Thomas Guy said:
It's racist in that IT'S FUCKING RACIST. Just because it actually happened doesn't make it less racist. And it's VERY racist because of the near glee and joy that the trailer nearly came in showing the ways you can beat the fuck out of your slaves.
Just like Battlefield's treatment of World War II is racist because it divides Japanese soldiers from American soldiers and has them fight to the death. "Oh sweet, I can fly a Chance-Vought F4U Corsair or shell the coast with a destroyer!"
Racist.
I'm pretty sure the trailer is a parody of the gleeful way in which many games glorify war, crime, assassination, slaughter, bodily injury, and other putatively horrible things. Sometimes we give style points for horrific fatalities. And not to mention other systems of power like monarchy and aristocracy being employed in the fictional or historical worlds of video games. Now, I'm not going to say that we (or game producers) are "wrong" to simulate or enjoy these things. In fact I quite enjoy games that have many of those things-- I'll gladly loot and raze a village in Mount and Blade if it suits my purposes, for example. Come to think of it I've chased down serfs to force them back to work and sold prisoners to be galley slaves in that game as well.
This game trailer sounds like a more detailed, micro-level Sid Meier's Colonization-- a good game in its own right (actually I can only speak to the quality of the Civ4 mod of the same name.) I think it would be interesting to have a game in the colonial setting which didn't just gloss over the particulars of slavery. Something a bit more involving than a check box on a policy screen. And if that means a graphic depiction of beating the shit out of slaves, I don't see the difference between that and murdering a caravan of traders for their velvet, olive oil, salt, and horses.
The only difference is that killing is seen as an acceptable (and ubiquitous) method of doing just about anything in a video game. But suddenly we're squeamish about a depiction of the administration of corporal punishment upon innocent people? Come on. What could be the worry, that spontaneously everyone will think slavery is fine? Just like how I base my politics on how well things work in Civ 5? "So, yeah, if we had a landed elite and monarchy we could have more population growth in our cities."
Is there a huge moral difference between a game that simulates the experience of a warlord or emperor and one that simulates the experience of a slave trader? I don't think that a rational examination could produce a plausible one.
