I was intending to name the teams in a WW2 game simply “Allies” and “Axis” to be safe, but I was wondering if naming them by their actual names (Wehrmacht, Red Army, Marines, etc…) would be okay. I know Roblox moderation can be very frisky and unpredictable so I’m concerned that the game might get moderated if the real names are used, especially “Wehrmacht”.
I don’t intend to use anything very controversial like the SS, though. Would naming the teams by their proper names be acceptable or would it be too risky like my gut is telling me? Have any other games done this before without getting moderated?
It is a difficult one to justify really, to a certain extent I would avoid using the proper names as unfortunately your game is defined by your community and not just your studio presence. Its best to generally avoid using the real names or being too overly realistic as this can sometimes attract the wrong audience, whilst also detracting from your game being “fun” as people are more concerned around the history.
Not to mention its very easy within development to get carried away and finally overstep the boundaries, it can start with a name, it evolves to more historically accurate uniforms and a more realistic game, and then it finally evolves to people being full blown nazis… it happens.
this is the rule that i go by and nothing has ever happened (no real way to make sure any other way afaik), there are accounts and games with wehrmacht in them as well if that helps
You make a great point. As the game has a more COD-esque gameplay rather than something milsim or history-focused, perhaps going too deep into details would be unnecessary and simplification would be preferable.
Well in 2025, you do need to be quite careful as it is still a very touchy subject for very many people and kids are as impressionable as ever.
I think that if we lived in a society where people could dress as SS, Wehrmacht, Navy, Luftwaffe etc in a videogame for realism purposes without people being impressionable and eventually acting like nazis then I would be highly encouraging of it. Unfortunately however, most people do get easily influenced and it is better to protect children and impressionable individuals then allow for games to have a level of realism. As someone who is fond of history, I would always say “lets make things as close to reality as we can” but sometimes its best to never let history be repeated.
The rules really are there to protect the values of society and children, and unfortunately we live in an age where children do not understand the severity of the world wars and therefore do not understand how insensitive it can seem.
I would generally suggest its better you steer clear of it being directly named after WW2 at all, fictional nations for example may be suitable.
I agree with you. I do however want to keep some of the real world aspects in the game, such as gun names and the generalized “Allies / Axis” team names so it keeps the WW2 theme without actually glorifying any of the sides.
To update, I have decided to rename the teams on the client side as “Your Team” and “Enemy Team” since I felt like the Allies & Axis approach was also not enough. The game still contains army uniforms (without any symbology or similar) and real WW2 weapons that can be selected freely, but the game avoids directly aligning the players with the factions. I believe this might be the safest way to conduct the game.