Garry's Mod dev wants to "get rid of the celebration of Nazis" in his game
"This isn't a loss of freedom."
Garry's Mod has a Nazi problem, and its developer wants to do something about it.
In a tweet, Garry Newman, creator of the incredibly popular physics sandbox game and founder of Facepunch Studios, said "lurking" in some Garry's Mod roleplaying servers are "a bunch of guys that really seem to love the Nazis".
"It seems like a few of them really love the Nazis outside of the game too," Newman continued.
"If someone is running a WW2 roleplay server, and taking donations, and this bunch of regular hardcore players really love the Nazi stuff... what are they gonna turn the game more towards?
"Are they going to say 'hey this isn't really what this game is about please find another community'?"
Newman went on to ponder the difficulty of keeping "the good stuff" while getting rid of "the bad stuff" in Garry's Mod roleplaying servers.
"We obviously don't want to ban all WW2 themed games, but we do want to get rid of the celebration of Nazis," he explained, pondering whether the developers should ban Nazi symbolism outright.
It sounds like Newman is still working out how to play this, but settled on a warning of sorts to Garry's Mod server owners:
"We've had this grey area for a while and now we're keeping more of an eye on it. How can we work together to stop it becoming something we have to ban?"
Newman also insisted any action he takes shouldn't be considered a loss of freedom, or an attack on players' free will.
"This isn't mind control," he said. "This is nothing new.
"We have taken servers down before, we have blocked unsavoury activities, and we're going to keep doing that."
Newman's tweet followed a poll in which he asked his followers whether the developers should ban Nazi game modes in Garry's Mod. 73 percent of respondents voted yes.
Garry's Mod isn't the only game with a Nazi problem, of course. The kids-focused Roblox has struggled to moderate fascism, and Valve itself has come under fire from a US senator over Steam hosting Neo-Nazi content.