Just a game?
Departing from my usual subject matter of technology, I wanted to take an opportunity to tackle a question at the heart of a hobby that I care deeply about: board gaming.
For those who stumble here from my usual technologically focused ramblings - I won't be giving a lot of preamble but currently there are over 150k games on BGG, which gives some sense as to how big the hobby of tabletop gaming now is, and certainly how far it extends from the stereotype of Monopoly.
Back to the main story though. Recently, I came across an article from the Irish Emigration Museum in Dublin, drawing criticism in response to a recent release from Compass Games, The Great Hunger: Ireland's Tragedy in the 19th Century.
Now, this isnāt the first time Compass Games have drawn controversy (see also The Troubles). However, it saddens me to see the medium of board gaming reduced to thoughtless stereotypes likeā¦
āThe board game is not unlike monopoly, except the board is a map of Ireland.ā
I guess working with that logic, Schindlerās List is not unlike Home Alone, except itās set in Poland.
The reductionist view that board games (and arguably even video games) can only be a form of light entertainment is repeatedly presented in the media - no doubt a perception formulated from flashbacks to jovial childhood experiences of gaming.
However, there is a genuine cultural double standard at play here. Film, TV and books are given the benefit of the doubt as āseriousā vehicles for difficult subjects. Board games are reflexively treated as trivial, even child-like. Rather than being seen as a medium for exploration and education in a more engaging format.
What makes this criticism from EPIC particularly ironic is that I've actually visited the museum myself. It's a fantastic place, full of interactive, hands-on exhibits designed to immerse you in the history of Irish emigration. Touchscreens, audio installations, personal storytelling booths - the whole experience is built around engagement rather than passive observation. Games are simply another medium of engagement, and it's strange to see an institution that so clearly understands the power of interactivity draw the line at the tabletop.
Kriegspiel, as it was known to the Prussians, has been a form of educational āboard gamingā used since the 19th Century. Itās still used to this day from the Pentagon to the MoD - to simulate historical, current or even hypothetical events. To better understand the decisions that actors might take and the implications of those decisions.
Yet somehow, it has become accepted that anything involving gaming is a triviality and only book, film and TV are capable of being āseriousā or āsensitiveā mediums. All of those mediums lack something the tabletop has, which is agency.
When you watch a documentary, you observe suffering. When you read a book, you absorb it. When you sit down at a table and are forced to make decisions, such as in the case of the Famine - who eats, who emigrates, who you canāt save, you arenāt just learning about history but you actually get to confront it. You carry the weight of choices that real people had to make.
Thatās the opposite of trivialisation, surely?
Not to mention there is no exclusivity on the medium you choose to explore a period of history. In fact quite the opposite. One often leads to another. When I play historical games, it encourages me to read more, watch more and better understand the subject in all of its nuances. A game can be the entry point that sends someone down a path they would never have otherwise taken. These mediums are not competing with each other, they are feeding each other in service of the same goal: understanding.
It seems especially odd as well to draw all these conclusions about the game given the original article is relying purely on published abstracts, rather than speaking to the designer Kevin McPartland (of Irish descent) or even playing the "game". There seems to be some inherent assumption the designer is doing this for no reason other than some sort of morbid cash grab. Designing niche historical simulations isnāt exactly the most commercially enriching of activities.
In my view, every medium is an opportunity to bring these stories to a wider audience. The alternative is that these tragedies slowly slip from collective memory because apparently nobody could address them sufficiently sensitively enough. History doesnāt survive on reverence alone. It survives because people keep finding new ways to engage with it, talk about it and pass it on.
You can disagree with the execution of a specific game. Thatās legitimate criticism. What concerns me is the precedent. If the accepted position becomes that the tabletop is too trivial a medium to handle serious history, every game designer who wants to tackle a difficult subject will think twice. That would be a loss for the hobby and a loss for the stories that deserve to be told.