Why can't i play Nazi's?

[eklypse69]

It is debatable how many Germans really knew what was going on behind the curtains, and how many just denied knowledge to save face, not to mention their asses when the war was over.

The Nazi party ruled Germany, and systematically reprogrammed the population to believe that the Jews were responsible for the German loss of WWI to the French. They were also taught - in rewritten school books - that the Jews meant to destroy Germany, and that it was the Jewish people's doing that led the country into one of the worst depressions in global history. Armed with this fabricated knowledge, many people were ignorant to the truth, and therefore nonchalant about the demise of the Jewish people. Granted, they weren't standing on top of the gas chambers at Auschwitz holding the cans of Zyklon B, but they were by no means completely unaware of the kidnapping, relocating, beating, shooting, and theft of the Jewish people by the German military and police.

Also, while the military was not the SS, they were a military force that defended the Nazi regime and it's goals. The SS alone did not run the death camps, the SS were not the only ones who raided Jewish communities in Germany, Poland, Slovakia and put all those people out of homes and onto trains to the camps. Many ex-German soldiers and ex-SS soldiers today stand solidly behind the defense of "I was just following orders", but listening to several of them talk, they had no remorse for the crimes they directly partook in, and still don't to this day.

 

[Ygfi]

something to add, morst likely repeating something.

almost no one actually knew what was going on in germany (camps)
there was the whole propaganda machine and stuff, not to mention most soldiers arn't at home, there at WAR.

the soldiers stood for germany, not the NAZIs. do you americans, stand for america, or do you stand for guantanimo bay? (don't deny it)
if your not american, you should know better anyway.

 

[Squarez]

Public opinion dictates that the Nazi's are bad, therefore the average buyer doesn't really want to be a real bad guy (not like a superhuman asshole, I mean a real genocistic, racist, fascist regime, as I'm sure you are aware.)

 

[Ygfi]

another hypothetical about what it would have been like.
you're all siting in a room and i'm standing up front with a gun. i say "anyone (other than me) who stands up will be shot. stand up if you want to protest this." i now just select people to be taken out side, they never come back... are you going to stand up and start asking questions?

you get the idea?

 

[Ygfi]

Ethical and political arguments aside?

It won't sell.

But games where you rob cars, fuck prostitutes and kill random people on the street sell?

I just recently talked about this, and I'd love a game from the nazi side of WW2. Hell, I always use the nazi weapons in Call of Duty or such anyways.

Atleast those people in those games weren't hating other races. Besides that, you fought them with German weapons, not Nazi weapons. Nazis = political party. Weapons are based by the country of orgin, not the political party that is curently in ahead in said country.

unless you're talking about a lot of the weapons made my the germans in WWII. quite a lot of stuff was developed by them, weather they were willingly in the party or not. things like the V rockets and STG44 (not the MP43 as that was done secretly with the parties disapproval, as per the branding of MP).
unless you meant to say, based on the people who the weapon was for...

(i'm off to sleep, don't expect any more of my input)

 

[SnowCold]

Accually, I have an Idea for a WW2 game played as the nazis, without being rascist or anything!

Baruch Izenberg was a jewish Germen, who he and his family changed their names to chisten names so they will he will be able to work as a lawer and get more money for his family. (and by the way, jews did the every were, including britain and the allied contrys, just saying...) but then Hitler got elected and the war started, he knew that not joining the war would just make things worse, so he joins the war, hoping to maybe migrate to somewhere else after it's over. Then for most of the game you play as the Germen troops, fighting the allies (or the soviets, it doesn't matter). Then, before the last mission, Baruch (or whatever his fake name is) woke up at dawn to pary before a battle that they had no chance, and one of his comrade hears him, wake up the whole squad are they start chacing him (can even be playble, Baruch happens to have his Pistol on, the the people behind him are un-armed, by they are faster, and walking in reverse to shoot slows you even more, and for presice aiming, you need to stop.) After that, Baruch runs to a forest, to find a group of Partizans (Jewish rebels who ran away from the gethos, mostly/all from poland)/Allies stealth squad sent to attack from behind enemy lines, They start shooting him cause he still has his uniform, so he fights back, and after defateing them (tough not killing) he explains his story, joins them and the game ends.

 

[Troublesome Lagomorph]

People would not buy and they would be a huge controversy. Who knows, you may get sued.

 

[Chrinik]

BECAUSE:
Sitting in a buroe somewhere in Berlin eating Pies, looking through files and shouting at people below your rank isn´t a fulfilling gaming experience...

Playing as a Wehrmacht Soldier on the Frontlines however, is far better game material, which is why i will look at Red Orchestra 2, if it isn´t already banned in my good old Vaterland.

 

[ryuutchi]

as much as I agree with you, in most games you can play as a Soviet and, actually, Stalin was on par with Hitler in being a Tyranical bastard who also killed(probably killed more than Hitler to be precise)

Yes, but Soviet Russia doesn't have the same emotional impact as Nazi Germany-- Stalin may have killed millions of people but it was because he had issues with political dissidents, for the most part anyway. He's not known for having creating an entire section of government to deal with the bureaucracy of ethnic cleansing. There's a difference between a tyrant killing people because he's a crazy bastard and a government setting up an efficient method of killing particular members of society due to their ethnic, religious or social background-- and, unsurprisingly, therefore, there's a difference in how we remember those regimes.

something to add, morst likely repeating something.

almost no one actually knew what was going on in germany (camps)
there was the whole propaganda machine and stuff, not to mention most soldiers arn't at home, there at WAR.

the soldiers stood for germany, not the NAZIs. do you americans, stand for america, or do you stand for guantanimo bay? (don't deny it)
if your not american, you should know better anyway.

I would argue that, yes you can say that American soldiers are supporting and defending a regime that has committed war crimes and thus they are, in a sense, the bad guys of the scenario. I'd like to point out, however, that the Holocaust is kind of another order of magnitude from Gitmo. Holding people without is trial and torturing them is barbaric, but it's not exactly KILLING ALL THE JEWS.

Also, I would like to point people who think that regular Germans weren't culpable to The Night of The Long Knives and the serious anti-Semitism going on in Germany at the time.

 

[Bocaj2000]

I'd play it if it had a good story (and FPS games generally don't, especially based in WW2 era, in my opinion).

Imagine, it could have a really deep story. Your character could be a hitler youth, who generally had a shitty life and was then sent out to the war. And the characters should be more fleshed out and realistic, some starting to doubt their philosophy, some not caring, etc. It'd certainly be much better to see these things less demonized and more human. Because - in the end, they're all people.

Also, the depiction of russian soldiers is pretty bad too =P Any smart ones would run the fuck away to Europe - I know my great grandfather did.

I have an idea too [a little above your post]. With a good story a german perspective would be really cool. I don't know what everybody's problem is.

 

[gigitrix]

It could be interesting to play as a defector maybe, feeding info to the allies because you know you are on the site... something like that? Then you could be living/fighting amongst the Germans and the developers could easily evoke empathy with some of the characters.

Couldn't just be an FPS though, and so it wouldn't sell.

 

[Chrinik]

Also, I would like to point people who think that regular Germans weren't culpable to The Night of The Long Knives and the serious anti-Semitism going on in Germany at the time.

May i remember you that the world WORKED that way back then, and that japanese and afro american population where persecuted ALL THE TIME in "glorious" america back then.
Sure you didn´t murder them tho...

But the general public was fed that these camps (hence the name CONCENTRATION CAMP) where ment to concentrate the Jewish population and shove them off to their own country somewhere in the middle east...the whole north african campaign was ment to punch through to palestina and grab a big enough region for the jews to live.
THAT´s propaganda for you.
Altho the general population was meant to "hate" the jews and get them out of their country to purify it, it was never known to them that they be exterminated...

 

[TZer0]

If you really want to play the as the axis powers, then go buy Company of Heroes: Opposing fronts and Tales of Valor (original package too, Company of Heroes).

 

[ryuutchi]

and the resistence to the NAZIs was low for many reasons. and it wouldn't "Appear" unless people were willing to get themselves killed just to protest.
quite simply put, when it comes down to us vs. them, and being them gets you killed and us gets you treated more like a proper human, you go with us.
a gun to your head will generally stop any resistance. heres a hypothetical: i've got a gun, you've got... a rock. i tell you that if you throw the rock at some other guy, i'll give you some cake; but if you throw the rock at me, i'll f***ing kill you.
tell me what you do with the rock?
and public protest was asking to be shot. i'm not going to explain it more than this because it'll involve digging up phychological stuff.

Because people never protest when they know they're going to get in trouble/killed for it.

Hmm. Better go tell those Chinese and Iraqis that they should stop protesting now.

Seriously, quit defending it. The Germans as a whole didn't protest, and many many German civilians were complicit in at least discriminating against the Jews, if not the Final Solution itself. Yes, there were also many human, caring people who had nothing to do with it, and everyone involved was still a human being, but the only Germans involved in the situation that I have any respect for are the ones who risked their damn life and limbs to save other human beings from being killed (oh hai! that's protesting, and people never do that).

 

[Fullmetal1990]

Airfix Dogfighter allows you to play through an Axis campaign. You're much more likely to play as Germany in a flight sim b/c that's Luftwaffe, not SS, and the Reich had some pretty amazing planes throughout the war.

 

[silverbullet1989]

dunno if its been said (cant be bothered to read through 4 pages of nazi bashing) but the upcoming game red orchestra 2 heros of stalingrad will have a playable nazi campaign...

 

[Manji187]

Where I think we fundamentally disagree is that you seem to be making the point that the developers WANT to tell this story, but are afraid because of public perception, whereas my position is that they realize that effectively telling such a story and making it an enjoyable experience is beyond their capabilities at this point. There are plenty of games with a great deal of exposition and excellent storytelling. Many are successful in doing what would be necessary for this game: convincing us to want to do unpleasant things that are necessary to succeed. Most of them fall into the category of RPGs or some form of hybrid, but they do exist. If developers ever discover a way to tell a story of that scale and complexity in an action game without using feces as mortar to hold the game together, then maybe we'll see a WWII game from the German perspective.

I see..I think I'm starting to understand. But why is making an immersive story from the Nazi perspective beyond the capabilities of game developers at this point?

Is it because of what you said in your earlier post?

"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."

and

"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'm sorry I didn't get it the first time around. I still think taboos play a limiting role on game developers though.

But what resources/ capabilities are, in your opinion, necessary to create a game such as this?

 

[yosophat]

I just want to play as the Nazis for the weapons.