this post was submitted on 02 Jan 2024
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Infestation 88 devs address controversy over Neo-Nazi claims (www.pcgamesn.com)
submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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Infestation 88 developer, Nightmare Forge Games, have responded to claims that the '88' in the game's title refers to the Neo-Nazi salute.

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago (8 children)

Hanlon's razor. I myself had no idea that 88 had any nazi-related meaning before I read this article and thought nothing of the title when I first heard it. It seems perfectly reasonable that the dev could have done the same, especially since they were willing to almost immediately change the name and remove all existing promotional material once they found out.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (7 children)

Resetera (among other outlets) have done a bit more digging and it is more or less an orgy of red flags

https://www.resetera.com/threads/less-than-a-day-into-2024-and-we-already-have-our-first-steamboat-willie-horror-game-infestation-88-up-devs-will-change-name.800871/page-2?post=117080421#post-117080421

So we have:

  • A game about a rat invasion (anyone who's read Art Spiegelman's Maus should already know where this is headed);
  • Where one plays as exterminators using gas masks, who coincidentally use poison gas as their weapon;
  • On a game titled "Infestation 88" (which, as another user pointed out, has 14 characters, besides the obvious 88 dog-whistle);
  • Which also happens to supposedly reference the StG 44 German WWII assault rifle;
  • And if you want to add my original dog-whistly speculation, it wouldn't be a stretch to be suspicious of that "SS" at this point.

And, to add on, the studio's website claims they have been making games since 2010 with this being their first game. 2024-2010=14 (words).

combine that with the official discord being full of "pronoun jokes" and similar bigotry and it is really hard to view this edgelord game as anything other than a giant dog whistle.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

This. Cryptofascism relies on being able to scream, "It was just a joke / I didn't know!"

Mistakes can happen and you might accidentally engage in a dog whistle as a normal person.

A dozen mistakes all pointing to the exact same thing are unlikely.

And to be fair, it could be one person at the top putting all these wink wink indicators in, and the majority involved might just be normal folks.

I still won't be buying the game.

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