Nintendo groupies narked by Nazi salute

IGN editor-in-chief Brandon Justice has fallen on his sword and resigned after Nintendo-loving readers felt he'd called them all Nazis.

The games sites' forum went into overdrive following Justice's post E3 article which included this paragraph - "The bottom line is, Nintendo did little more than show up, and everyone is cheering like a bunch of skinheads at a Nazi rally. If they really took any time to think about the message, they'd realize that they're being filled with little more than quick-fix titles that Nintendo intends to use as a hold-over distraction until the REAL compelling content hits in 2002."

He certainly hit a knee jerk nerve. As Reg reader Ed Stern points out, it lead to a Morons-With-Modems First-Amendmentastic flame fest.

In the board topic: 'Who thinks IGN should get rid of that XBOX guy who called us Nazis?', 65 per cent of respondents clicked to say he should go.

Justice was a bit surprised by the irate postbag he'd encouraged. In his farewell column he wrote - "My fellow gaming enthusiasts, it is with a heavy heart that I write you today. Recently, I posted an editorial that many of you found extremely offensive, and though I may feel that your reaction was a bit hasty, it is my belief that I must obey the will of the people. Unfortunately, the will of the people dictates that I remove myself from my post here at IGN.com, and so I must follow the mandate of the masses, and officially step down as Editor-in-Chief here at IGN Xbox."

He says he's off to work in games development. If you highlight his leaving address he also says he resigned a while back.

Here's an example of the IGN readers' flaming efforts. "Brandon should be fired and forced to apologize for that horribly offensive analogy. He could of used many other analogies like the crowd was like sheep or that they were just blindly supporting the Gamecube. He should not be comparing fans of a videogame console to the worst group of people ever to walk the earth. That was an absolutly horrible statement that he made."

It sounds like Brandon summed up his readerships' Nintendo following quite neatly. ®

Related Links

Brandon's column which started it all - scroll down about 17 paras
Brandon's farewell
IGN readers baying for blood, plus some more moderate responses.