Letter I sent to Dan at Bucephalus games:

"I recently heard highlights of a number of your forthcoming titles on the podcast The Spiel, from their Origins episode. I think a lot of your titles sound spectacular. I'm afraid I will never get to try them however, because of Suicide Bomber.

As a former U.S. Marine and current employee of the U.S. Department of Veteran's Affairs (Veteran's Health Admiistration) that services our men and women in uniform, I found myself completely repulsed by re topic of your game. There is dark humor - and then there is no humor. This game is absolutely abhorrent. I wonder if you'd like to demo it in the lobby of our hospital for U.S. veterans? Perhaps you could enlighten our greeter (no left arm, missing right thumb, completely reconstructed skull as a result of the hilariously funny topic of your game), as to where the humor might lie? Perhaps you could demo it for some if the refugees from Iraq and Afghanistan? I'm sure they would find the game a laugh riot! Oh, nothing helps you get over a dead child like a good "darkly funny" game of killing innocents. Right, right - some of them are "not so innocent."

The game itself may be spectacular. The theme is disgusting. I'm sure you will sell some copies of thy game based on its "wrongness." I can speak for myself, and I hope many others, when I say that not only will I not purchase Suicide Bomber, but on principle alone will refrain from purchasing any of your products."

I should note that I am often accused of being politically incorrect, and my sense of humor
can often be seen as dark. The theme of this game bothers me tremendously. As I wrote the above, I got angrier. That might show in the letter.

I hope I am not alone in my digust. Please write dan@Bucephalus.biz and urge him to retheme the game.

Don't like the theme, don't buy it. An artist shouldn't have to change his art just because it makes some people uncomfortable. I find your call for censorship disgusting.

I guess my question is if you would buy it after the re-theme and buy other products to show support for the company. If not, then you're not a potential customer or supporter. I'm not saying that you can't be angry at the theme. But if you weren't going to purchase the game anyway, then your letter threatens to lose a sale that might not have existed in the first place.

Maybe you should write him back and tell him that he WILL gain sales from you if he changes the theme. Now you're not an angry person directing anger at him. You're a potential sale that he has to decide if the theme is worth the loss in sales.

I don't think that's really necessary... I was AT the booth (bought a copy of Toboggans of Doom, actually) and got a chance to be walked through the art and mechanics of this game... It is truly, truly horrible from an art/mechanics standpoint... Pile on top of that the repulsive theme and ideas (the whole Priest/Choirboy bonus, amongst others). This thing will not survive on shelves long...

I think the game topic is of questionable taste.

Freedom, what we are all suppost to be fighting for (yes i know it's all really about gas and oil).

If the guy wants to make games about suicide bombs that's up to him. If you don't want to buy his games that's up to you.

Nazi in WW2 games do we ban them? No. Nazi, suicide bomber and the like (assholes in all their forms) are here to stay. It was a matter of time before a game like this was main.
Buy and play the games that you like/are to your taste. And let other do like wise.

Neil. Always supporting the troops.

Is it a typo, or has this game been around since 2003? Why all the hubbub now, all of a sudden? because it's being printed anew by Bucephalus?

And I find your lack of understanding of the term "censorship" hilarious.

At no point did he OP call for censorship. He stated his belief (which I share) and the action he would take. He then encouraged others who felt the same way to do the same.

I suppose in some people's world it is "disgusting" to EVEN suggest that something was a bad idea.

Lance

I'm not calling for censorship. I wouldn't dream of FORCING a retheme. Asking for the decency to retheme the game? I think that's fair game, and I don't think it in any way supports censorship. Letting them know that I won't purchase their products as a result of the theme of this game? I think that's also legitimate, and not a cry for censorship.

I actually did mention that in a followup letter to his response. If the game is good, I'd LOVE to try it. Hell, if it's NOT good I'd like to try it. I just won't with that theme. And I'm sure I'm not alone.

I completely agree with you. Again, I'm not calling for censorship in any way, shape, or form. I would never NEVER want him to be forced to stop making the game on the basis of taste alone.

That being said, his argument that the game is a tool for catharsis (as he mentioned in a followup letter) is laughable. I'd like to see him try to donate copies of the game to a military hospital to help heal the troops.

I can understand the game originating from a suicide bombing theme. I can even understand the reluctance to change the theme and cow to political correctness, which I'm not a fan of either. But in the end, I think that taste and decency should win out. Again, if it's truly a game that objectifies the absurdity, horror, and senselessness of suicide bombing, then he really should have no problem demoing the game in a military or veteran's hospital with those that have suffered the consequences. And if you can't find it in yourself to do that, then I think it's a good clue that it may need some reworking thematically.

EDIT: spelling

I guess LET'S KILL, GUILLOTINE, and DOWNFALL OF POMPEII are out of the question too as the goal of all of them is to intentionally kill innocent people.

I agree with you that the game should be avoided by some because of the theme and by all because of the weak production values and gameplay.

Being an ex-Warrant Officer in the USAF, I feel for you and the troops who are victims to suicide bombers. It is an appalling form of attack on unsuspecting people. I still have some stress from Bosnia and suicide/roadside bombs there.

However, on that same note, I try not to actually vocalize any potential disgust I have with people who make games like these to their faces or out in the grand public, because that only brings more people to the game, and possibly extends its production run. The guy has the right to make a game about suicide bombers who blow up a bunch of civilians - whether it is right or wrong in terms of such a world with a broad definition of morality is entirely up to the person buying the game. Giving something you dislike - nay, hate - more emphasis tends to only spur it on.

From the sounds of it, the gameplay itself will kill the game. For future occurances, don't waste energy on games with questionable themes. Instead, focus on encouraging games whose themse you prefer.

Maybe your complaint had some impact. Suicide Bomber is not currently listed on the Bucephalus Games website as one of their products.

The theme for Suicide Bomber is, in my opinion, offensive and tasteless at best. It's the gaming equivelent of shock comedy--little substance, but a big effort to enthrall the audience with just how far it goes. Didn't see it at GenCon last weekend--and I'm not sure I could have supressed the vomit reflex long enough for a demo. Indeed it's the company's right to publish Suicide Bomber. It's also my right not to buy their products and to voice my disgust here on BGG. Ultimately, the market will determine whether games like this are successful.

-phil

That's certainly your right, but you know how controversy breeds attention, and attention tends to sell things and make something continue.

Oberjt,

I understand your point of view and I understand why you feel the game is offensive but despite your objections to the contrary, you are indeed calling for censorship of the game in the form of a boycott. Look again at the bold sentences that you wrote in your original post:



You're holding your future patronage hostage, and encouraging others to do the same, until the game is re-themed or completely pulled from the market. That's a call for censorship. Just like the people who tried to have libraries boycotted or shut down for carrying the Harry Potter Books.

I find the game's theme in extremely bad taste as well, but you are trying to squash his rights to publish any game he wishes, and I find that in equally bad taste.

If Suicide Bomber doesn't sell, then it won't get re-printed. If all the other games they pubish sell, but Suicide Bomber doesn't, then it won't be re-printed. If you don't like a game, don't buy it. But buying other games from that company doesn't mean you're advocating Suicide Bomber.

A boycott is not censorship. A boycott is a form of protest that is used when a commercial enterprise violates the rights of or offends it's consumers. A boycott in this case is entirely appropriate and I most certainly support it. No one is advocating censorship, which has nothing to do with the market, it has to do with legislative action.

I really appreciate the OP bringing this to our attention, he is advocating a position that he has clearly explained and that some of us happen to agree with. I believe the market will kill this thing all on it's own but I, for one, will be joining the OP in not purchasing this or any other game from this company.

True

I disagree that a boycott is a form of censorship. A boycott is a form of protest over that which you find objectionable. Censorship, at least to me, is more legislative in nature. If I were encouraging some sort of legal action be taken to FORCE the removal or retheme of the game, I'd consider that censorship. If I choose not to make the purchase and others choose the same, I don't believe that's censorship in any way, shape or form. And I don't believe for an instant anyone is going to withhold their purchase of the game because I told them to.



Again, I have to disagree. I've been to a family restaurant that was playing MMA fighting on the TVs in the restaurant. I'm trying to eat and every time I look up there's someone spitting out blood. Is it censorship if I choose not to patronize that restaurant anymore? I don't think so. It's their choice to play what they want on the TV, and it's my choice to spend my money elsewhere. I'm in no way suggesting that we legislate away their right to have that on the television, as inappropriate as I might find it in an establishment that bills itself as a family restaurant. Those that boycotted the libraries - I think they have every right to do that, and I don't consider that censorship. Trying to have them shut down? That is censorship.



Again, I'm not trying to squash his rights at all. I absolutely believe he has the right to publish this game. I believe he has a right to wring as much profit out of it as he can. But certainly you're not telling me I don't have a right to not buy it? And I don't have a right to share my disgust and to express my hope that others share my sentiment? Because to deny me that basic right - well, I guess I'd think that's censorship. Now, if I was charging you to read it, and you opted not to pay? Well, there you go exercising your rights.



This is the one point that I had to really consider, and I might cede the point with further thought. The only sticking point is that I'm loathe to support a business that is doing something I find morally objectionable, and I find the nature of Suicide Bomber to be morally objectionable.

On a MUCH lighter note, I notice that you have both Die Macher fan and Imperial fan microbadges. I have both games and have played neither, but I'm hoping to get one to the table in the next month or so. If you had to pick, which one would it be? Which is easier to teach? What are the optimal number of players for each, in your opinion?

I feel like human beings have the right to be offended by whatever they want. If they want to tell you they are offended and try to convince you that you should be offended too, that is not censorship.

This game makes my stomach hurt to even think about because I have seen military personnel and civilians killed by bombs and I have seen civilians get killed at checkpoints because of the fear that suicide bombers generate. I don't want people to play this game, I wish they didn't make it, and I would do anything to convince people not to buy it.

On the other hand, I would never try to exert some kind of control over their right to make it and sell it. If you think that the OP is doing something wrong, then you don't actually understand the liberties and protections granted in our country.

This is exactly right. Censorship doesn't need to be legislative, but it does need to suppress or delete the material in question.

If Mr. Ober walked into a store and threw all their copies of the game into the trash, that could be taken as censorship. If he sued and had the game taken off the shelves or forced the company to re-theme it, that would be censorship.

The writing, sending and posting here of his letter has neither suppressed nor deleted the game, nor attempted to do so, and thus is not censorship. If you think Ober's letter is an act of censorship, you're simply wrong. It's not really a matter of debate. One can no more censor a game by writing a letter to the company swearing they won't buy it than one can censor a hamburger by boycotting McDonald's.

As for the game itself, it's gross, disturbing and reprehensible, but it's protected by the First Amendment in this country. If the company decides to change the game in light of complaints, it may do so, but that would still not be censorship, since they are not being forced to do so.

I agree the game seems tasteless (and also seems to be marketed to try to hype its own "controversy" like the shock jock radio analogy someone else mentioned - which makes me skeptical of the game as a game instead of as a mere marketing ploy). But these same sorts of objections were made about various other games, e.g. War on Terror, which aroused so much indignation that it was actually banned from Spiel in Essen. (It actually sounds potentially good as a game, and doesn't sound at all tasteless to me personally).

Also think about all the stories (you can find them in the BGG forums) about wargamers who feel embarrassed about non-wargamers seeing their WW2 games because of the swastikas, portraits of Hitler, portraits of SS troops, etc, or the mere fact that it's a game about war, and war is serious and terrible. They have old relatives who fought in WW2 and are offended or outraged that anyone would play a game about such horrible events. A good number of wargamers explicitly admit that they avoid showing their wargames to people they don't know well - is that similarly "a good clue" that there's something wrong with WW2 games?

More recently, there were controversies about the early wargames about the Vietnam war. A whole lot of people died and there were a whole lot more atrocities in WW2 or the Vietnam war than in middle east suicide bombings, after all, yet most BGG users seem fine with wargames.

So I suppose the issue is that this Suicide Bomber game is not merely about an ugly subject per se, but that it treats it too lightly or comically or stupidly... but then what about Guillotine - the light-hearted game with whimsical cartoonish art about cutting off heads during the French revolution (complete with punning tagline about how you "get ahead")? There are explicitly innocent victims whom the players execute. (But I am not bothered by the game, and indeed enjoy it. What do you think about Guillotine? Serious question.)

Or Mr. Jack with its whimsical art and non-serious treatment of the Jack the Ripper theme (and other Jack the Ripper games)? Some have argued that it's tasteless and disrespectful, but most people seem to play Mr. Jack and enjoy and not be bothered by the incongruous treatment of a grisly theme.

Or any pirate game, where players play the role of pirates - real-life pirates were not exactly the amusing charming good guy Johnny Depp type pirates of popular imagination.

It seems that the passage of time makes horrible events become fair game for silly treatment. Maybe Suicide Bomber simply got printed a century or two too soon...

That's interesting. I've never been party to any of those forum posts. I know my grandfather-in-law was a veteran of the German army from 1936ish through his capture at Remagen - he served in France and narrowly escaped capture in Stalingrad - had no problem with the WWII games. I think perhaps because it was approached with some respect and reverence, not a tongue-in-cheek HAHA I killed you attitude. For me personally, I think I can draw a distinction between two sides that for whatever reason are setting out to do each other harm and a very one sided affair. I can appreciate and respect two boxers entering the ring and fighting; I can't respect a thug sucker punching a grandmother. This is a world apart to me from the objective of knowingly and willingly aiming for taking out innocent people. I believe there are combatants and non-combatants and one of the goals of conflict should be to mitigate non-combatant casualties. Suicide Bomber does the opposite.



I have to admit to owning this, but it's been years and years since I've played it, probably since it first came out. It saw limited play not only because the game mechanic was weak imo, but because the theme grew too grisly for my tastes.



This one, again, comes down to the portrayal. Had the game been about one player playing more-or-less innocent prostitutes desperately seeking escape from Jack the Ripper, with the other trying to butcher them, I'd be inclined to avoid it. As it is, it is about the attempt to bring such a villain to justice, and that makes it much, much different, at least to me.



Again, pretty much all the pirate games I play involve pirates v. pirates or pirates v. royal (or other) navy. I can't think of one off the top of my head that's a pirate themed game about "pull into port and win by getting as many points as possible by raping and killing innocents." I'd be less than willing to play that one.



I agree that time heals all wounds, and that is inevitably part of my problem with Suicide Bomber. The wounds aren't only fresh, they're continuing to be inflicted. When you do something dumb and you hurt yourself, do your friends make fun of you? Sure, if they're anything like mine. But they wait a respectable amount of time to do it, and do it only after they make sure you're not REALLY hurt.

That's part of the romanticization of war. Cultures have some idea that war is about soldiers from 2 sides who intentionally consciously decide that by mutual consent they want to start killing each other. This in itself is already bogus, since it's the leaders of the countries who make these decisions, and generally those leaders are not taking on the risk that they inflict upon their armies. And many soldiers were conscripted, not volunteers. Of course the non-combatant family and friends of soldiers suffer.

Beyond that, it's simply a false myth that civilians are not targeted in war. Even in the most typically accepted "just and good" war (against Nazism), the good guys bombed the hell out of civilians, most famously in Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and Dresden, but certainly not only there.

Ask a good ole rebel about Sherman's march to the sea.

Things were certainly no better for civilians in war in earlier centuries.

At the individual level, there are always soldiers who commit atrocities like rape, torture, murder against the local civilians - leaders know this will happen but nonetheless commit their troops to the battlefield because the larger goal is considered to compensate for such collateral damage.


Based on the reality of what actually happens in war, most wargames also cause (simulated) non-combatant casualties. If people want to mitigate non-combatant casualties, they should not start combat. Any nation that goes to war has decided that they are going to cause much suffering to non-combatants, whether they want to admit that or not. They may try to reduce that suffering, but to pretend that they are not going to cause suffering or that it's possible to not cause non-combatant suffering is naive denial or naive faith in technology (cf. the modern magic of "surgical strikes") or some kind of romanticized guts and glory machismo.

It's like imagining you can release a bull in a china shop yet somehow keep it from breaking anything. Simply not feasible. You may have what seems a very good reason to release the bull, you may really not want to break any of that china, but if you choose to release the bull, you must know you are going to break a lot of china.


Agreed that Mr. Jack does not portray the murders themselves, only the search for Jack.

Some might argue that this is whitewashing, offensive in its own right, analogous to complaints about the movie Life is Beautiful (the comedy set in a concentration camp). (I'm personally not offended by Mr. Jack nor Life is Beautiful, but I have seen plenty of people express their discomfort about making light of atrocities by simply not showing the atrocities.) Also similar to the debate about whether "old style" war movies (where you never actually saw much suffering or blood) are offensive or bad because they sanitize war and make people think war is much nicer and cleaner and prettier than it really is.

Anyway, all that's a roundabout way of saying that for me, these sorts of questions don't have easy automatic answers.

I agree with you that war is grossly romanticized, but I don't agree that there are any but a small few that believe it's the soldiers that make the decisions. We all know the leaders are the ones that send the soldiers into harms way, for reasons both just and unjust.



There's no question civilians can be targeted in war. Sometimes I think a logical argument can be made that it saves lives in the long run (Hiroshima/Nagasaki); other times it seems to be planned more out of anger and hate (Dresden).



The difference to me is intent. When I play a wargame (at least all of the wargames I've played), the win condition isn't in any way connected to innocent civilian casualties. Do I acknowledge that terrible things happen in combat zones? That humanities worst (and best) can be brought out in such conflicts? Absolutely.

I think the bull in the china shop analogy implies that we only have bulls to release, and I don't think that's true. There is no denying that regardless of what you release into the china shop, some china will get broken. However, if you release a dog trained to break a specific plate, you can be fairly certain that less china will be broken than if you release the bull.