Extra Credits

> "There you are, playing the PVP in your World War II shooter, and all of the sudden, you're a Nazi. You didn't ask for this, you didn't choose this, yet there it is, and it's treated no differently than playing a British soldier."
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> - EFAP 42
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## Personal Information

### Gender

Male

**Extra Credits** is a YouTube channel that makes video essays about video games, history, and mythology.

## History

### PreFAP

Back in the day, Extra Credits was actually good.

### On Video Game Nazification

MauLer, Rags, Wolf, and Theo, who was on EFAP, first encountered Extra Credits on EFAP 42, where they took a look at their infamous video on playable Nazi characters in video games called "**Stop Normalizing Nazis - Socially Conscious Game Design**".

Effectively telling that in cops and robbers you shouldn't be force to play as the criminal without being told that the criminal had some virtuous intentions or was force in the life of crime by threat on their life.

there needs to be some way to communicate that there is meaningful difference between Nazis and other armies and that people get that they are not interchangeable. this way people won't be win over Nazis their cool uniforms and victory cries, as those would normalize the Nazis and make people like them.

in truth, not all Nazi army people were into the racist ideologies or even wanted to be there, but unless the game specifies that the player character isn't Nazi and they wear the iron cross, then they are Nazi.

there needs to be specification in the game that tells that the playable soldiers were force to take part in the nazi party under threat of death.

we should also stop making players play as terrorists. think of the people that have been affected by them, people have lost their family members hat have died in terror attacks.

nobody should have their avatar wear uniform that belongs to adherent ideology, as this would normalize them to us and you shouldn't turn Nazis into just skin that you can put on and you shouldn't think their uniforms and symbols as okay. it turns something unthinkable to something dangerous, turning something revolting to edgy.

you might not think iron crosses in website as dangerous and read on the site and buy into the ideology

ignorance is a safeguard against normalization

games should either be red vs blue, just the good guys to show how bad the evil people are or if they need to be two factions, don't make them interchangeable.'

discouraging against playing as Nazis would be increasing the respawn time

if you want to use "historically accurate" excuse, then the game has to be completely accurate, not just themed or with some aspect of the history

playing as a Nazi in a game has to mean something, it cannot just be a skin.

its not going to cost to people to make these changes

people that hated the video are bigots and they knew that this would happen and are happy that the bigoted people would unsubscribe as hate is still engagement

### Hatred - Crossing the Line from Violence to Sadism

first he warns about the subject matter, then comments that western tradition is build on violence, since first sentence of Illiad talks about violence and rage. The book is foundational and seminal to western culture and without it our literature would not exist.

The book talks about war and destruction. Its classic and necessary book. We need to understand those emotions and channel them,as its helpful. He wont say that violent video games are bad or that all video games need violence. Its good to have way to at out aggression and vent the anger in a way that wont hurt real people. Lot of people have had the moment of instead of punching a guy in real life, you play multiplayer match or go play platformer, which then cools peoples heads and puts the rage in productive use, which is powerful and valuable and should be done to understand our rage.

Pacifism routes and no killing related games show us that there are alternative ways to deal thing outside of violence.

The rage and violence has value but it can be used to discover things about ourselves, especially children, if they play with parents or siblings that can talk about the violent emotions

Thinks game Hatred is going to be terrible game before it even is out, not because he thinks it doesn't look good, but because its about sadism, and not about violence or hatred, which is extremely different thing. Sadism is not "universal human trait" and there is no productive way to channel it, as its simply about doing harm to others.

Games that are about indulging doing harm for harms sake has no value. as by definition it won't teach you about anything, as soon as you have reflective moment to the pain you cause in the game, you cant get sadistic pleasure from it anymore. His not even sure it can be constructive, as anger can be expressed in various ways and sadism can't, as it only about hurting a person, a real person and that can't be done with game where you hurt a NPC's, but you can get titillation out of sadistic games. He doesn't like making categorical statement like this, but he still makes it

Mortal Kombat is not sadistic game, as the violence is cartoony and not visceral.

War games are good as they are about fighting to save your country, while sadism game the goal is to just hurt people and there is no justification for the harm done for fun. Harm is just the end.

He doesent think that these games should not be made, just that they should not be given megaphone or support buying them.

Violence is good to explore if violence is good to be used or are we saying that our cause is created just to act out our violent tendencies.

doesent really give any example of specific games, just overall descriptors, like war games and sadism games.

### On Orcs of Color

EFAP#133 video **"Evil Races are Bad Game Design - Bioessentialism & Worldbuilding"** written by James Mendez Hodes, man who thinks if he can associate orcs with racial stereotypes of minorities, then orcs are racial stereotypes of minorities and person who made the orc doesent have the empathy of a child and should be blocked and ignored.

## Quotes

"This is bad on so many levels. No one should ever have a random chance of fighting for the Nazis."

"frame PVP as training excessive"

"Only joy you get from sadistic game is joy of hurting others"