How is This Acceptable?

(8/8/25 Edit Number 2: CGE has now put out a statement apologizing and pledging that all profits from the Harry Potter Codenames game will be donated to trans rights charities, in discussions with those most affected by Rowling’s evil.

J from 3 Minute Boardgames put the entire statement on BlueSky since the original is on Instagram and many people may not be on it. You can read it here.

With both of these statements and efforts to make amends and rectify their mistakes, I have a feeling that the review moratorium for both of these companies may be over soon. I’m sure they will be watched to make sure they follow through on what they are saying they are going to do.

(8/8/25: Devir has issued a very strong statement about this, apologizing and outlining concrete steps they are going to take to rectify this situation, even going so far as recalling all copies of the game that have been sent out to retailers, removing all social media promotion until they have made the needed changes to the cards, etc. You can read the statement here.

Assuming they follow through on these actions, that is great. We’ll see going forward what happens and so far I haven’t changed my reviewing stance. If they do follow through, then that will likely change)

Regular readers of this blog know that I typically don’t involve myself in some of the many controversies in the boardgaming world, especially when it involves cultural or racial issues.

And there is a lot of it out there, unfortunately.

The reason for that is because, being a straight white man, I often feel like I don’t have anything to contribute, and what I would contribute could be seen as superficial or not helpful.

But over the past week or so, two issues have come up that made me push pass that hesitation because things need to be said.

Even if what I end up saying seems superficial, I want to let it be known that I consider this wrong.

Today I saw this post on BlueSky and it really angered me, especially after reading more about this issue.

Get out of here with this racist crap.Devir went ahead and stepped in their own piss. Please go support Jeremy and let Devir know your disappointment and dissatisfaction.But on top of that—there’s MANY reviewers who received the game prior to Gen Con failed to notice or mention this crap.

— Marceline Leiman (preorder High Tide!!) (@marcelineleiman.bsky.social) 2025-08-07T19:14:19.083Z

There are a great many more, but this is the first one I saw.

(I’ll be posting an image of some of the cards below that will definitely offend you if you have any sense, but I apologize if it also triggers you)

Of course, that image itself isn’t the horrible image, but let me put a break in here first in case you want to avoid the truly bad one.

Devir games, one of the bright lights in the boardgame community in the sense that they’re fairly new (the last few years) but I love a lot of their games, has published a game (Ace of Spades) with some of the most racist artwork that I’ve seen in a commercial game.

This image was posted on BGG by jambapg.

Some of the other card art is just as bad, like Sitting Bull (the Sioux chieftain) being portrayed as a demon with devil horns.

This is not an examination of the racist South and slavery, maybe having some educational purpose about the horrors of slavery or the resettlement of Indigenous peoples.

This is a fantasy game about an evil necromancer.

Why the fuck would you have stuff like this in your game?

Devir is a Spanish publisher, but in 2025 that’s really no excuse. The idea of slavery in the US is globally known and even if they weren’t aware of how bad this would be, that’s why you hire cultural consultants.

But do you really need a cultural consultant to realize that showing a black man in chains, foaming at the mouth, is an incredibly racist image to put out there?

It just boggles my mind that nobody looked at this game ahead of time and said “ummm…maybe we should change this?”

Devir, you are normally wonderful, but this is beyond the pale and you really should know better. Somebody in your hierarchy should have nipped this one in the bud.

A side “shame on you” to the Dice Tower if, as has been reported by people I trust, they are deleting comments in their Ace of Spades review video talking about this issue.

That is not cool.

From what I’ve seen, many reviewers have posted content about this game and none of them have mentioned the racist images.

So disappointing as well.

Before all of that, another one of my favourite companies (CGE) had a big announcement of Codenames: Harry Potter.

Most of you know (or should know, and I’m glad I’m informing you if you didn’t) that J.K. Rowling is a vicious anti-trans person who is not just anti-trans, but is putting her considerable fortune towards actively harming our trans friends by denying them rights and health care, among many other things.

There are various hierarchies of evil out there, and Rowling is certainly in the upper tier.

It’s one thing to just have these opinions. Even then, you shouldn’t support them, but at least they’re not actively harming people.

Rowling is actually doing so, or is trying very hard to do so, anyway.

Why anybody with any empathy at all would be helping Rowling by giving her money and publishing a licensed Harry Potter game is certainly beyond me.

I guess money is the end-all be-all here.

And I’m a capitalist!

But some things you just shouldn’t do, even if it makes you money.

Even worse, they reacted to the controversy by blocking various people on BlueSky (and I assume on Twitter, if any of the idiots over there actually said anything) who called them on their bullshit.

Then they put out a really lukewarm statement not even acknowledging what the controversy was.

They took a step by actively engaging with at least one trans game designer to maybe try and do something to make up for all of this shit, but subsequent posts by this designer seem to indicate that (at least so far) there hasn’t been any follow-through on it.

Until there is that kind of follow-through, it’s all just words.

This really saddens me.

Not just because it’s 2025 and this kind of thing should not be happening or tolerated, though that is sad.

But also because these two companies have produced multiple games in my Top 50 and I wish they would do better.

I want them to do better.

There is time to correct all of this, if they take ownership of it and make concrete steps to rectify it.

I’m not holding my breath, but I am hoping that they will do so.

In the meantime, I will not avoid talking about the games I already have and enjoy from these companies, but every mention of them will also highlight just how much damage they’ve done to their brand (like I did with The OP and their Trump-supporting CEO, which I mentioned in my “new to me games – July” post).

I will certainly not be buying any more of their games at this point, and will not be doing any reviews of them, even the older games (no new reviews, though the older games may show up on a Top 50 or something).

I will continue to enjoy the games I have, because not doing so would harm the designers of these games that have nothing to do with this (since the games have been long-published and those designers very likely don’t have any current relationship with the companies).

I’m torn about whether I should recommend purchasing them. I don’t necessarily want money going to these companies while they’re behaving so badly, but does some of that money go to the designer and artist, who I don’t want to hurt?

That’s an actual question, so if anybody knows, please leave a comment.

To quote Jackie Fox, designer of one of my favourite Devir Games:

“Unfortunately, of late, publishers (my own included) are making choices that affect disadvantaged communities, not to mention their other artists. Publishers always need to ask who might be harmed. Don’t go generic-just go kind.”

Society seemed to be on a bit of an upswing over the last 20 years, before 2016, but since then it just is becoming worse and worse.

Evil and degenerate people have seen the last few years and what’s happened as license to bring their racism and prejudice out in the open.

As a CIS white male, I realize that this all may be superficial as I don’t have an informed opinion about these type of things.

I haven’t experienced what my trans and BIPOC friends have experienced. Any opinion I have is not informed at all.

I also realize that this blog, where I maybe get 100 hits a day, won’t make much of an impact in the broad scheme of things.

But what little I can do, I want to do, and I hope this post and my stance will do at least a little bit.

I may not be able to do much, but I want to do something.