Hi, guess what, I am a mod. And if people would have read that the mods said before about the game, then perhaps it wouldn't have turned into this. We understand people are upset and perhaps if we didn't get attacked by everyone all of a sudden nearly two months after we opened, we would have done something about this. Yes, we understand people are offended, yes the timing of the advertising was wrong, but at the same time, a lot of the points being brought up in this are things we discussed ourselves when making the game. We did not pick the name out of hatred for the Jewish race, we did not pick the name simply to get attention, we did not pick the name because we thought 'lolz fun name'. We picked it because it tied with our WW2esque game. The game is like playing out WW2 because, if you know your history with the entire canon, you'd see that it was exactly what would have happened if Grindelwald did take control. We are sorry we offended so many people, we are sorry that people have taken this and blown it up so much, but we are not changing the name because we feel it fits. It is our game, our idea, our group of people. And seriously, our last game was named after an Irish terrorist organization.

We are not ignorant to what happened in the past, we are not trying to say 'fuck all Jews we hate their jewishness', we are not trying to 'get sued by jkr lolz', we are playing a game, a rather realistic game set in a theme of WW2. We, as mods, have spent days working out each detail of this. Yes, I do agree 'black caps' is totally lame. But that is simply because it is not their real name, it is what the characters have named it. Our game is about the destruction of a race, the genocide of a single type of people based on their blood. What was the Holocaust about? The genocide of a group of people based on beliefs. Yes, it's horrible, I'll admit that that is something that should never happen, it's one of the worst things that has happened in history. But if you think about what JK was working toward with the (horribly named) Death Eaters, if Voldemort had taken over, wouldn't he had become a Hitler as well? Wouldn't he have done the exact same thing?

Now take what Voldemort would have done and multiply it by thousands. WW2 was started by an extremist that believed he was doing the right thing. Our game has the exact same idea. Yes, our name choice offends people, but the point is, we aren't changing the name. It took people two months to decide to say something about this, we have people in the game that don't find it offensive. We are sorry about it, but perhaps if we didn't get attacked about the name, if people had been calm about it, then we would have discussed a change of names earlier. But after a group discussion about the name, we aren't changing. We are sorry, if you hate the name, then don't join.

No, see, that's not the solution, not to join. If you have a deep moral objection to something, the solution is not to ignore it. The solution is to say so, clearly, and to keep saying so, until the point is received. People have been extremely calm. I've seen minimal profanity and name-calling. What I have seen is intense -- and rightly so -- anger.

It doesn't matter how educated you are. There is no excuse for appropriating the mass murder of innocents for your personal enjoyment. It's wrong. You're not being attacked. You're being reprimanded, corrected, and you're hearing what people think. People think you're wrong. That's not an attack.

Don't be so hypocritical as to say "if you were only nice we might have considered changing the name but we won't because YOU WERE MEAN!" This isn't about you getting your way. If you think you should change the name because it's obviously painful and horrific to people, then you should change it no matter how people have treated you. That's what's called 'doing the right thing'. What you are doing right now is wrong.

That's great, if you have opinions speak them. We are simply speaking our own as well. We have a right to defend our own name and our own game as much as you have a right to tell us what we do is wrong. But we are on different sides of this argument. I have been calm and rational about this so far, and I have brought up the points we have been attacked on so far. We don't think we should change the name, yes, in the beginning we thought it might be offensive though though various discussions through all of the muns of the game, we went ahead with it because they didn't see anything wrong with it. We aren't trying to trivialize the events of WW2. We are trying to show that the world would be the same if a evil fuckhead had taken over the magical world. Thank you for your opinion, honestly it helps, but we aren't changing the name.

It's deeply offensive and whether you change it or not, I think this kind of thing -- that you could go with the name in the first place and the response to the objection -- speaks strongly to the kind of people you are. There's no undoing that. It's my personal belief that this kind of behaviour leaves a mark on the soul. Enjoy.

We aren't trying to trivialize the events of WW2.

You may not be trying to, but that's exactly what you're doing.

We are trying to show that the world would be the same if a evil fuckhead had taken over the magical world.

Except that the magical world? Not Real. So saying, "In this non-existant fictional world, if an evil guy took over, it would be just like the Holocaust.

In addition to everything else, you show a lack of imagination. JKR wanted to draw the Nazi parallel, but you'll notice that she never once used the words "Nazi" or "Hitler". She created her own terminology. If you really don't want to trivialize history, why not do the same?

sure, go ahead and defend them, but honestly, if it's creating THIS big a problem, can't you see that your little "discussion" of whether or not it was a good idea to name the game as such, and resulting decision that it was not was....oh... maybe WRONG?

why waste so much time responding to everyone's comments and defending yourself and getting angry and worked up because omg people "don't see your side" when you can avoid ALL OF THIS by just taking the rename token and renaming it something less offensive. if you want people to continue being active, then i honestly think heeding the fact that this has become an all out fight and a huge problem might be a wise idea.

by seeing all of this and "reading" it(i use the term loosely), but still sticking to your 'principles' and not changing the name, that shows that you are not obviously understanding just how big a mistake you made. polling a few people before making the game officially is not enough people. and I'm sure the magical world would be similar if Grindelwald had taken over, but you don't need to use a name synonymous with such horrid events. make one up on your own. If it has to be German, grab a dictionary and make the german version of "The end of life as we know it." or "the dark one" or even something like "darkness reigns". this name is not "okay" and there is something wrong with it. this outporing of offense to it should show you that your mistake needs to be rectified.

Aww, it's so wonderful to hear just how much you like and respect Jews and their feelings and wouldn't want to do anything to offend and hurt them just for the sake of your entertaining game...

Oh, wait. I guess that all fell out the window when we didn't fall down and kiss your ass.

Guess what? You're *not* nice people. You're *not* good people. In fact, you're exactly the kind of people you think you're trying not to be. You're playing a *game* and pretending that it's something serious. Yes, pictures with devil horns and whining about New Coke and punk bands are such a serious look at genocide!

The whole, "we might've changed it if only you hadn't been so meeeeeeeeean, but you were and now shame on you!" defense really isn't going to work out for you the way you think it will.

I'm sorry you feel like we aren't nice people. Because we honestly are. New Coke came out about a week ago in 1985, are we not supposed to say something about it in a game that takes place in 1985? We don't expect people to kiss our arses, nor do we expect the whole world to side with us. But we are, as I've said, allowed to defend our name and our idea.

No, honestly, you're not. When people - many people - have come forward and said the name of your game shock, sickens, and hurts them on a *personal* level, because of the real-world experiences they've been forced into, the right response from a nice person is, "oh my god, I had no idea. I'm so sorry you were hurt and we'll change it to make sure it doesn't happen again!" Not, "well, golly, we're so sorry, but it's silly of you to feel this way and really, we're totally good people! Really we are! Really!"

Does it really matter to your game *that* much? Honestly? Because I think it doesn't, and that just makes the way you're digging your heels in over something so racist and offensive even worse.

You have every right to defend your name. I have every right to post about this far and wide (which I have done and will continue to do - which most of us here have done). You opened this can of worms and you've chosen to react this way.

As for me, I'm done interacting with you, because I like to keep my interactions with racists on the lower end of the scale. But I'm not done posting and I'm not done linking. I don't plan on being done for a very long time.

And seriously, our last game was named after an Irish terrorist organization.

I have no idea how that's supposed to help defend you, because when I read that, my jaw dropped. To copy your suitably flippant tone: hi, guess what, I'm Irish. I've had family chased out of their homes by sectarian violence, and I've seen the impact a lifetime lived under the shadow of sectarianism and terrorism has on people. The IRA and the UVF and all the other paramilitary organisations murdered and maimed thousands of people, you appropriate that for your RPG, you repeat the same pattern of behaviour with Jewish people and the Shoah, and then you say that people should watch their tone around you?

I'm hard-pressed to tell if you are being deliberately obtuse, or if you are just this ignorant.

God, sira, stop being so OVERSENSITIVE! Can't you see it's about them and their games and not about you and us and the *real life things that've happened*?

That snippy tone must be the Irish in you coming out :p

They stole my Lucky Charms. I can't be expected to react with a suitable tone at moments like this :(

It was a joke. We didn't name the last game in fact. We inherited it. Clearly, the internet has to be serious business all of the time.

Oh, a joke. I see! Well, I guess that's fine. This is just like LOLCats or RickRolling or an OKCupid quiz that'll tell you which My Little Pony you most resemble. How silly of me to not find the Troubles amusing.

I'm Irish, I was in that game, my last name is Duffy and my first is a river in Ireland, do you really want to go down that road?

So let me say again what I said in an earlier thread:

"You have appropriated the name of a historic, terrifying, brutal, anti-semitic event in order to name a game you're playing for entertainment. No matter what parallels you see between the real Kristallnacht and the fictionalized arc of your game, you are making an explicit, direct comparison between the real oppression and slaughter of Jewish people and the made-up experiences of a series of characters in a game you're playing for fun.

Yes, people are offended; more, many people are hurt and sickened because you've taken part of their identity and made it sport. You're playing with history because it gives your game extra resonance in your eyes; you're trivializing something that real people suffered, lived through, memorialize in the fervent, often frightened hope that it will not, cannot be allowed to happen again.

The children and grandchildren of the Holocaust generation (and for all I know, Holocaust survivors themselves) are telling you that you are causing them grief and pain by your actions. This is entertainment for you - this is family, memory, history, culture to them. Do the right thing and accept the rename token; admit that your claims to the name Kristallnacht are faulty and short-sighted, deeply hurtful, and not thought through.

Admit that the name Kristallnacht has no place being associated with 'downtime' or 'fun'.

And please, do not expect that the people you've hurt should be civil to you as you hurt them."

What we're talking about here is privilege. You're privileging your right to call a game anything you want over the real world ramifications of associating the term 'kristallnacht' with something as trivial as a HP RPG. (And that's no judgment on your particular RPG or the contents thereof - let's face it; all RPGs are trivial. We participate in them for fun.) You're apparently comfortable with drawing direct, unequivocal parallels between KN and the fiction of your RPG - enormous numbers of people for whom the Holocaust is not a mere historical abstraction disagree with you. You don't have to change the name, you can choose not to - but if you won't, at least admit that you're elevating your "right" to name a game whatever you want over any other consideration.

Yes, there's an undercurrent in Rowling's books that's analogous to the Nazi era - but it's implicit, not explicit, and an analogy rather than a direct comparison between a real, named event and a fictional storyline. There is a world of difference between your two approaches, as many people have tried to point out.

I notice a distinct lack of replies to your extremely well-considered responses. I wonder why that is. At any rate, you've said what needed to be said far better than I could. Thank you.

You seem to be pretty sensible, and I appreciate that you haven't devolved into a lot of screaming and defensiveness -- that level-headedness is lovely. I hope, therefore, that you'll see where people are coming from.

The difference is that the game and the HP universe are fictional. The Holocaust was very, very real.

And, you know, to some extent, the lines of what's acceptable are blurry, especially since Rowling did set up parallels between Grindelwald and Hitler herself: you can't be blamed for running with those, to some extent, when the author put them out there in the first place. I'm not claiming the position of arbiter of what's acceptable and what's not, certainly, and I don't believe that just because bad things happen in real life, having them happen in fiction is an endorsement of those things. I'm coming to terms with having been sexually abused in childhood, but, while I think most fan fiction featuring rape and/or chan is appalling, I don't think it should be stricken from the web on general principle.

I think the problem here is that you seem to be deliberately setting up the parallels as advertisement, and that smacks of exploitation, of parallels you're working the hell out of just to be ~dark and edgy~. I haven't read the game, I don't know how deeply the parallels are explored within it, or how tastefully (or not). But that you're going to such lengths to set them up does smack of exploitation. While I'm not going to tell you that you can't use the name, I am going to tell you that while the lines are certainly blurry (no thanks, again, to the source material), I really think you may have crossed them. Hinting at the parallels is fine -- that's what Rowling does in canon. Taking them for all they're worth is tacky/insensitive at best, and at worst, incredibly exploitative and problematic.

We do understand that the Holocaust was very real, and we do understand that things can be taken badly. But we are attempting to hold the idea that this is not something that should be taken horribly lightly within the material within the game. Yes, our character page is full of funny photos and there are updates within the game that are trivial. Yes, there are punk bands and yes there are people that are not involved in the whole plot. But those characters that are involved within the heavy parts of the plot are taking this as seriously as possible. The updates people are basing this off of, are those that are not locked. Many of our journals are friends locked not because we are trying to hide things like 'lolz we hate jews' but simply because we made a choice to do so.

We put the parallels in the advertisement because we made the game to be a parallel. We don't sit around within the game going man, we should just talk crap about everyone because we hate all people. No, we use the idea of WW2 and what has happened there as a basis for what we do to the poor characters with in the game. We don't take it lightly, nor do we believe anyone else should. We use ideas and themes to create our own plots, our own ideas and our own feelings. Yes, it is much like WW2, yes it is very much like the Holocaust, but it isn't WW2 nor are we trying to just say screw history we hate it. We are taking it as it comes, trying to make the right choices in plot and character development. It offends people, we understand that. But as you said, there are things on various other games or fiction that offend people as well. We did not set out to make it into this whole thing. We did set out to make a game that was going to have a feeling of WW2, we did set out to make it just hell on muggleborns, we did set out to make it horrible. We chose the name to set up the world as just what had happened there. It wasn't the same, nor do we expect people to think that we are trying to make some stupid little game out of a name that we stumbled across.

We know that things are being blown out of proportion, but we are being attacked by everyone now. Half of the people, or maybe even more, are attacking us without even knowing what the game is and simply based on a FAQ and this post. The world changed when Grindelwald took over, that is what we were going for and what he has done is set up Europe as what he believes is right. His ideas are simply rooted in the ideas of Hitler, as JK as said as well. We took the ideas that she planted and ran with them. We don't expect everyone to agree with us, nor did we simply pick a name because we wanted to start something like this. We picked a name, we are doing our very best to keep the source material within a respectful idea. And I'm seriously only replying to you because you do seem to have some sort of calmness because if I wanted to be attacked, I would have just come on here screaming about 'its our game we do what we want'. I'm just trying to explain things in a calm way and I hope that comes across.

"if people had been nice"

Oh yea. We are really not sorry for not being nice when what you and your friends are doing is the equivalent of not only stepping on our eyeballs, but saying I KNOW I AM STEPPING ON YOUR EYEBALLS AND I DO NOT CARE.

IT'S YOUR FAULT WE HAVE TO KEEP THE NAME NOW![Defending My Entitlement 101]

And seriously, our last game was named after an Irish terrorist organization.

Protip: That's not the amazing defense that you apparently think it is.

You seem to be very reasonable, and willing to listen to people.

And I do understand where you're coming from, and that you didn't mean to offend anyone and don't want to offend anyone. But you have to understand how you and your players are coming off. You are aware that a great number of people are offended. Offended enough to spend money out of their pocket to fix things. Offended enough to come here from other sites to speak up when they found out about this. It's not just a handful of 'extremists' as someone said above, it's a large group of very real people with very real feelings and very real objections. And you have said you understand and feel badly about that.

But you're essentially saying here that you won't change the name out of spite. 'We are sorry about it, but perhaps if we didn't get attacked about the name, if people had been calm about it, then we would have discussed a change of names earlier'. Which comes across as extremely belittling, and completely negates everything you've said before about not wanting to offend, and being sorry that people are upset and bothered. So regardless of what your original intentions were, you're coming across as being irrational, childish and cruel.

You're upset that your game has been attacked, and I understand that. But by digging in your heels like this, you're not making it easy to give you some slack. You're doing the exact opposite, and only making people angrier and more hurt. Take a step back, take a deep breath, and take another look at the situation with a clear head.

And on the name and why you chose it.... There's a difference between what JKR did, in drawing a parallel and keeping it very vague and firmly rooted in fantasy and what you've done here, and not keeping those parallels firmly rooted in fantasy. By all means, explore those parallels! But perhaps a better way to do so would be to remain true to the spirit of JKRs works and preserve the fantasy, not the reality.

Hi, guess what - I didn't hear about this until today and that it's two months after the game started doesn't concern me at all, nor do I give two cents about the fandom around which it revolves in the slightest.

The timing of the promotion is beyond wrong and insensitive, and no matter that you disagree and stomp your feet, that you chose to continue without changing a thing means that we can and will continue to speak out. Your free speech is our free speech, and sometimes it does come down to who yells the loudest. Listen to the screams, all of them - that noise won't go away.

We are sorry about it, but perhaps if we didn't get attacked about the name, if people had been calm about it, then we would have discussed a change of names earlier. But after a group discussion about the name, we aren't changing. We are sorry, if you hate the name, then don't join.

You are not sorry about it, everything said and done and moreover, NOT done screams that you are not sorry in the slightest.

What you are sorry about is that people are speaking out and keep speaking out, but there is no genuine apology there. Not about how people feel, how you've made them feel, how you continue to make them feel - INTENTIONALLY make them feel.

And that's fair enough, it's absolutely your decision and right, but don't blame your decision on being "attacked" and that no one is being calm, because frankly, there is nothing calm about this situation and for the most part, the comments and discourse has been far more civilized than warranted.

If one choses, as an individual or a group, to do something utterly repugnant to others on the whole, they should own it. Accept that your decision brings with it a consequence and comments and outrage are part of that consequence. Those of you who don't find it inoffensive and want to continue to participate in the game totally have the right to do so, but you can not play victim in this and kick sand at the naysayers and think it's going to fly.

It's ridiculous.

but perhaps if we didn't get attacked about the name, if people had been calm about it, then we would have discussed a change of names earlier.

Ah. I see. So, you might have changed the name, but then people were *mean*, so now you won't.

You're still not getting the point. You're offending lots and lots and LOTS of people. Instead of continuing to dig yourself a hole with a giant "WE ARE IGNORANT" banner over it, how about doing the mature thing--apologize *for what you did*, not for *how other people might feel*, and change the name of the game and community.