonsense, and as such, has been removed by author.

 

[Xero Scythe]

It's this nasty association with evil... as if you are condoning what the Nazi's did by buying and playing such a game. Yes..not all Germans were Nazi's and not all Nazi's did terrible things but the human mind likes to generalize. In the end, human beings think a lot less than they think they do.

Meh... I'll attempt to paraphrase your quote.

"Condemnation of generalizing as you proceed to generalize about all humans. Assertion that people are stupid (except you). Statement equivalent to 'all mammals are vertebrates but not all vertebrates are mammals'. Nonsense statement that seems to imply that you're a better analyst of the human condition than the plebians."

The game described hasn't been made because it's difficult for individuals today to empathize with a German soldier in WWII. Games, especially those presented from a first-person perspective, usually try to justify your actions, and they can take two routes to explaining the motivations of the main character.
The first is by making an attempt to make you feel what the character feels or at least understand how he/she feels so that you'll behave the way the game dictates you must. The second is by using popular imagery and commonly held beliefs, assuming you already understand how the character could feel that way.

Without a massive amount of exposition, it'd really be difficult to get into the head of a person who's been indoctrinated their entire life by a massive propaganda machine to believe in the superiority of the Teutonic race and the German nation. Even the modern U.S. is a few steps down on the passion-meter from 1930's Germany when it comes to nationalistic fervor, so the character's motivations would be somewhat alien. Most people wouldn't really understand the character's thought process, and the few people who could really shouldn't be encouraged.

What irritates me the most about your silly argument is the fact that the real reason people haven't made this game is the exact opposite of your statement. There are plenty of games where the main character is an undeniably evil, even demonic, force. Some games offer moral choices where you can decide to be the most evil dude in the history of time, and they reward you for it. The reason there are no games featuring Nazis or 1930's German soldiers as protagonists isn't because we think they're inhman. It's because we KNOW they're human, and that realization makes us uncomfortable. We understand that they have many of the same motivations as we do, but we can't understand why someone would want to help the Nazis. We know that they are the same as us, and that even the best of us are capable of aiding and abetting some of history's worst atrocities.

That being said, a game like this would be an interesting exercise from an artistic standpoint, but most developers probably feel there are better uses of their time than attempting to explain the motivations of German soldiers. My guess would be that the few developers who are in the position to tackle something like this don't have the resources to do it right.

i think you just said how we could get immersion with a nazi character.

 

[rossatdi]

But what about soviets? Weren't they enemy's of democracy? I mean they occupied the Baltic states and parts of Finland and Romania. They even attacked Poland soon after Germany, yet nobody sees a problem with playing as a soviet soldier in WW2 games.

Because you're either fighting Nazis or Japanese, who were by all accounts worse and on the wrong side.

 

[TheFacelessOne]

"ZOMGZ! NEW VIOLENT VIDE0 GAME HAZ U PLEY NAZIS! IT'Z G0IN TO INZPIRE KIDZ T0 KILL JEWZ! ZOMGGZZ!"
-The Average Media Report If Such a Game were Created

I would like to play Nazis though. It provides a different perspective.

 

[Acid Armageddon]

Ethical and political arguments aside?

It won't sell.

I'd buy it in a heart beat. It is a great game idea.....

 

[KaiRai]

i think it's about time we gave Hans in the trench a little bit more of a human face.

I agree, both sides of my family fought for the Nazi regime, and media like "Inglorious Bastards" makes me want to strangle the writers, I can guarantee most of the Nazi soldiers were either indoctrinated ot did not want to fight for the regime at all, but rather were forced.

Bar the SS of course, Hitler's most loyally brainwashed mental patients.

 

[Acid Armageddon]

Call me crazy if you want, but how does playing as a Nazi in a WWII FPS, differ from playing as a Terrorist in a Modern FPS?

They're all mass-murdering fuckheads....

Actually, they were just an army that conquered Europe. The German Wehrmacht was used for Germns frontlines, while the murdering of ethnic groups was left to the SS and the Einzatgroupens. I'm sorry, but you're argument seems lacking....

 

[CJ1145]

What bothers me about this thread is that the words "German" and "Nazi" seems to be used synonymously <.<

There are several games where you can play as the Germans, mostly in multiplayer, granted, but still. The Nazis was the bastards who ruled Germany during WWII yes, but as far as I've learned, most Germans didn't know what the hell was going on behind the curtains. (The Holocaust and all that, hell, the Nazi Party's official reason for the start of the war was that Polish troops had attacked a German border post)

Nazis are bad guys, yes. Most of the German people and military were unfortunate to be German at the time, as they've apparantly (if this thread is to be taken into account) been stapled as bad people.

Let's rather look at some of the good Germans higher-ups from WWII, like Erwin Rommel, who actively opposed all orders he got that involved genocide, treated P.O.W's with respect and compassion, and was basically honoured not only by his own troops and Germany, but the Allies as well, even having been called a modern "Chivalrous Knight" by Churchill.

That, and he was brutally effective; His campaigns during the war could make a nice game, I think. : p

He's basically the Saladin of WWII, then: An honourable man respected by his foes, but hated by the common man.

 

[The Kangaroo]

I think in a climate in which games like left 4 dead 2 and Resident evil 5 can be called racist for simply having black zombies in predominately black area, a game in which you play wouldn't be well received.

 

[The Kangaroo]

Call me crazy if you want, but how does playing as a Nazi in a WWII FPS, differ from playing as a Terrorist in a Modern FPS?

They're all mass-murdering fuckheads....

There is a difference between Nazi and German soldier and while I agree with you that Nazi's and terrorists are fuckheads so were the Russians, I mean the things Russians did in the war are horrible and lets not forget the mass murderers that are the Americans(atomic bomb) but yet we constantly play as them, slaughtering people by the thousand.

 

[Wadders]

"I've just noticed - we have skulls on our helmets."
"Yeah, so?"
"Hans, are we the bad guys?"

Respect for the That Mitchell and Webb Look quote

OT: Why do we need a game where we play as a Nazi? We could be a Waffen SS trooper executing social undesirables, or a death camp guard shooting the occasional escapee. That would work well as an arcade style shooter. Or not. Where is the need to play as a Nazi?

If you wanna play as a German soldier, fair enough, CoH already lets you fight as the Wehrmacht, and I can see that the whole "Disillusioned German soldier rebelling against the regime" thing that some people have suggested working, but playing as an actual Nazi, a member of the Nazi party/ SS trooper? Just why?

 

[The Kangaroo]

Because NO, dude.

Yes, they were humans. Yes, other humans have committed atrocities before and since, but the Nazis pretty much set the standard for the modern day concept of "The Banality of Evil". I mean, you can't really divorce "Nazi" from "Death Camp", from "Final Solution", from essentially the very atrocities that make even the use of a swastika (a relatively innocent symbol in some religions) verboten. You want to play a Nazi, you're going to have to defend your desire to play as a character who is not only supporting but defending an institution that created an entire bureaucracy dedicated to killing Jews, Roma, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, and pretty much anyone who seemed even the least bit out of place.

Yeah, you can kill, rob and maim in other games, but there's a difference between doing that and playing as a character who is a willing member of a regime that in an organized and efficient manner killed millions of people and tried to take over the world. (No, seriously, look up the concept of "Liebensraum"-- Nazi Germany was possibly the closest you could get to an IRL supervillain empire.)

Many german soldiers were, to a point, brainwashed until they thought that what they were doing was the right thing to do or were forced to do so under pain of death and I think playing as a character who was forced into doing atrocities would be cool

 

[BolognaBaloney]

I'd be fine playing as a Nazi, as long as it wasn't set it Auschwitz or another sinister setting.

 

[Symp4thy]

I don't think this was mentioned, but you can play as Nazi's in Day of Defeat. I don't really see why it matters though.

 

[Eleuthera]

We have all seen the many many MANY WWII games in which we play as either the allies or the sovjets. But why are there so few games in which i can play as the Nazi's?

The ethical/political discussion aside, war is hell, for both sides. The Allies weren't fighting demons, the Axis suffered a great deal as well. And i think it's about time we gave Hans in the trench a little bit more of a human face.

there is one thing i can think of. i think they made a videogame based on "All Quiet On the Western Front", which was a book that related on the Nazi side. very famous.

Actually, Im Westen nichts Neues (or All's quiet on the western front) is about the first world war and was first published in 1929, 4 years before the Nazi's came to power. I doubt it related to the Nazi's at all.

 

[Mister Ash]

Actually, they were just an army that conquered Europe. The German Wehrmacht was used for Germns frontlines, while the murdering of ethnic groups was left to the SS and the Einzatgroupens. I'm sorry, but you're argument seems lacking....

my point is, that while it's perfectly ok to play as one kind of stereotypical bad guy, it's not ok to play as another stereotypical bad guy, I'm not going to get drawn into a debate about who actually did what. All I'm trying to say is that it's a bit of a double standard.

There is a difference between Nazi and German soldier and while I agree with you that Nazi's and terrorists are fuckheads so were the Russians, I mean the things Russians did in the war are horrible and lets not forget the mass murderers that are the Americans(atomic bomb) but yet we constantly play as them, slaughtering people by the thousand.

Or to put it another way: It doesn't matter who you play as, you're* still a dick.

* you in this case means the player character in game.