Twilight of the White Boy Club

I'm late to the party here and don't have the time to really get into the comments, but this is great.

I didn't see if anyone posted it deeper in the thread, but if you haven't seen it yet, my friend just wrote a really great (and cited) piece about colonialism in games. dailyworkerplacement.com/2021/02/15/colo...oard-games-part-one/

Thanks for sharing that Matt- great piece especially this line-

“ We see games normalizing what is, in modern times, a deeply hidden ideology that allows colonialism to go unquestioned.”

The question of colonialism as a concept in games becomes vastly more complex than representation, imo, because after the low hanging historical event ugh worthy fruit is addressed this critique even speaks to what people *do* and *like to do* in games, irrespective of theme or set dressing.

I think the handwringing here is going too far. How many people here like to play Ameritrash games or war games or any kind of games that feature simulated violence or even warfare? Most of us, probably. How many people here like to kill people? Hopefully zero. I think this is an important distinction.

I really like the Spartacus board game. It's a game about treachery, acquiring slaves, and making the slaves fight in gladiatorial combats. And gambling. In real life, I am a loyal friend, and I loathe the practice of slavery. I don't even like to gamble. The fact that I enjoy playing a well-designed game about loathsome topics doesn't make me a bad person, EDIT (to hammer the point) because I am playing a game and NOT doing those loathsome things.

Yeah, when I saw a photo of Catan, I thought, “I don’t want to feel guilty about playing THAT one.”

I like Spartacus, too, but part of what I like about it (in its original form) is that it was grounded in a particular interpretation (a TV show) that clearly was fantastical and absurd. I'm wondering how the new edition, stripped out of necessity of the IP, will end up playing out because then it becomes some sort of "historical" game, which is far from the truth.

jpat wrote: I like Spartacus, too, but part of what I like about it (in its original form) is that it was grounded in a particular interpretation (a TV show) that clearly was fantastical and absurd. I'm wondering how the new edition, stripped out of necessity of the IP, will end up playing out because then it becomes some sort of "historical" game, which is far from the truth.

Agreed. Spartacus (the game, first version) is a depiction of a fucked up show, and yes they are quite clear that you are trading in slaves. Perhaps I am a hypocrite for continuing to like both the game and the show. I don't know the answer to that, but I do know that in the real world I would never partake in any such activities (I mean, I'll gamble, but not on fights to the death!), and this is in my top 5 board games of all time and I don't see it moving.

Losing the show license, I think a lot of the content of the game will just seem strange. Many cards are named deliberately after common sayings from the show.

Anyone that says colonialism is a white problem just hasn't read any books. It has happened, and will happen, to everyone by everyone given time and opportunity. My wife's mom talks about how her grandfather was placed into an orphanage after his tribe was annihilated and the land resettled but this very thing could and did happen under the tribes themselves, no outside colonizer required. So it is a concept baked into our very cultural DNA and is almost impossible to eradicate the impulse to "remove and replace" the old with the new.

Board games are very often about conflict. There are game balance and game play mechanics that are necessary to ensure that the game, above all, is fun. So any expansion game needs a limiter on that expansion, often some pre-existing "resistance" which is essentially a 'barbarian tribe', 'hostile planet', or 'elder race' that is merely a necessary speed bump.

Take my favorite game, Power Grid. You are power companies expanding into new areas. Where all those cities devoid of the juice before you? Probably not. You and the other players are pushing out other unnamed groups (probably those famous "mom and pop" small businesses) in favor of your power oligarchy (and quite frankly down in Texas they could use a little national power oligarchy at the moment . This happens in TONS of games at some level.

Enjoying this type of pervasive mechanic doesn't make you a bad person. You don't have to read white guilt colonialism into it, just like you don't have to read chinese imperialism, pre-columbian american colonialism, or pan-pacific conflict into it. EVERY human can trace their lineage to some group that exploited another and simultaneously to a group that WAS exploited. We are both victim and oppressor.

So should any game theme that deals with european colonialism be banned and tossed on the purging fires by the 'firemen' of the new ideology? I don't think so. But they should be understood in context even if they reduce centuries of human suffering into a point salad mechanic. We can celebrate our achievements while also expressing remorse for what was lost.

Otherwise all we will be playing are Castle Panic type co-ops resisting the endless hordes pressing in on our twilight empires because for most colonizing stories that was how the loser felt.

Kudos to Efka for the video, it's a lot of work and it's an important topic that I would love to explore. But I was very dissapointed by the video.

Fundamentally, it's a half an hour video that doesn't show its main thesis until the halfway point. Then it follows with some good questions but strays again to talk about the Spiel de Jahres, the Windfell disaster, an experimental poet and then by the 20 minute mark it comes back with some examples of colonialism in boardgames.

Again it diverts. Efka talks about the industry and the art form growing up and then the Zenobia Award. Then he recommends hiring "sensitivity readers", then we are back to the poet again and then talks about how Imperial Struggle "simulates" instead of "depicts" and then talks about Eklund and a billion other things. By the 27:50 mark, he himself notes that he has spent a lot of time talking about post-colonialism without explaining what that is!

I truly appreciate the attempt but I couldn't make heads or tails out of it. It lacks a organization, jumps from one topic to another and doesn't really have a central argument. Most of it barely deals with boardgames. And look, I don't blame him. Two weeks ago I had no article to publish because my attempt to talk about "There are not too many games" was so poor my editor told me not to. But it's not a good video.

The no pun intended video is great. Never watched any of his material before.

My favourite novel is the 5th head of Cerberus by Gene Wolfe, which deals with post colonial themes in a sci fi setting.

Colonialism and imperialism are completely pervasive in gaming. An issue we have is we enjoy immoral or at least ammoral fantasies. This was picked up in Barnes original article. Whether its shooting people in video games conquest, subjugation of others, or resource exploitation. A lot of what we are doing with settings or themes is trying to sanitise our self away from the harsher realities of these actions. Even a game like Cosmic Encounter, loved by many on this site, is about colonising each others planets and subjugating those with a weaker hand of cards / race power or negotiation skill.

I spent several hours over the past week playing Europa Universalis 4 as the Russians doing things that mentioned in the video. In most paradox games you have to actively dismantle the cultural identify of the nations you conquer to reduce the frequency of rebellions. I have easily shot more people in video games over the past 10-20 years and killed more people in wars and political actions in strategy games than any real human being could have. Having played a lot of defcon probably by a considerable margin.

I appreciate what you are saying Erik that the video is a bit unstructured in its argument. However this is a hard subject to discuss. Firstly it is emotional and real for him, he can exemplify that, but if something is personal its hard to wrap in a cold conclusion. Secondly given how completely pervasive colonialism is in games, unless you are a no compromise puritan, or dont actually like games its very hard to draw easy simple conclusions. Very few people advocate binning your copy of Cosmic and such arguments seem to be a straw man to me. Rather he does advocate thinking through what your game is saying which is a broad but fair enough conclusion.

What makes Cole Werls games good is in part that he explores different sides of these stories. I am sure they have their critics etc but in an Infamous Traffic, Pax Pamir 2nd (he de-Eklundified it as far as i can see) and the John Company he is trying to look these stories in a different way.

I wonder if we will start to see 4X type games set in a much more limited sandbox with an all powerful "big brother" agent that severely punishes certain behavior. I think the game structure of "start small, compete to grow against others, and there are pre-existing speed bumps to overcome" is far too strong to abandon. But it can be extensively re-framed as nascent or re-emerging cultures arising from under the thumb of a fallen empire (all while some sort of benevolent overlord makes sure everyone plays nice).

Can't say that theme is quite as enthralling as several boatloads of colonists landing on alien shores and having to hack out an empire against all odds but it would side-step this issue. I suppose any "fall of rome" type game is basically this anyway, plus post-Alexander, aftermath of the Golden Horde, cultures surrounding the Incans/Aztecs, struggles of the German states, etc.

interesting twitter thread on depicting these things in games as opposed to other mediums