[Nazis are total pricks, and any contemporary suggestion of their ideology or symbolism must be met with the utmost repugnance. [because it is difficult to distinguish between legitimate use of Nazis (e.g., accurate representation of Nazis in entertainment products) and actual Nazis. It also doesn't help that "Nazi" has become a common online pejorative, often used to describe things that have little to do with the National Socialist German Workers' Party.

All of this leads us to the most surprising place: the Gally mod. The very popular Steam sandbox tool is beloved for its flexibility and ability to create almost any experience or scenario a creator can think of. Some of these creations involve Nazis. And drawing the line between what should be allowed and what should be banned from the sandbox is a complex task

"I can see the merit in the games here that roleplay survival/war scenarios," Garry, creator of Garry's MOD Newman stated in a lengthy post (opens in new tab). 'Fascinating, entertaining, compelling, instructive. The doldrums of humanity will always be a rich seam for games/movies/TV/books/etc."

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Newman admits that this description applies to the "vast majority" of the role-playing community, and that it is no more harmful than Day of Defeat or Call of Duty. In fact, "in many ways, the role-playing community is much more interesting than that, and it explores politics/diplomacy/humanity/internal conflict/suffering in a way that other types of FPS don't. We don't want to crack down on these games."

But the problem with overseeing something like Gary's mod is that not everyone does, and "there are guys lurking in some of these games who really seem to love Nazis," says Newman. 'Some of them seem to really love Nazis outside of the games as well. That's what's causing the problem."

Newman says the question they are grappling with is how to act on this in a way that keeps the good and gets rid of the bad. 'We don't want to ban all World War II-themed games, but we do want to get rid of the ones that glorify the Nazis,' he says. 'Maybe a blanket ban on swastikas, Heil Hitler, and other Nazi symbols would be a good idea. [Newman says that becoming a father has changed the way he looks at these things. Both of his children play a lot of games and learn a lot from them. What will they learn?" and "What will become acceptable to them?"

Newman concludes with a short FAQ:

They paid that they should be allowed to do whatever they want

no

freedom of expression

no

being sensible

this is known to end up in a debate between a group of people who have a flag emoji on their biography and another group of people who have a flag emoji on their biography.

According to Newman, this is not so much a notice to the server owners, but rather that the game's team has been observing this gray area for some time and is now thinking more deeply about how to deal with it: "How can we work together to make sure it doesn't come to a point where we have to ban them? How can we help?" He is currently running the following poll asking whether "Nazi game mode" should be banned, which has received just under 50,000 responses. As of this writing, 73.7% of respondents have said "yes."