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 you know the Holocaust is real, then you know it affected and still affects real people, and that real people are going to have reactions to what is put up on your faq and what you circulate in your ads day after day. If you don't respect the reactions of those people (and demanding them to jump through the hoops of your concepts on reasonableness is not in the least respectful), you can't treat the terms your game is based upon with respect within your writing--and your promo ad is a part of that writing.

We know that things are being blown out of proportion

You couldn't possibly say this if you respected your source material.

I know you feel attacked, but it is you who are the aggressor when you decided it was right to offend and hurt people with the terms of your game.

We did not set out to make it into this whole thing.

I'm going to have to give you the benefit of the doubt on that one. But assuming you didn't, that you just screwed up, here's the catch -- ignorance/"I didn't think it would be a big thing" is only an excuse so far as you are willing to acknowledge your mistakes when they're pointed out to you, and work to change what you can. That does not mean throwing up your hands and saying "well, sorry if you're offended, but them's the breaks", it means saying "we're sorry we've offended people and that this got out of hand", and then changing the blessed name.

From what I can tell, you're trying to have it both ways here -- you want to be thought of as respectful, but you also want to keep the edgy (no pun intended) name. You cannot do both. You can, perhaps (if you're a far more skilled writer than I) touch on the parallels between Grindelwald and Hitler without people getting het up over it; as I say, Rowling's done as much in canon. But you cannot come right out, explicitly state that a fictional movement in a children's fantasy series is equivalent to the systematic torture and slaughter of millions of people and simultaneously be considered respectful. It's exploitative and it's beyond disrespectful. If you want to keep the name, go for it, but know that at this point, when people have said you've screwed up, you have no room to complain that you're being accused of disrespect. You've made your bed, and now you have to lie in it.

I've got myself into wankstorms before. It's embarrassing and infuriating. But here's the really unpleasant part -- upon reflection, a few weeks/months down the line, everyone who was saying I was acting like an idiot was pretty much right. I could be mad at them for being rude to me, but I couldn't deny that they were right about my behavior being stupid, even if I'm not stupid. I don't think you're a bad person; I don't think you're endorsing the Holocaust. I do think that if this many people are telling you that, however blurry the lines might be, you've crossed them, then you have to acknowledge that maybe they're right.