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[Music]
hi
we are back and we will have a talk by
manuel manat
it's called nazis in games um the talk
will be in english
and there will be a q a afterwards but
as we are streaming on two channels
right now
the q a will only be on the rest reality
channel so
watch it and then stay with us
afterwards for the q a
oh and the q and the questions you can
of course as always
ask in twitter with the hashtags rc 3
1 or rc3 rescalit and
on the irc
hey everybody thank you very much for
your interest
in my talk about nazis and games
nazis and games in the first place that
simply means
how nazis are presented in games but
after that
i will go on about how games are useful
for nazis or
fascist ideas in general and what should
be changed about that
let's start with the depiction of nazis
in games
with a historical setting world war ii
is a popular setting for games not for
all genre of course but
in the first place strategy and action
games
such games usually focus on player skill
and
challenging gameplay rather than ethic
questions they focus on
combat situations against a dangerous
opponent
killing or being killed not so much
on the slaughter of civilians not only
because it would be cruel but also
because it wouldn't be a challenge that
wouldn't be gameplay
however that easily makes nazi soldiers
look better than they were
like just one side of non-conflict
maybe with different tanks and uniforms
but the gameplay
is mostly the same when you compare
nazis and allies
the holocaust or showa frequently has
little to no place in world war
ii great games not only for moral
reasons but also
because it does not easily translate
into gameplay
and after all most games want to let you
overcome obstacles and be good about
your achievements that's not easy with a
topic
like the holocaust no matter which side
you are on
on top of that developers might want to
avoid controversies about such a
difficult topic
so they simply stay away from it
but omitting the holocaust it's not a
good idea either
you could interpret it like uh
implicitly denying it
you might say okay but it's a game after
all like
everybody knows the game is not the
history book
and indeed pretty much everybody is
aware you should not just believe what
games tell you
thing is that awareness
is not enough to protect us from mixing
up
the history we see in games and the
history
we know from more trusted sources
daniel gire examined this issue in his
dissertation
he did not work on world war ii games
but showed for example
that people who played assassin's creed
3 so
thought more often than others that the
boston tea party
had been a violent event it was not
even history students even though they
explicitly said
they'd be aware games can be trusted
when it comes to history
that awareness just isn't always enough
obviously
now i don't want to pretend games could
single-handedly turn players into
holocaust deniers
hopefully most players know well enough
that nazis murdered about 6 million jews
as well as other people they considered
inferior
but i do believe games can easily tell a
story that is compatible with such
knowledge
and still dangerously wrong
the idea of the clean bear mart a
widespread belief not only among gamers
but the wehrmacht did not have much or
anything to do
with the holocaust and other atrocities
that's exactly what many games show even
as the story occasionally mentions the
holocaust
that seems to happen somewhere else like
none of your business
nazi soldiers actively directly and
knowingly supported systematic genocide
especially in the east to be clear i'm
not talking about collateral damage but
intended extermination but in steel
division 2 for example you can lead the
nazis on the eastern front fight your
battles
soldiers against soldiers tanks against
tanks and see nothing about the
thousands of murdered civilians there
omitting this side of the nazis military
campaigns
is credible to an awful lot of people
it even reinforces common misconceptions
and makes
glorification of nazi soldiers seem
acceptable
several historians critical commented
those tendencies in games
over the past years if you want to read
more on it the
golden brief article by eigenvista is
available online
in english including hints for further
reading just search for
showa and digital games it's really easy
to find
steel division was just one example
company heroes hearts of iron
battlefield 5 they
might all be great games gameplay wise
and i really don't think the developers
had bad intentions
but they all have similar issues with
how they
depict nazis and at least the wehrmacht
so that's the bad stuff but
you might know that some games are much
worse in that respect
some even glorify the nazis because of
their atrocities
but those are generally shitty niche
products i'm not even talking about here
they exist they are bad but
i assume that's abundantly clear and
obvious so
let's ignore these games for now
on a more positive note game developers
too seem to be
increasingly aware that you should not
just turn a blind eye to the holocaust
in a world war ii context
the recent installments of the
well-known first-person shooter series
wolfenstein and call of duty are maybe
the most surprising
they are clearly referencing the
holocaust
and the nazis anti-semitic ideology in
wolfenstein the new order you're even at
a fictional concentration camp
and other historical concentration camps
auschwitz and birkenau
are mentioned there but still not much
and it might not be done perfectly but
i'd consider them
honest attempts to raise awareness maybe
it's even a trend to be continued
already more daring than the big
companies in that respect
are smaller indie game developers
several indie games moved away from
armed conflict
focusing the life of civilians instead
attent 1942 and through the darkest of
times
are two recently published games telling
stories of civilian resistance against
the nazis
of course the gaming experience in these
cases is wildly different from
woltenstein or call of duty those games
won't make you
feel great and powerful and you won't be
able to crush the nazis
but they are doing a much better job at
showing what nazis are about
rather than drowning problematic topics
in a sea of soldiers guns tanks and
power fantasies
i'd also like to point out the
possibilities of fictional
and more abstract approaches
nazis don't have to be strictly
historical nazis
and again wolfenstein shows up in
several ways
important parts of wolfenstein's setting
are fictional
they've got high-tech gear or even
occult powers they are about to win
world war ii or even did it and
conquered the united
states the image above shows them during
the parade and roswell
unlike in steel division nazis are not
in the game in order to make it feel
historical
the developers do not even consider
shooting nazis a political statement
for them it goes without sayings that
nazis are bad so they are just
used as stereotypical enemies
instead of homicidal aliens robots or
demons wolfenstein uses nazis
shooting them just seems like a
no-brainer and if you are using nazis
like that
deviations from historical nazis don't
even
matter so much the lower screenshot
shows
nazis from the german version of
wolfenstein 2
without the most prominent nazi symbols
because showing german games used to be
prohibited in germany
now this developer did much more than
needed
they also removed hitler's signature
beard and
renamed him to heiler that's all a bit
weird and funny but it also
leads to the question what do such games
what do such changes do to the game
if you removed the symbols of nazism
from
stereotypical and stereotypical enemies
without context
but would take away the whole point of
fighting them
but the nazis in the new wolfenstein
games still have
enough context even without their
symbols they are still
obviously cruel anti-semitic racist
supremacists
you'd still have plenty of reasons to
fight them
that also means games and stories in
general
can deal with nazi ideology and fascism
fascism
in general without even being about
history
or ever using the term nazi
here are two screenshots from the game's
caves of cut
and shadowrun dragonfall case of cutters
inspired by old rogue games and ascii
graphics so the graphics are very
abstract
the fascists there don't look like nazis
and they are called
pewter's templar but their description
is clear enough
they are an order of knights who loathe
mutation in any form
they are among cuts last true men and
they have pledged their lives to
eradicating the mutant swarm that creeps
toward their homes from all sides
that's not as strictly uh that's not
strictly the racial ideology like the
one of the nazis but
one about difference between pure humans
and human-like mutations
in any case it still is a form of
supremacism with genocidal goals
and that it clearly resembles nazi
ideology
in shadowrun there is the humanist
polyclop which does not visually
resemble nazis either
but the propaganda against so-called
meta-humans
sounds uncomfortably familiar
the elf york the troll all are parasites
leeching away at your prosperity and
happiness
it's time to wake up and do something
about it
so what are you going to do human
there's more like that and the writing
on the walls is perched in metal humans
and that's
what these guys are about the nazi
inspiration is quite obvious here
ultimately this kind of abstraction from
historical nazis might even help to
focus
on ideas and actions rather than the
superficial characteristics of nazis
like their outfits after all the term
nazi is not reserved for the members of
the historical nsdap
and nazis in real life today don't
necessarily look
like they did in nazi germany maybe now
they rant more about
muslims and less about gays but they
don't necessarily call themselves nazis
and they might not even worship hitler
but nevertheless share the same kind of
harmful supremacist beliefs
what actually defines narcissism or
fascism
it's not easy to answer most definitions
of
fascism revolve around ultra-nationalism
and so-called
paleogenetic moments that means they
believe in the rebirth of their national
power
and they usually try to achieve that by
forcefully
purging society drawing strength from
extreme unity discipline
and obedience all for the sake of the
nation's rebirth
if you're looking for them in gaming
contexts we can
mostly find three aspects first
supremacism and contempt against others
especially if they draw the line at
genetics or traits that define
identities
it's basically unprovoked intolerance
and even if it's only one step towards
fascism it's kind of a foundation for
all the rest
second dehumanization and genocide
which makes things far worse obviously
they tend to be based on supremacism and
contempt
but further aim for that radical rebirth
of the nation
which in their view justifies some kind
of radical purge
and then there's a third point a huge
repertoire of
fascist aesthetics not exclusive
characteristics of nazis relatively
harmless by themselves
but they are very common in popular
media and games in particular
let's say they are not enough to call
someone fascist
but they still have an influence i'll
get back to that
so these three points just serve to
clarify
what i'm talking about on the following
even in cases where there are no
historical nazi symbols to be found
now let's have a look at gaming
communities
the existence of nazi-like steam
profiles
has been pointed out before but i
decided to go and find my own
not only to get some fresh examples but
also because some of the known ones are
no longer to be found
partially for violating steems terms of
service
others might have just changed or on
private
also many groups are just deserted by
now
without a new comment in years anyway
finding examples is still fairly easy
start steam
look for groups search for the word
reich
pick one and look at its members their
comment sections and other groups
then continue like that jumping from one
profile to the other
let's start softly with romelu
this is a beautiful shrine to alvin
romney you can
feel the love poured into this one
rommel seems like a good fit
for the idea of a clean wehrmacht he is
not known for war crimes and
anti-semitism
but for strategic skill
he did not even obey all of hitler's
orders and probably turned against him
in 1944
however let me be clear that he
disagreed with hitler mostly on
strategic questions even admired hitler
at least until 1939
even if he did not vocally support nazi
atrocities he did not really oppose them
either
and he definitely supported the military
expansion of
nazi germany but i assume you get
why he seems like a good pick for fans
of the wehrmacht
even those who don't consider themselves
nazis
there are more than two thousand
avengers profiles
on steam 2400 something
and at least some of them actually
indicate
sympathy for fascism on top of that
the achievement presented next to his
name here
is for making all nations in hearts of
iron fascists
this player is a member in some groups
that are full of anti-semitic
comments and celebrating hitler's
birthday he's also in the steam group of
the identitarian movement
you know an actual far-right group but
an actual political organda
so enough about rondo for now
here's sargent steiner also a very
popular name on steam not quite as
popular as rummel but still
that's a reference to a character known
from the film
cross of iron to make a chart he
is fictional a fictional representative
of the clean bermat again
both the book and the movie at least
have a deliberately bleak anti-war tone
this profile however not so much
i mean all the waffen-ss division
insignia in the background the flags
batches
and achievements like propaganda machine
and tigers are forever
and of course the old national anthem
all of that is not even
fitting for the character of steiner who
originally is
not about fighting war and narcissism
but
even partially opposing them
anyway somewhere in his profile the user
explains he just thinks this profile is
cool
and although it might suggest sympathies
with nazism he says
that's most definitely not the case cool
anyway this is a good occasion to point
out which tools are given to players on
steam
because the background all those batches
and the emojis are not
user generated content but all made by
game developers
so they can be earned and traded by
players
some game developers obviously thought
it's a cool idea to give all those
gadgets to players
and well who could resist the urge to
use the potential and look
like an actual nazi whatever let's move
on faster from here
here is a small collection of portraits
all from one and the same steam group
called the
storm locale first of them is a proud
crusader or templar guy
who happens to be part of several
anti-muslim groups
there is more to say about the second
user his name might be a bit strange and
it is changing frequently
but the picture is quite telling that's
adolf eichmann one of the main
responsibles for planning the holocaust
who fled germany at the end of world war
ii
and lived for another two decades if i
remember correctly
cooperated with dictators in argentina
and elsewhere until he was delivered and
tried in israel
his trial also provided the context of
this quote
to sum it all up i must say that i
regret nothing
now that's just one of the most
disgusting and harmful nazis right there
the third profile is obviously just some
crop nazi propaganda
from dynasty and nazi student
organization
with a partially cut of harkenkroyd you
can see it's still in the corner
and the last one is gerhard barkon one
of the most successful pilots of nazi
germany
accompanied by the sweet lion grandpa
was a soldier
not a criminal so we're having
an anti-muslim crusader an unrepentant
genocidal nazi actual
nazi propaganda and believers in the
clean vermont all in one group together
and the first two profiles i showed you
are just two or three links away from
that too
so they're not part of the group but i
came there from
those two now i don't want to give
openly racist or anti-semitic comment
stage here but feel free to check them
out yourself
if you don't believe they can be found
in those profiles and groups
it's quite easy to find them also as
said
discussions in steam groups have mostly
died down over the past years so
that part is not even the most relevant
today
but you can still see that the far right
did
actually use steam to connect with
like-minded people
for example the nordic resistance
movement
which sent an invitation for the new
discord server a new one at the time
for people who want to talk about
politics without fearing censorship
now the nordic resistance movement is
certainly far right
using violence streaming often preparing
for the liberation war
they are connected to german neo-nazis
but also to
uk and russian right-wing terrorist
organizations and in some countries
that movement itself is officially
considered terrorist
about one year ago hardliners of that
movement
even split off to go for a more
secretive and radical
less parliamentary but more violent
approach
so these guys are not just playing games
the link is now useless by the way
discord meanwhile deleted a bunch of
far-right discord servers including this
one
while the discord group no longer exists
several profiles
openly associated with the movement are
still active on steam
to be clear this is not only an issue on
steam but steam is big
allows a lot of customization and it is
mostly public
i'm not friends with any of these guys
so that information is
available to everyone really
you can find similar things on other
platforms and also
in games themselves for example this car
paint
which has briefly been one of the most
popular player made customizations in
need for speed
briefly because ea acted soon after this
has been called out on twitter
good on that screenshot below happens to
be
from my favorite game tooth and tail
i'm also making official patches for
that game and well
this screenshot illustrates that it can
be hard for developers to prevent
all signs of nazism it's a strategy game
not at all sandboxy but some players
still
managed to draw a harken cruise with
barbed wire before
losing against me gladly i also
destroyed the hacking christ before that
but
anyway that just shows it's so simple
wherever you can put down
something in a 5 and 5 tile grid you can
leave your nazi mark
there are not many symbols that are
simply enough for that
it's easy to draw easy to recognize and
i mean
the car is not exactly an artistic
masterpiece either
and still got weirdly popular sometimes
nazi stuff might just be an incredibly
easy way to gain attention
and be edgy as [ __ ]
often when such issues are pointed out
the discussion comes to a point
when someone asks is this even relevant
are they serious about this do you
really assume they are nazis because of
this [ __ ]
and isn't it just a minority getting too
much attention
i cannot tell exact numbers of course
but it's pretty safe to assume
that in any public gaming community with
more than a few hundred members
you'll end up finding nazi content even
in the relatively good community of
tooth and tail even if i actively work
against it
some explicitly call it a kind of role
play
for example because they're playing in a
war game clan and in many chaos as one
side is playing axes and
they're doing it with style on top of
that
german engineering and especially
wehrmachtgear
generally have a good reputation among
people fascinated with military tough
stuff so looking like a nazi soldier
might be considered attractive
especially if you think the vermont did
nothing wrong of course
others say they just want to trigger the
lefties they're
doing it for the lulls on the fame they
say it's all irony satire whatever
and in many cases i am actually
convinced that a nazi profile by itself
does not say much about the respective
players political stance
i also know of g leftists and punks in
nazi attire
though they are more likely to go for
communist references
only in a select few cases we have good
reasons to believe
they actually share fascist beliefs
for example when they are connected to a
real-life far-right organization
organizations like the ones i mentioned
and they and their members definitely
deserve to be called nazis and it's
awfully easy to navigate from nazi looks
to such indications of actual politics
that means looking like a nazi for
whatever reason
helps nazis in several ways it makes it
easier for nazis to find and recruit
like-minded people they're obviously
using structures like gaming communities
looking for players that
are giving signals of interest in
fascist politics
not all of them are actually interested
but
they will find some at the same time it
makes it harder to identify those bad
actors
because they are drowned in a sea of
role play rumbles and such
and potentially it makes it easy for all
of them to retreat
behind the excuse of it's just fun and
free speech and the general
normalization of
nazi references on top of that nazi
references
might be easy to shrugger for privileged
white guys like me
but being confronted with stuff like
that on every other gaming server
makes it a really uncomfortable
environment for players
who actually are the immediate victims
of nazi ideology
so for whatever reason public nazi
roleplay is done
stop it it's harmful on many levels even
without
any bad intentions now
even if you don't look or talk or act
like a nazi anywhere
there are still things you can change to
making better in that respect
let's start with game development be
more conscious
about which mindset the different
aspects of the game are catering to
obviously wolfenstein is a game about
killing nazis
but in other ways it's not really far
from being a damn good game for fascists
too
stripped of the explicit ideology it's
about to struggle against the dangers
and monstrous enemy
but a brave strong and somewhat stoic
warrior will eventually defeat them
anyway to purge and restore the nation
that warrior is a muscular blonde white
man of course
often building two weapons at a time
pretty typical power fantasy
it can be read as an ironic twist that
the nazis are being killed by a guy that
happens to look like they want him on
their side
but as far as i know that interpretation
is rather new
and when the protagonist's face was
first revealed the vast majority of
action heroes just happened to look
exactly like this
in the same way it is likely a conscious
twist that the game uses fascist as
tastics on the covering image
all black white and red with one man in
the middle standing tall above the
defeated friend by blocky architecture
here the nazi sun obviously goes down
the protagonist is standing on
cleansed ruins and the dawn of a new
better world can be anticipated
might be conscious but structurally this
is
very close to what susan sontag
described as
typical fascist aesthetics based on
lenny riefenstahltens
here are some quotes you don't
necessarily find all of that in a single
game
but you will probably recognize many
aspects in a variety
of games the nazi films are epics of
achieved community
in which every day reality is
transcended
through ecstatic self-control and
submission they are about
the triumph of power just
think of the totally obedient army
armies and
smooth production lines like you
generally have them in
strategy or otherwise tactical games
everyone is doing exactly what you want
and the perfect execution of your great
plans
will make your faction victorious
especially action games
are never about normality you're
constantly fighting for a cause and an
epic struggle next quote
the contrast between the clean and the
impure
the incorruptible and the defiled the
physical and the mental
the joyful and the critical the topics
of corruption and purity are very common
in games
especially if you look at one of the
many games inspired by lovecraftian
horror who has been quite racist himself
but also others for example i
used to play a lot of blizzard games and
seriously corruption and cleansing is
such an
endlessly recurring topic there yeah
i got sick of it eventually physical
and joyful versus mental and critical
well that's also an anti-semitic trope
and it's
it is somehow reproduced whenever you
fight
mad scientists and big conspiracies with
complicated plans to take over the world
but you as a player you are standing
with both feet on the ground just doing
what's right what needs to be done to
purge the land
ideally you enjoy the battle of course
while your character
makes some cool remarks on top of that
yeah a piece of cake
yeah you know
only three years ago a dissertation has
been published on how
fascist aesthetics live on in the
popular culture of the present
the author yellow mellazzo she noticed
the fascist aesthetics are very often
stripped of their meaning
and used in totally different contexts
and actual nazis would have used them
only abstract connotations remain
something
powerful something wicked somehow
impressive and
fascinating obviously that makes fascist
aesthetics useful for games too
not only for depicting the enemy but
also for a somewhat
edgy player character
fascist aesthetics are not necessarily
linked to fascist ideas
in popular media they are regularly
completely superficial
but they still come with some issues it
makes it way harder
to safely identify seriously fascist
content at the first glance
remember the player profiles and these
aesthetics still fit
particularly well with the fascist ideas
the third issue is all of this makes
games particularly attractive
for people who embrace narcissism and
rather awkward for people who might have
had
actual negative experiences with nazis
now you can probably imagine that if
someone does not quite identify as nazi
for example because they think nazis
were actually socialists and hitler just
[ __ ] up and that's all that wasn't
wrong
and they might very well enjoy
wolfenstein too
saying i'm not a nazi i'm just critical
of political islam cultural marxism
scientists racism against white people
and all that stuff
they're not quite like your wolfenstein
nazis because the game is not meant to
be a commentary on today's forms of
fascism
developers made that clear so even
today's
fascists probably don't even identify
with those stereotypical enemies in
woltenstein
it might be a good game its story and
heroes are obviously against nazis but
otherwise
that game is not deeply anti-fascist
which leads me to the questions how can
we go deeper
i just briefly talk about one good
example that is
through the darkest of times one of the
developers himself
jack friede already talked and wrote
about how thoroughly anti-fascist design
can work so just reference a bit of that
through the darkest of times went for an
unusual art style
inspired by art nazis prohibited and
ridiculed as
degenerate art this art is
inherently anti-fascist not only because
of its history but also because it
defies
fascist aesthetics in many ways it does
not
idealize beautiful and strong bodies but
emphasizes the bleaker sides of life
desperation fear weakness sadness
destruction
bodies and faces are often drawn with
core scout just like a
woodcut portrait not too elegant not too
well proportioned by classical standards
accept and celebrate some kind of human
ugliness if you want to call it like
that it's just
pretty clear at the first glance that
this is no game for
fascists the gameplay is not about a
powerful hero either
what about a group of civilian
resistance fighters who
just do what they can without getting
caught they won't overthrow the nazis
ever you won't cleanse germany and cause
the rebirth of
utopia you'll mostly just try and help
others and barely get away with it
so there's a lot more than just a
general setting
that can be anti-anti-fascist in a game
you don't even need to go all in on that
you don't need to completely scrap the
idea of world war two shooters and
strategy games
but at least think about how they can be
less of a fascist fantasy beneath the
surface
so there's a lot of ways for developers
to improve
and a lot of aspects players or game
journalists should look out for
also maybe think twice about patches
wallpapers and achievements
that can somehow glorify nazi germany
and fascism which leads us back
to gaming communities remember i told
you about caves of cat
the game with the beauties templar which
are clearly fascists in a fictional
setting
the people involved in this game did a
lot to create
a vibrant inclusive gaming community on
discord
and they are taking a clearer stance on
fascism
than most communities in gaming
here are some quotes from the code of
conduct
to maintain a pleasant atmosphere where
people people can relax and feel safe
we want to keep out any edgy humor or
ironic bigotry even for the sake of
ridiculing it
that's just pretty much what i'm asking
for
in steam profiles too but they did a
better job at keeping it short
they also added a note on the pewter's
templar
support of the templars fascists and
genocidal behavior
is prohibited at best it reads as
callousness
to the reality of these things at worst
it reads as actual support
be sensitive when your audience includes
many of those who have suffered from the
historical or present consequences
of genocide or eugenics jokes have
consequences i really love them for
these lines already
the game is also pretty cool and
indeed they have an exceptionally
diverse community
and also a moderation team that is well
aware and represents
people for which many places on the
internet are just too
toxic to breathe in unfortunately
they really had a reason to write those
rules down
because they recently got the attention
of a big streamer that is
well an edgy guy doing virtual blackface
and such
who actually liked the game and so did
many of his followers
but some of them didn't like the
existing policies
in the discord community and they've
been quite nasty about it
so they entered the community and did
what they were used to
one of the favorites one of the favorite
topics
which also became a part of review
bombings on steam
is that the pewters templar are not a
faction you can join in the game
so out of the 70 factions in that game
you can join exactly one
but those people demanded to play the
fascist templars
and they ranted about it on many
channels and they weren't
nice about it so
the developer and moderators eventually
shut down such discussions because as
they say or as the developer said on
steam
for every one nuanced discussion about
the templar that's lost
100 more flour in its place because the
mods created a comfortable space
for people who don't feel welcome
elsewhere
and i guess that's true below
you can see one of several screenshots
of how
things look on the unofficial servers
unofficial discord servers created by
players
who like the game but not the policies
and
it's a mess full of nazi references
surprise
so yes you can and you should be
intolerant against intolerance that's
the bottom line of karl popper's paradox
of intolerance and it seems like some
gaming communities
urgently need to be reminded of that
the existing community on the official
case of cut server
overwhelmingly supported the developers
and moderators in all of this by the way
because the community has been built
around such principles
and they wanted to protect that it is
important to start caring for an
inclusive atmosphere early
to oppose hateful comments even when
they're just a joke
not when things are about to get really
messy
a community that already got used to
toxicity
probably does not want to change
anything about that
because the people who care well they
already left
while toxic users made themselves
comfortable
that's the usual climate established in
many gaming communities
and there is already way harder to draw
a line
against fascist content
i'm coming to the end so let's sum up
some of the most
important parts the parts that
ideally all of us should actively
communicate in gaming contexts
first of all please remember that even
ironic
nazi role play is not harmless it
normalizes indicators of fascism
and thus provides a great place for
people who actually believe
in fascist ideologies at the same time
it directly harms diversity making
gaming communities a bad place for
people
affected by hateful ideologies and
sticking to all of that edginess because
you think it's about free speech
actually just makes gaming communities
look bad
really bad and it's no surprise that
many people are generally suspicious of
that
whoever you are there are plenty of
reasons to
speak up against signs of fascism in
games
there's no need to condemn everyone
who's doing tasteless [ __ ]
many of them just really seem to be
insensitive towards
issues or shows associated with nazi
representations and all that
so we've got to explain why it is
harmful
even if they don't mean it immediate
success
is rare in that respect especially the
criticized person is more likely to
defend their actions by all means
but sometimes others are watching and
might be more willing to change their
mind
and often they just need time for
self-reflection too
anyway there are signs of improvements
all local gaming communities in recent
years despite all the noise coming from
the far right not only in gaming
contexts
so there is a need for action and
awareness
but fortunately there are also some good
reasons to be confident
that gaming can indeed get better with
less
narcissism thank you
okay thank you so much this was nazis
and games
and we will have a q a session
uh with manuel on the rest reality
channel
and here on channel one uh there will be
a news show and then at seven there will
be
a talk about uh neues austere
gesundheits sorry
sorry okay thank you so much for
listening and
see you later
yeah so good
okay um ah we will keep
going in english sorry okay
thank you so much for the nice talk and
um
we have a few questions actually so um
question one is
uh i will have to translate them
simultaneously one second
um is it possible that um
there's wait a second ah that gaming
platforms like steam
um don't really aren't really interested
in
checking their content because um you
know they would
lose users that are actually looking
for this um for the
nazi games
yeah that's not quite clear
i mean the the impression i've had so
far is that
uh especially steam has been very
careful
not to touch uh community moderation at
all for a long time
um but and they've
also been very um in transparent about
their own rules so they don't really
have a clear set of rules that
uh says we will delete this on that
content
but they keep their freedom i'd say um
however i think i've noticed that they
have
actually increased content moderation on
their steam platform because
i think i briefly mentioned that during
the talk that
a few groups i've i've still known from
earlier
have been actually deleted because of
um violation of terms of services and
well some things have disappeared and
there's also been a
far-right game that should have appeared
on steam and that was already announced
and
people wish listed it but they at least
made it hard for it to appear and
eventually it got shut down completely
so i think steam is changing on that
policy a bit and they're trying to do
more
content moderation but they don't want
to get
have any responsibilities or any terms
that
you can force them to impose
and i think that's also because they
noticed that
the people that are so much into
those fascist politics are only a few
and um most of them will stay anyway
so even if they are taking if they take
away the possibility to
have any image they want i i've also
seen much less hitler pictures and so on
on steam than last time i checked so i
think
things are changing there a bit and
probably also because they realize
well it's not that important for most
players really
okay um to stick with the topic um
imagining that publishers like riot
blizzard and so on
uh would start censoring their their
content or their games
um how could we make sure that other
content isn't
censored as well like for example there
are
chinese uh publishers who
send content that is critical
about topics regarding hong kong for
example
i think that's a good question and i
think i don't have very good answers for
that really
i mean from our perspective there's
a pretty clear difference i'd say
because um
when we are talking about the topic of
nazis and games um then it's about
well that's what i called intolerance of
the first degree that means uh
intolerance that is uh not directed
um against someone who actively harms
you
or someone who is intolerant against you
so
you can be intolerant against
intolerance and that's what
fighting nazism is about in many cases
to break it down
but i get that this is
hard to communicate internationally
sometimes and
um i mean you've probably also noticed
that many of the profiles i showed you
were not probably not german profiles
but from all over the world and there's
really
probably a bit of a gap in sensitivity
for
[Music]
how far you can go with nazi content
and so that that's really a bit of a
difficult topic i am not even
actually asking too much for
to keep the companies who provide
platforms accountable for censoring
content
but i'd really rather prefer to
see communities um
interact and um be more critical about
this
like um not accepting um the the
people you play with if they do some
really edgy humor stuff because
as far as i've seen in many communities
people who
really feel a bit critical about
nazi content just keep the mouth shut
even if
some other guy runs around with some
hitler means and so on
and that's the first place where
we could really change a lot so i'm
really rather about
mobilizing the communities to make a
change there than to
well have big structures changed and
ask seem to moderate everything except
in maybe really
extreme cases okay so you say that
it's more about um peer pressure or a
social
pressure that could work
yeah well i wouldn't even call it
pressure actually it's more about
just um being a bit more reasonable and
talking to each other
and telling others that this is harmful
[ __ ]
yeah why did they should stop it so
the next question really fits here it's
um
what would you suggest to parents or
siblings um
who know uh that their child or their
sibling plays
like wolfenstein like semi-fascist games
or even worse and get excited about that
so how what would you what would what
kind of
what would you recommend them to do
about it
i i'm sorry i think i didn't quite
understand the question
so is there is there something that you
can recommend
um for example if my sibling or my child
plays likes to play these kind of games
they see me fascist games um they're not
very
obviously nazi games um and
gets really excited about it and uh and
likes to play it
and i want to uh well of course
i don't want them to play it so what
would you what kind of
approach would you suggest i think
initially you mentioned something like
uh
wolfenstein um in which case well
probably wolfenstein is not a really
good game for kids but um
actually from the um fascist side i
wouldn't even mind
i mean um it's it's still mostly
anti-fascist but it's
not doing really much and i i really
wanted to highlight in the first place
that it
still can very much appeal to nowadays
fascists because
it still has all the things they like in
it and um
the nazis are really more like carry
catchers of
bad guy um
so so i'd be rather soft about those um
not really hard cases like
wolfenstein i mean if they are playing
some
really bad games those i didn't even
talk about
stop yet because they're really
intentionally
glorifying nazis but in the other cases
i think just maybe talking about it
educating about
um the things that are missing that are
misrepresented in those games
uh make sense but i really think that's
hard for uh parents or something
um because they'd really have to know
the game well and
have to know where it fails so
i'm afraid that's um hard to do
privately but it really should rather go
into the games themselves and in
into game journalism also so it just has
to be a
topic people talk about okay um yeah
also regarding the same
topic like teenagers um teenagers tend
to like forbidden or illegal things
and be rebellious so do you think that
it could be an issue to put
more and stricter laws in place or that
it could actually have the opposite
effect on at least
on young people yeah
um that's again such a case where
i don't think laws and official
restrictions are really the answer but
rather having the communities care about
that
and um yeah i mean at some point
there's something like
not really laws but i'm just uh
community guidelines
that have to be imposed that's rather
the point where i
would um make the the changes
and i think laws are just too slow
to adapt because even on steam i
if we go back to how steam the wall
developed
i think i as i said hitler
portrays has become rare but now they
are going for all that
well the those clean vermont guys and um
i've seen
portra um profiles where they even
mentioned in the profile that
um steam shut it down repeatedly and now
they're back again
with just this and that removed so
they're changing their
looks constantly and i don't think any
law could ever
keep up with the speed they are changing
and adapting to the laws
so they're always just trying to keep a
bit
below the the acceptable or lowest
threshold so
um they can keep going and that has to
be
done in a much more flexible way than
laws could ever do it
okay three meters for the most extreme
cases
sorry um so
is do you think that the right wing
propaganda comes
from the community from the gaming
community itself
or do you rather think that um organized
groups of nazis
are like kind of infiltrating the gaming
um the gaming community to recruit new
members for example
um
there might be some who are infiltrating
but for the most part i really think
there are just far right players
in communities like as i said
there are many reasons why games can be
attractive to those people
because they somehow reflect their
ideologies even and
there are appealing in so many ways and
even if they are not
um even nazis want some fun sometimes so
they they much as play it and then they
use the platform they have because
um it allows it i mean there's um
there are a few platforms that had
so low um rules or
so um flexible rules like
gaming community platforms that's why
they organized on this part of the
the national uh the nordic resistance
movement for example
because discord at the earlier times
had very legs
regulations and hardly acted ever but
yeah they changed that in 2018 i think
and do you think that the left the left
wing
should get stronger in the gaming
community for example to also
like maybe save some of the players
uh from the from the right-wing
approaches
um i actually think it is strong
it's just not always very outspoken
and um
yeah i mean we often have kind of a
separation in gaming communities i think
there are some that are just
overwhelmingly
overrun with well troll faces
and people and so on and of course also
some nazi memes and
i'd say people like us normally just
keep out of those communities because
we wouldn't have fun there but there are
also some communities that
have a lot of left-wing influence like
for example
case of cut really has a lot of
left-wing
influence and in a positive way really
um and i think those communities
just really go together and the
more public broad field is dominated by
those
um trill nazi memes and so on and
um i i mean the thing we would want to
do there is not
um posted with around with our own means
maybe some positivity memes um rather
but um yeah it's rather about
making those people start stop the toxic
stuff they are doing
um that's that would already be
a huge step forward okay
um last question um
imagine like i'm i'm playing with with
some people and they keep making fun of
me or even berate me when i'm actively
fighting against players with nazi views
or players who are using nazi
expressions
what can i do with those friends of mine
or with those people that i play with
and that i like
um but that yeah i don't just want to
drop them or lose them but i want to
change them do you have any
um anything you can
any idea what i can tell them to
i mean that's a wide field with many
possibilities of course
i'd say actually that's a pretty good
starting point for
achieving something because if you're
playing with friends
and um parts of that group are just
problematic
um that's one of the cases where you
actually have
some chance of
reasoning with them and explaining to
them
how the the things the other guys do
are well problematic and why they should
be dropped and why they
um should maybe um say stop it here and
this is uh [ __ ] and so
i think that's really uh from my
experience um
with gaming communities so far i've been
a moderator for example
uh in some discord communities where
every now and then um
people pop up and do um
nasty things and um put down some
appleist or transmisogynistic
something bad simply um
i'd say in about 50 of the cases you can
talk some reason
some sense into them and yeah just
approach them
rather softly and sometimes they accept
it and
sometimes you just need to let them go
for a while after you just informed them
and maybe they will think about it and
drop it eventually
others are um really
hardcore into this and some really come
only to spread their
toxic [ __ ] and um at some point you just
have to realize that it doesn't make
sense
to stick with them so um yeah
that's just different cases you have to
try it try it
i usually try it softly and quite often
it works i i've been surprised how often
it works actually
but sometimes yeah you don't have a
chance to do that online
then de-radicalization just works much
better
if you know people in real life and you
sometimes just don't have a chance
to do that online or communities
okay thank you so much uh thanks for the
very
interesting talk and also for answering
all the questions
thank you so much um thank you for the
opportunity
and um wait a second
okay okay and uh thank you very much for
all
again thank you so much for the for
sending the questions for staying with
us
and um bye
you