Well, this is a hell of a thing to wade into for a first post. Had to register for this(thought I had before, was evidently mistaken).
So I'm gonna go ahead and partially side with Alderon here, or at least offer a voice of sympathy and support for him, if not necessarily his position. He's done well to argue his points, and while I have my disagreements with them, he's put up with a lot of crap from people in this thread in stride.
There is absolutely no reason why his arguments cannot be debated in a civil fashion. There is no evidence or reason to believe that his posts and arguments were responsible for the removal and retooling of the game. He found the game's portrayal of Nazis to be insufficiently grounded in the very real horrors of the war, and took to the forums to voice his concerns. Y'know, one of the things a forum is good for. Again, while I must stress that I disagree with portions of his argument, as many of you do, there is no good reason to proverbially crap all over him as a person. Honestly, some of you have made me more inclined to take his side on the matter, since he hasn't returned fire with snide, catty insults(or far worse, as he's received).
As for my own arguments, I fundamentally disagree with the game being altogether removed. I can understand and sympathize with the perspective that the material it covers is inappropriate, and I do think it was a poor judgement call for massive ads to be placed on the site. It calls attention to what, by all rights, is a deservedly controversial subject matter and, as we've seen, can wind up involving third parties. I have no problem with the ads being removed, period. I also would go one step further and say that I'd be fine with the game being removed from the front page, simply left archived under Strategy. Yes, it would be less likely to receive attention, but such is the nature of games based on sensitive subject matter. Much of this is simply a matter of my core ideals, in that, while controversy is natural and welcome in a broad variety of topics, I feel it goes much too far to remove the object/item/topic in question. I must stress, however, that since we have no reason to believe that Alderon had anything at all to do with the game's removal, this is hardly a point I should wish to see leveraged against him. Wherever possible, stick to the facts of the matter at hand.
I have a lengthy background of historical study, and I think I can come at this from a decent, educated perspective: holy crap, people have really strong feelings about World War II. And a lot of them are misguided. There is no real debate to be had that what the upper levels of the SS and the Nazi Government did was completely, utterly reprehensible. It behooves us as members of civilized society to remember that, and treat that idea with a healthy respect. This is something I side completely with Alderon on: we cannot lose sight of that perspective, or allow its impact to be diminished. The bottom line is, he's right to argue for that.
That said, the issue of Nazis in gaming is complicated. There is an argument to be made, for instance, that the use of Nazis so often as villains in games could eventually lead to their legacy becoming something much more dangerous: banality. How many students, especially younger ones, really study history, outside the bounds of a relevant major in college? There is an element of concern to the idea of sizable portions of the populace growing up and having the most common portrayal the Nazi Government and its soldiers be generic baddies. This, it could be said, would stand to lessen the impact of Nazi crimes in the minds of many youth, provided other measures were not taken to retain as accurate a view of history as possible.
That blandness, that banality, does a grave disservice to the events surrounding WWII: the removal of the human element. If one's perspective of Nazi Germany centers squarely on the idea that the whole of the German people were involved or complicit in the crimes of the government, it lessens the impact of the fact that certain terrible people made very terrible decisions, with horrific consequences for millions upon millions of people. Care must be taken in remembering that the average soldier in the Wehrmacht was, in all likelihood, oblivious to the dark underbelly of the Nazi regime. The government's propaganda in this regard was extremely effective. Reports abound that, even late in the war, many Germans, soldier and citizen alike, were largely(if not, in some cases, completely) unaware of the country's impending collapse and defeat. These things are important to bear in mind.
Britain didn't win the war. And don't worry, what follows is in no way some petty jingoistic rant about America swooping in to save the day. Britain, America and the USSR were of equal, vital importance to the end of the war. Britain held a nearly miraculous defense against the Axis powers. Alderon was right to bring up the Battle of Britain; their stand against the Luftwaffe was admiral and extremely successful. While there's no telling what may have really happened if the Germans had attempted a land assault against the Isles, one thing is doubtless: the Home Guard would have made the Wehrmacht suffer mightily. They were willing to try and fight off an invasion by any means necessary, including(and this is not a joke) the possibility of attempting to repel tanks with pikes. No, seriously. Anti-tank pikes. Britain, man.
Another major point in Britain's favor was North Africa. The defense of Tobruk and the battle of El Alamein are rightfully legendary, and the fact that they managed to completely drive back Rommel(a man I admire a great deal, from a military standpoint) is an impressive feat in and of itself.
The liberation of France, however, would have been very doubtful if left to Britain alone. While the Empire's territory and resources were vast, it was, by necessity, overextended. Their ability to muster sufficient manpower for an invasion of mainland Europe is doubtful. American soldiers were necessary for such a plan to succeed. And the Americans, of course, likely could not have pulled it off without England. This is to say nothing of the complexities of the Pacific conflict, which would entail making this post even more unnecessarily massive.
If one were to argue that any single nation won, or was most responsible for the winning of the war, it would almost certainly be the USSR. They suffered, by far, the very worst of the war, and bounced back so fiercely(with plenty of desperately needed British and American arms and armor) that they pushed into and captured Berlin before the other Allied powers could accomplish the same.
So yeah, that...that wound up being so huge, and I'm so sorry. I just felt compelled to address some of the major points that have come up throughout this thread. Here's to gigantic first posts, I guess.
tl;dr guys, don't be jerks.
