Playing History 2 - Slave Trade

Playing History 2 - Slave Trade is an educational game developed and published by Serious Games Interactive, and released on September 13, 2013 for Windows and Mac OS X on the Steam platform.

Playing History 2 - Slave Trade
Developer(s)Serious Games Interactive
Publisher(s)Serious Games Interactive
Platform(s)Windows, Mac OS X
ReleaseSeptember 13, 2013
Genre(s)Educational game
Mode(s)Single-player

The game caused a great deal of controversy for its inclusion of a "Slave Tetris" minigame, which was later removed, and other insensitive depictions of slavery.[1]

Development

Free downloadable versions of the games were uploaded to the series' website.[2]

Gameplay

The main character is a young slave boy named Tim, who must help his master, a slave ship captain, transport 300 slaves to the Americas.[1] The player must pilot the slave ship, collecting items that replenish your food and avoiding wind blasts.[1] Other minigames in the game formerly included a Tetris-like mode in which the player needed to "stack" slaves in the storage compartment of the ship.[1] The player can help their master bargain with the locals to reduce the price of slave children, in order to earn points.[1]

Reception

During the game's campaign on Steam Greenlight, users had raised concerns about the game, but the game's developers defended the controversial "Slave Tetris" mode.[3] After the game was released on Steam, several years after its original release date, a large number of users complained that the game trivialized slavery.[4] The game's developers removed the Tetris-like level and issued an apology on Steam.[4] The game's trailer was also updated.[5]

Despite this, critics still condemned the game for other issues, such as the player picking up icons of "cakes and wine" while collecting food, and the most sympathetic character in the game being a white doctor.[1] Katherine Cross of Gamasutra called the entire game a "dismal, tone-deaf failure at education" that trivialized slavery, and criticized the Serious Games CEO Simon Egenfeldt-Neisen for blaming oversensitive critics and cultural differences for the debacle and not the poor quality of the game itself.[6]

Other games in series

Playing History: the Plague was given a positive review by Erik Champion in his book "Playing with the Past", where he praised its amusing game that appealed to a younger demographic.[2]

References
  1. "I played 'Slave Tetris' so your kids don't have to". Los Angeles Times. ISSN 0458-3035. Retrieved 2017-08-01.
  2. Champion, Erik (2010-09-28). Playing with the Past. Springer Science & Business Media. ISBN 9781849965019.
  3. "After outcry, "edutainment" game removes slave-Tetris mode". Ars Technica. Retrieved 2017-08-01.
  4. Schmidt, Gregory (September 3, 2015). "Slave Trade Video Game Developer Alters Scene After Outcry". ArtsBeat. Retrieved 2017-08-01.
  5. Yin-Poole, Wesley (2015-09-03). ""Slave Tetris" pulled from Steam game after social media backlash". Eurogamer. Retrieved 2017-08-01.
  6. Cross, Katherine. "Opinion: What can we learn from that tone-deaf 'Slave Tetris' minigame?". Retrieved 2017-08-01.
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