The issue I believe is the original root problem, at least out of the two examples, is that the timing and marketing of Wolfenstein is bad, terribly bad and speaks to a deafness to the current political climate. Their researching and marketing teams should have known better than to dabble in either isle's politics. "Making America Nazi Free Again" is bound to come across as either gaming activism, that those involved are pushing a narrative, or as being completely ignorant to the way the public interprets things. Thus it is [i]more[/i] reasonable to believe a major company as Bethesda or Machine Games have taken and advocated stance than say, made such a glaring oversight. Anyone can tell you attaching a label of political activism to your company is a deathnote if you are trying to market to everyone, even if you do it accidentally.

I add to this that when you call everyone a "Nazi" and advocate "Smashing the Fash" and "Killing Nazis", those accused people are going to develop the perception that they are now targets. Rightfully so, as I believe this not to be a phobia in the slightest but a natural reaction to perceived or actual danger. Where this becomes a bit irrational is... that this is a game, one notoriously not rooted in reality and realistically has more or less stuck to fighting [i]actual[/i] Nazis since the beginning. The issue came in the aforementioned timing and angle they came in, which [i]feels[/i] like a swipe at the "Alt-Right", of which is realistically anyone right of the New Left. As said before by others, this ties into a community that is [i]deeply[/i] skeptical of anything outside their area of comfort historically and now more so post-GameGate and the social justice warrior invasion.

They are going to naturally draw lines and comparisons, even if that approach is incorrect. It is more surprising that people seem... shocked by this, that this reaction is somehow unexpected and uncalled for. Honestly this could have been seen coming a hundred miles away by the cloud of rabble it was rousing. This is a failure on one of two fronts, either marketing for being inept at figuring out the mood of who they want to target to or the management for dipping their toes into political activism. Either way, Wolfenstein deserves the criticism for making itself out so foolishly and then trying to say something like "... "we don't feel it's a reach for us to say Nazis are bad and un-American, [i]and we're not worried about being on the right side of history here.[/i]" in an official statement they made.

Supposedly their [i]intent[/i] was that they did not care if it mirrored reality, which to me, between all the evidence, suggests they are willingly making their decision to be somewhat portrayed as activists. My opinion? The game was not and still is not worth purchasing as it is just not my taste, but they did sour my opinion of them by pursuing the angle they did and being opportunistic, but mainly questionable in conduct and motive.

Transitioning over to Far Cry 5, I am more confident that this is an argument stemming from the more Christian side of the hall who are normally portrayed as "crazy, armed, bible-thumping, doomsday prepping, hillbillies with big trucks" in their extremist forms and are generally stereotyped as zealots. To ignore the "Which religion in current times has more blood on their hands?" argument, this is not my focus as admittedly I do not care who is who or what is what, but all armed radicals openly opposing the United States are always the enemy. That is just myself in the matter and I perceive this a greater issue of timing, not so much marketing. The bits I have seen have more and greater overlap with classical cults like those of Jonestown or more specifically, the Branch Davidians who they share many tones and notes with.