If you'd do a little reading of the thread that you're posting in, you'd realize that everyone has already completely agreed on that point.

@2headedninja: I feel your grasping just a little bit.

You're not shooting Germans in Wolfenstein- you're shooting nazis. Granted in Germany they didn't have swastikas in the game but you know what they were ;)

You should be happy about this. I mean nazis ruined the world view of Germans forever.

There are very few Germans in any pop cultural thing (I'm speaking purely from an American standpoint that has been around so a lot of this is mainly American entertainment that permeates to other cultures) that aren't villains and I believe this all stems from the Nazi party (I am leaving out the great works that Christoph Waltz has done with Quintin Tarantino as even in that regard there's only one where he wasn't villain).

I don't look at it like shooting Germans, though, when it's nazis. Because I know Germans, as a race of human beings, are not nazis. There are Americans still- today- that follow Nazi ideology. They are no better as people than nazis. I would be just as happy to shoot them in a video game because they're pure trash. They're not American, they're not German. They're trash- I think we can agree on that point.

As for other cultures that get shoe-horned into villainous stereotypes: I can see how it's more difficult to separate what they are supposed to represent from their race. The nazis are simple- they have an insignia that very clearly represents a reality that is terrible. People recognize it and know it represents evil ideology. When you're shooting a terrorist all you have to go on is the fact that you're told they're terrorists. Anyone can be a terrorists. The biggest element a terrorist has is that you don't know who they are- I know this from experience. They (being the media and politicians mostly) try to put a face to terrorism, but truly there really is no face to terrorism because of how terrorism works.

As a video game designer I can imagine that's very difficult water to go through. I don't think their intention ever is to say the race of the enemy is what is evil but rather that the ideology is. It's much simpler when you have something to point to that everyone recognizes (like a Swastika) but with modern sensibilities things like "terrorists" are much harder to define. It most often ends with a turban which is actually fairly racist and a shame that that's all they can grasp onto.

I don't know if that makes sense, and I have said a lot and I don't wait to take up to much of your time. These were my thoughts on what you said about how other cultures can feel uncomfortable that their race is represented as a villain. I don't think they should be because their race is not the villain. The villain is an ideology that is being represented which may happen to be something others in their race have followed. If a developer wanted to use American neo-nazis as a villain in a game more often I think that would be just as fine because it's just as real as the Nazi party of world war 2 or Islamic terrorists.

How many would agree- in pop culture I mean- is hard to say. I can only speak for my own perceptions.

@cornbredx: The problem with your argument is that the Nazis in Wolfenstein 3D are one-dimensional characters that are defined by two things. Being Nazis, and speaking (bad) German. There are no sympathetic German characters, soldiers otherwise, in the game.

@hailinel: Why would there be? You're in a nazi POW camp during world War 2.

If we say that playing as a member of the luftwaffe in this game is offensive, then we should take it to the logical extreme and say that everyone who plays germany in axis and allies are nazis. Or those playing the u.s.s.r. are communists.

I mean, while genghis khan and the mongols committed horrible atrocities in his conquests and the romans did as well (paling compared to hitler and stalin obviously), we still play as the romans and mongols in games you know. The mongol campaign in AoE2 was one of my favourite ones.

@cornbredx:

You should watch the classic old movie, the great escape. There's a german prison guard who is just doing his job and doesn't appear to like the regime at all. Also the kommandant at the end does appear very sympathetic when he gives word that 50 escaped pow's were shot; he didn't seem like much of a nazi to me, more like an old career soldier.

@belegorm: Ya, there's a couple of movies. I was just speaking in terms of modern pop culture.

Schindler's list is another good film about a German who does something good that several people can point to (one of Liam Neeson's finest roles as well- a lot of people forget about that).

In terms of commonality, though, German's tend to be bad guys and it seems like more often than most.

My main point, though, is their race is not what the bad guy is but their ideology. Or at least when written well that's how it should be I suppose. I can't speak to all of film history on that- we'd start going down the rabbit hole of Italian Nazi exploitation films and other stuff and it just goes crazy at that point.

@joshwent:

Well sorry for trying to help. Maybe when you actually play the game your opinion will change

This just seems like a bizarre version of what kind of issue we could have had if this was 20 years ago with 1942. Made by a Japanese company where you play as a Ally pilot shooting other planes down. Many people consider 1942 a classic arcade game and have no issue with it. I just find it curious because they seem similar (not really in game play but more in terms of the environment of development and ideas).

Then again as I have not played Luftrausers but have heard more about people taking offense to what I see as a mindless, enjoyable game.