Award Winning Board Game Crowded Frontier Canceled Over American West Settling Theme
Board Gaming is another family-friendly hobby that has been taken over by the woke in recent years, ruining people’s tabletop experiences with their children by pushing identity politics agendas over gameplay, much like the rest of corporate entertainment. This week, an award-winning board game was absurdly canceled due to themes of “colonialism” because the game is about settlers in the American West.
There have been many problems with the board game industry in recent years. One markedly crazy issue occurred when Stonemaier Games was targeted by “Indigenous” YouTubers who attacked Viticulture World over the inclusion of conquistadors as playable cards in a historically accurate portrayal of the exploration of the New World. Like most instances, the company owner caved, apologizing and removing the cards from the game.
Board Game reviewers and influencers like Radho, Tom Vasel of the Dice Tower, and Rodney Smith from Watch It Played have all contributed to the wokeifying of board games by lending their authority to attacking anyone who speaks out against the woke mob. This has created a culture in board gaming, which, as a small niche hobby, cancels culture and fear reigns supreme, perhaps even more than in woke bastions like the comic book industry.
Now, Myles Wallace, the Cardboard Edison Award-winning designer of Crowded Frontier, has apologized for his game's delay due to woke pressure.
Crowded Frontier is a worker placement game in which one plays as a Western pioneer, gaining control of prime real estate via area control and resource management mechanisms to ultimately score points. It’s an innocuous game with a good theme that opens up the imagination about the great expansion of the American West, one of the most interesting times in American history.
History is racist now, though, according to the woke, and so Myles Wallace was attacked for promoting “colonialism,” something only blue-haired weirdos freak out about.
It was enough to evoke an apology from the creator, though, as he bowed to the woke mob by saying he didn’t want to glorify the American West and that he had no intention of hurting indigenous people—of which no one ever explains how placing meeples on a board could possibly do.
The game itself makes no mention of Native Americans; simply has the worker meeples placed in open space, making the apology and cancelation more absurd.
Wallace issued the statement:
“Thank you for your feedback as I continue to develop Crowded Frontier. I hear you and will change the theme. Diversity and historical sensitivity matter to me, and I apologize to anyone who I hurt by gamifying a troubled period of history. I recognize the displacement of indigenous peoples which resulted from America’s westward expansion and in no way seek to glorify it.
Crowded Frontier was very much a ‘mechanics first’ design that has always struggled to find a fitting theme. The feedback I had received up to this point was that mechanics didn’t match gameplay, and many people who reviewed the game recommended re-theming for game immersion purposes. The only problem was I couldn’t think of anything else and settled on the current problematic theme.
What’s obvious to me now is that there is no way to course correct for the way the game approached what is a fundamentally troubled period of American history. I will be seeking out a new theme for the game.
Suffice to say, I’ve learned a lot from this journey and this feedback to be more inclusive of and sensitive to the many different people within our hobby and wider community. I will post new information about the game as it develops.”
Board gaming as a hobby has cooled in recent years as the industry became more corporatized and catering toward the worst of our society rather than simply making a fun space for families like it used to. The industry will continue to suffer until board game designers like Myles Wallace learn to step up and defend themselves without apology.