A Real Gaming Controversy

There isn’t much controversy in the gaming world. Much of what we think of as controversy is actually so mild-mannered that outsiders to the game world might not even dignify our squabbles with the C word. My friend Ted Cheatham recalls how he once called War of the Rings “Risk with cards” on Boardgamegeek. He soon felt like a victim of a fatwa as War of the Ring fans repeatedly denounced his ignorance and delusional thinking. But no one has sued Ted, or ordered him banished from Boardgamegeek. Ted remains an important member of the gaming community.

But over the last month or so a real gaming-world controversy has come to a boil, and it has shown us just how ugly such a thing can be. I am referring to the cancellation of the publication of the new Firefight Games wargame titled Resistance is not Futile.

Let me trace my growing awareness of the controversy so that you will understand exactly how much and how little I know about the matter.

Last week I saw on the Comsimworld website that Resistance is not Futile was available to be ordered from Firefight Games, a company that makes desktop-published wargames. Checking the website, I learned that the game was a simulation of the World War II battle that resulted when the Nazis tried to raze the Warsaw Ghetto. For those unfamiliar with the conflict, the Warsaw Ghetto was inhabited only by Jews, and their heroic resistance against the Nazi extermination plans has been the subject of both novels (Mila 18 by Leon Uris, The Wall by John Hersey) and movies (The Wall, 1981; Uprising, 2001).

I also checked the Firefight Games forum on Consimworld. To my surprise, I saw that there seemed to have been a hundred or more postings just on August 31. A quick glance at the postings showed that there was a heated debate going on about the appropriateness of publishing a game about the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. I then started at the beginning of the Firefight Games forum with the intention of reading every posting on the subject. A genuine controversy in the gaming world seemed too good a topic for an essay for me to ignore. I read about one hundred or so of the postings before stopping for the day.

When I tried to resume reading the Consimworld Firefight Games forum on Tuesday, September 5, I saw that the forum had been shut down, and that Paul Rohrbaugh of Firefight Games had announced that he was no longer going to publish Resistance is not Futile. He also stated that he was considering legal action against people who may have made libelous statements about him.

I was stunned. What had been said that would cause the cancellation of the game? Well, we may never know, but I already knew the broad outline of the controversy from the postings I had already read.

The gist of those objecting to Resistance is not Futile is that no one should make a game about the extermination of the Jews. Although one player in the game will take the role of the heroic Jewish resistance, the other player steps into the shoes of the Nazis and will attempt to destroy every Jewish unit in the game. And some people very much object to a game in which any player’s goal is to further the cause of genocide.

The Firefight Games position is that the game was created specifically to honor the Jewish resistance. The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising has been the subject of novels and movies designed to honor the Jewish martyrs--so what’s wrong with a game that is trying to do the exact same thing? And anyone who is truly offended can simply refuse to buy the game.

One factor that probably separates Mr. Rohrbaugh and his critics is whether they think of the Warsaw Ghetto conflict as a battle or as an act of genocide. Mr. Rohrbaugh undoubtedly sees the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising as a military battle. And certainly it can be characterized as one. And what is so objectionable about making a game about a military battle? There are thousands of such games.

But those who object to the game consider the attack on the Warsaw Ghetto to be an act of genocide. And it certainly was that. And so it can be argued that making a game about the extermination of the ghetto is about as appropriate as making a game called Auschwitz.

I assume that the comments on Consimworld grew a great deal more heated than my brief summations can imply. But I am less interested in wild insults and broad accusations than the logic of the arguments that each side presents. No one is likely to dispute the legal right of Firefight Games or anyone else to make a game on any subject they please. But is a genocidal battle an appropriate subject for a game? Is Resistance is not Futile a tribute to the heroic resistance of an oppressed people, or an exercise in bad taste?

Randy Cohen, who writes a column on ethics for the New York Times Sunday Magazine, is fond of saying that “In ethics intentions count.” And I have little doubt that the intentions of Mr. Rohrbaugh are honorable. He has stated that the game was intended to honor the Jewish fighters, and I have no reason to doubt him. Even the title of the game refers to the Jewish point of view. If the game had been published, it could have been an educational tool that expanded knowledge of the Ghetto Uprising, and may have helped correct the idea that all Jews were passive victims of the Nazis rather than active resistance fighters. In short, I have a lot of sympathy for Mr. Rohrbaugh and his point of view.

But I am not convinced that those who disagree with Mr. Rohrbaugh are entirely in the wrong. I also believe that there are subjects that should not be the subject of a game. For example, it would be in bad taste for an American game company to make a game about any war in which our soldiers are currently fighting and dying. If I was the parent of a soldier fighting in Iraq, I wouldn’t like to see anyone playing a game called Insurgency in which one player gains points by blowing up American units with suicide meeples.

If the intentions of the designer are one factor that helps us decide if a game is in good taste or not, the other factor is time. Imagine a game called Disaster. In the game, players represent factions in a location that has been struck by a catastrophe. Each player must try to shepherd his own meeples to safety while hindering other players with nasty event cards.

Would this be an appropriate subject for a game?

Well, if the game is called Pompeii, the answer is yes.

If the game is called World Trade Center, the answer is no.

There already exist two or three games about the Pompeii disaster. I read one Boardgamegeek review in which the writer explained how much fun it was to send cardboard lava flows over other players’ meeples.

But imagine playing the hypothetical World Trade Center game. Would any American player be likely to chortle about playing a “Stairway Blocked” card on another player and dooming their meeples to die in the collapsing tower?

Obviously, time makes a big difference about how we feel about an historical event. Maybe some day there will be games about the 9/11 attacks, but I wouldn’t want to see them in my lifetime.

Some might argue that enough time has passed since the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising that it can be made into a game with little chance of offending anyone except hyper-sensitive crackpots.

But for some subjects, time makes little difference. There are some people who still refuse to play Martin Wallace’s Struggle of Empires because players can profit from slavery in the game.

My own thinking on that subject is somewhat confused. While I would hate to see a game called Slave Trader published, it seems to me that eliminating all references to the slave trade from a game about colonial empires would be whitewashing history. Mr. Wallace may have included slavery in his game to remind us of the brutality of European colonial policy.

And would gamers have objected to an event in Struggle of Empires called “Opium War” in which a player can enjoy huge profits after defeating China in a war? Somehow I don’t think that event would have caused as much controversy as the slavery issue. And yet Britain’s opium policy was nearly as evil as the slave trade, and surely created many millions of slaves of a different sort. Why are certain reprehensible acts taboo while others can be portrayed in games without generating controversy?

On page 5 of the Totaler Krieg Player’s Guide there is an essay by Alan Emrich on the evolution of this World War II game. Mr. Emrich tells us that the designers of Totaler Kreig once considered adding a Wansee Conference card to the German hand. The card would have required the Nazi player to initiate extermination plans against the Jews before being allowed to play his valuable Total War card. The designers thought that it might be a good idea to remind gamers exactly what the Nazis were all about. Of course, playtesters objected to this card, and no Holocaust card ever appeared in the finished version of the game. But imagine the protests that would have erupted if such a card had been included. And yet the designers’ intent was only to educate and remind gamers of brutal historical realities.

I admit that I would feel queasy playing a Wansee Conference card in any World War II wargame. And it would be very easy to mock the educational impulse that reduces the Holocaust to the play of a card. Such a simple mechanism would trivialize a monstrous event rather than add to our understanding of it. And yet I still admire the game designer’s impulse to attempt to deal with history as honestly as the format of the game allows.

Many will argue that the very purpose of games makes them an inappropriate format for dealing with sensitive material. On some level, games are always about fun. Unlike books or movies, we “play” games. Even people who can’t articulate why the idea of touching on the Holocaust in a game bothers them probably sense that there is a lightness of purpose about gaming that adheres to even the most serious and detailed historical simulation.

But even if gaming is essentially a hobby pursued for fun, I don’t see why game design has to be divorced from the impulse to educate—including the impulse to deal with serious material. Certainly, the designers of the most detailed historical simulations might argue that they have earned the right to deal with sensitive material because of their very seriousness. The men who designed the various editions of Totaler Krieg or Decision Games enormous War in the Pacific are very studious fellows who approach their games with as much or more seriousness as a doctoral candidate working on his thesis paper. I’m not sure what the best way would be for a World War II simulation to touch on the Holocaust, but there is probably a way that would be both sensitive and educational.

Why is it perfectly fine for anyone to play Axis and Allies--a game that simulates a conflict in which tens of millions of people were killed--and yet it is in bad taste to include in a wargame details that remind us just how some of these people died, and who did the killing? Are gamers somehow tainted when they play games which touch on genocide or slavery, and yet can emerge from playing a thousand ordinary wargames dealing with slaughter without any stain on their souls? I sometimes think that the line between what is acceptable in a game and what is unacceptable has more to do with habit and less to do with ethics than many of us would like to admit.

Or have wargames already corrupted my soul?

When making a logical argument, it’s not unusual for my mind to insist on pointing out the valid points of the opposing point of view. But on this issue, I find that my sympathies jump back and forth between the opposing camps. I hope that is a sign that the topic of political correctness in games is a complex one, and not merely a symptom of my wishy-washy thinking.

I wish I could come to some intelligent conclusion about this subject that would show gamers the way back to common sense and common ground. But I can do no better than to make lame and banal suggestions for patience and tolerance when dealing with combustible subjects, and with those who hold differing viewpoints. I hope that most of us will consider every individual free from bigotry until there is much evidence to the contrary.

I fear that we will be experiencing more of these sorts of controversies in the years to come.

By the way, those interested in learning more about the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising can find inexpensive used copies of the books and movies I mentioned on Amazon.com.