Nazis as the bad guys in videogames? How is that controversial?

Screen shot from Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus

In response to the US president, Wolfenstein’s marketing used his own words to market the game: “Make America Nazi Free Again”, “There is only one side”, “These are not ‘fine people’”, and so on. Many of his supporters have taken exception to this, decrying the notion that Nazis support the current occupant of the Oval Office. Unfortunately, the fact that white supremacists and actual Nazis support Trump and march openly in America doesn’t help their claims.

The Guardian and others have stories about how the marketing of Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus has angered Trump supporters: Nazis as the bad guys in videogames? How is that controversial? The issue is partly how Wolfenstein adapted Trump’s slogan “Make America Great Again.” Alt-Right gamers would like games to not be political, but they always have been; it’s just that certain demographics weren’t bothered by the politics before.

It is also worth noting the reference in the game title to the poem by Emma Lazarus at the base of the Statue of Liberty titled The New ColossusI knew the famous line about “Give me your tired, your poor …”, but not the whole poem that starts:

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

Mother of Exiles. …

The larger story is how the gamergate community began to affiliate with the alt-right. Motherboard has a story about the shift in the r/KotakuInAction (KiA) subreddit.

So where does that leave Gamergate? Some people within the community are embracing the alt-right, others are peeling off in disgust, and most, it seems, continue to deny the link vehemently while paradoxically allowing that ideology to supplant Gamergate’s identity.

Cross, who even some Gamergaters would now agree was right about the nature of the movement from the very beginning, thinks that it’s going to be completely absorbed by the greater alt-right, and that this process has already begun with KiA essentially becoming a sub forum of r/The_Donald. The standard around which Gamergate organized—fighting for video games—is no longer the driving force behind KiA.