The most controversial board games...
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Inspired by a recent article at msnbc.comc on the most controversial video games...
Board games are no stranger to controversy. Since the early days of gaming, there’s been much debate over what content should and shouldn’t be permitted – and who should and shouldn't be allowed to see it. It’s a pretty safe bet to say that the battle will continue to rage on as new titles are released.
These are our Top 5 most controversial games. Check out the list then tell us which titles you think deserve to be on here.
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Puerto Rico caused quite a ruckus when it was first released due to its less-than-subtle use of slaves (with dark-colored chits, even) as a game resource. Civil rights groups protested angrily and many game stores around the country that sold Puerto Rico found themselves the target of protests. Rap group Public Enemy even go into the mix with a protest song called "Puerto Rico aint my Hero."
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When Chinatown hit game shelves around the country in the late 90's, it provoked a great deal of indignation among Chinese-Americans who were upset with the games rampant use of racial sterotypes. On 60 Minutes, Lee Wei-ping, the head of the CHinese-American Independent Business- owners Consortium, stated his case clearly: "There is more to Chinese-American entrepreneurial spirit than dry cleaners and fish markets. And the Chinese guy on the box is straight out of central casting. No one dresses like that anymore."
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3.
Board Game: Evo
[Average Rating:6.88 Overall Rank:756]
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In 2001, Evo hit the gaming market like a rogue meteoroid and nearly exterminated the patience of Christian fundamentalists who objected to its blatant pro-evolution stance. Christian leaders around the country rallied together to demand that "Evolution is just a theory" stickers be placed prominently on the game box. One Christian game publisher created a follow-up called Intelligent Design-O, with the players designing dinosaurs intelligently through a clever auction mechanism. The game ends with a Great Flood card, fittingly enough.
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4.
Board Game: Zooloretto
[Average Rating:6.86 Overall Rank:606]
[Average Rating:6.86 Unranked]
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The release of Zooloretto in 2007 triggered outrage among animal rights activist across the world. After all, they argued, here is a game where animals are kept in generic pens, totally devoid of the sort of natural flora they are accustomed to. Even worse, according to Joe Peabody, head of Animal Activists Against Zooloretto (AAAZ), "unwanted animals are locked up in a dark barn and taken out back and shot if they can't be traded away like a cheap baseball card. What sort of example does that send to our children?" Asked to comment, the panda bear on the cover of the box sneezed loudly and went back to chewing on his bamboo.
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5.
Board Game: Ticket to Ride
[Average Rating:7.46 Overall Rank:125]
[Average Rating:7.46 Unranked]
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Unique to this list, the Ticket to Ride kerfluffle was isolated to a region and didn't get much play nationwide. Ticket to Ride is a simple, family train game with the players competing to build tracks and complete routes. Unfortunately, the game board as a few egregious errors, such as putting the town of Duluth, Minnesota where Minneapolis should be. Both Duluthians and Minneapolites raised their voices in protest, with the former angry about the board's sloppy geography and the latter upset that their city was replaced by a smaller sister city. Game shops in both cities were targeted by protests and there were isolated reports of Ticket to Ride burnings.
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Gamers loved Cleopatra and the Society of Architects because of its superlative production qualities. One group of people, however, wasn't so happy: plastic manufacturers. According to a press release put out by the Plastic Manufacturers Society (PMS), the huge amount of plastic used in Cleopatra, "could possibly trigger a shortfall in the raw materials needed to create other, more useful, plastic goods." Their protests struck a nerve, and comsumers around the country expressed concerns that their favorite plastic items could disappear from the shelves as a result of the massive amount of plastic used in Cleopatra.
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Constantine von Hoffman
United States
Boston
Massachusetts
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Man oh man did people get bent out of shape about this one.
"[the game] comes complete with Suicide Bomber and Dirty Bomb cards, an Axis of Evil spinner and a ski mask with the word "EVIL" stitched on the forehead. You could call it spectacularly controversial." -- that's the review from Forbes.
Is there a charity fighting irony deficiency? because after re-reading the list I clearly need some help in this department.
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Constantine von Hoffman
United States
Boston
Massachusetts
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Hands down winner.
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J C Lawrence
United States
Campbell
California
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Collect those verminous Jews and send them off to the concentration camps where they belong! Ultimately the International Alliance of Railway Unions protests over being unfairly discriminated against and not represented in this cultural masterpiece for their many stellar contributions to the transport of Jews drove this game from store shelves into courtrooms and thence out of publication.
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Don Weed
United States
Clemmons
North Carolina
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From the box: In this game, a player may win by manoeuvring all four of his "criminals" in such a way that they are all in Life Imprisonment, Death Row or the Electric Chair. Or the player may use his two "liberals" to spring the opposing players' criminals from the "Path of Justice" back to the Street often enough to turn all fifteen of each opponent's Innocent Citizens into Victims of violent crimes. Victims go to Heaven.
Just a nice conversation starter for that cold winter night, "Hey wanna play a boardgame?"
This would be right up there for the least PC game of all time. I found it at a thrift shop and can't help wondering where it would have been purchased originally.
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Breno K.
Brazil
Brasília
Distrito Federal
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Upon the release of this game, monsters from all over America protested for the violent depiction of their group in this Reiner Knizia design. The spokesmonster from the M.E.A.N. (Monstrous Entities Are Nice) stated "This so-called game only promotes the horrible stereotypes that monsters have been suffering throughout human history, from way back in greek mythology to computer games of today. Just because we have sharp claws, hideous faces and let out roars that almost shake the soul out of your body doesn't mean we are blood-thirsty creatures that function only as violence producing machines".
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Bonaparte
United States
DesMoines
Washington
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Every time i bring this to our couples game group it causes a stir.
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Einmal ist keinmal
United States
Andover
Massachusetts
You'll Never Walk Alone
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Although they were glad to be represented among board games, many Midwesterners protested the "way too hard" rules complexity and lack of Nascar in the game.
Expansions in the works "are fixin'" to alleviate these concerns.
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Brent Gallmann
United States
Oshkosh
Wisconsin
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One year someone tried to bring their favorite game, Monopoly to the BGG con. Word of its arrival spread quickly causing a riot in the gaming hall. All at once, people picked up their games and started to throw bits back and forth between all the players. The most serious of which was someone choking to death on a Grande cube that someone had thrown. The chaos did not stop until the game of Monopoly was burned in a public ceremony outside the hall.
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shumyum
United States
♒♒♒♒♎♒♒♒♒ sloooowly sinking
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This one was notorious for claiming watermelons could cure baldness.
Seriously, I added this just in case anybody was forgetting that Germany isn't the only country with shame in its history.
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Steve Herron
United States
Johnson City
Tennessee
Never play block wargames with a dentist, they have those little mirrors to peek behind the block.
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This game caused a big controversy in the early 80s when it came out knocking the welfare system and those who were on it. There was a move to remove it from stores. I don't know if the game died because of that or most probably because it was not that good of a game.
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Josh Goodall
United States
Oregon
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Right before the release of the 2nd Edition of Twilight Struggle, Historians and History teachers nationwide called for a boycott of the game. Outspoken "realist" Henry Jensen wrote the majority opinion in an op. ed. commentary in the New York Times.
"Our concerns with the egregious fallacies this game supports may cause American gamers and children worldwide to fall even further behind in the competition for global arroagance. It can be easily proven that the events (the Cold War) modeled in this 'game' did not all take place at Twilight. There are many other hours of the day that this so called simulation would do well to take note of. We are still investigating if this scenario could be termed a 'Struggle', since the driving force behind the Soviet collapse was economic: not from stars and arrows as the box cover suggests."
While the 2nd Edition of Twilight Struggle was printed and received rave reviews, the controversy lingers.
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Richard Hutnik
United States
Albany
New York
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Want to start a big BGG protest, break out this one. Shill upsetting after all these years.
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Richard Hutnik
United States
Albany
New York
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To think of all the arguments on rec.games.board this game caused.
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Richard Hutnik
United States
Albany
New York
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This list has gone above and beyond five items! I PROTEST! I protest that I am responsible for two of the overage also!
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Richard Hutnik
United States
Albany
New York
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BARNES! Yes, he was/is a game. Don't question otherwise. Well, if you do question otherwise, at least you can acknowledge he was one of the most controversial things on here.
Not sure how to plug it in, but here we go:
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Shane Beck
Australia
Not Applicable
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Exploit the coolies, corner the rackets, visit the tongs, opium dens and brothels in old chinatown, thug, assassinate and blackmail the other players...what's not to love about this game???
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John Di Ponio
United States
Lake Orion
MI
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Ah....for all the religious fanatics!
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24.
Board Game: Emira
[Average Rating:6.00 Overall Rank:4117]
Tim Rogers
Canada
Kamloops
British Columbia
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Not sure how this game didn't already make this list. Hard to believe a publisher would even think of putting out a game featuring players collecting a harem.
Neat mechanics, but ultimately a little long for what it is.
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David Matchen
United States
Baltimore
Maryland
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The designers, avid proponents of the Domino Theory, chose red as the color for Southeast Asia. They also snuck in a subtle dig at Australia by putting two Sydney cards in our Infection deck.
Due to similar representational concerns, sets sold in Scotland use plaid cubes for Europe.
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