"We do our best, but we’re aware of our limits"
The board game industry has not only been discussing racism since the Tascini case. This also affects the Spiel des Jahres association. We spoke about this with Bernhard Löhlein, the jury’s spokesperson. An interview about black dice, white jury members and psychopaths.
Gaming for Tolerance
At the gaming table, all people are equal, the same rules apply to everyone, and everyone can join in: that’s the idea behind Spielend für Toleranz. With this initiative, games journalists and bloggers are taking a stand against racism and xenophobia. The Spiel des Jahres association supports the initiative and states on the jury’s homepage: “Racism and xenophobia are spreading in our society, either openly or poorly disguised as ‘concern’, and to an extent that we would have considered impossible in our supposedly enlightened and modern times. That is why the Spiel des Jahres association clearly positions itself against racism and xenophobia.” kulturgutspiel.de also supports the initiative.
According to its own statement, the jury only assesses the quality of the games. So it separates the work from the author, right?
Our practice has always been to judge a game as it is presented to us.
That means a game by a racist person could still be awarded, provided it’s good and meets all the formal criteria.
From my personal perspective, in practice it depends on the specific case: What do I know about the author? Where and in what context have they expressed themselves? What debatable themes appear in the game? All these questions need to be answered. We have these points on our agenda and have been discussing them internally for some time. In principle: we all fully support the “Spielend für Toleranz – Against Xenophobia and Racism” initiative. We would never award a game that, in any context, violates these principles.
What about Mombasa or Auf den Spuren von Marco Polo? Both made it onto the recommendation list.
I don’t know if these games would make the recommendation list today. The jury has some new members who weren’t there at the time. And we’re all much more sensitive when it comes to themes from the colonial era.
In the article WDR-Hörfunk: Kolonialismus in Brettspielen, it says: “[Jury member] Martina Fuchs points out that in games, the words, colours and themes used can also convey statements that others might find offensive. This could also apply to the black dice in the game Auf den Spuren von Marco Polo.” Will the jury pay more attention to the words, colours and themes used in awarded games in the future?
We will, that’s the consensus in the association. The jury members already handle such questions sensitively in their game reviews and publications, and will pay even more attention to them in the future where necessary.
Can jury members even do this adequately? After all, all current members are white people.
We do our best, but we’re aware of our limitations. We can’t change our skin colour. I would like to see the German-speaking games criticism become more diverse, with more people with a migration background engaging critically with board games.
Will the jury also pay attention to other topics that move society in the future, for example gender equality?
Yes, of course, without us being able to name definitive criteria here. We want to exercise particular care within the current debates about racism and diversity in the industry. That’s why we’re also seeking dialogue with external experts.
What does that mean in concrete terms?
We’ve made contact with several institutions and associations and are now looking to see if there are experts there who not only know about diversity but also have a basic understanding of the board game medium. In a second step, we then want to discuss with them what form of advice would be useful for us.
Aside from gender equality and racism, there are many other hotly debated topics. Should games address these?
We don’t want to tell anyone – no author, no publisher – which topics should be used in a game. But if such topics do come up, they’re certainly interesting for us, even just as critics.
Should these topics then be implemented in a specific way?
That question can’t be answered in such a general way. It always has to be discussed on a case-by-case basis whether a topic has been handled appropriately or not. This is often more difficult than people think. Here’s an example to illustrate: In Killer Cruise, we hunt a psychopath who has hired a murderer. Psychopathy is a serious illness. Interest groups regularly complain that people with this personality disorder are portrayed as murderers in crime stories or now in games. How should we as players deal with that? One thing is certain: board games, like films, books and other cultural assets, must engage with these discussions.