I've been an old school hex map and chit wargamer for about 40 years. It's a hobby I enjoy and therefore one that I pay fairly close attention to. GMT Games is, in my opinion, one of the best companies in the business today producing not only many excellent simulations but also Euro style board games. They are also the people who make the Cold War game Twilight Struggle which has been called by several people the best board game ever made.
About a month ago GMT proposed a game for backing called Scramble For Africa. European colonialism in Africa is a subject the industry has generally avoided. Excepting games that simulate specific battles between colonizers and natives I can only think of two that have looked at the subject from a large scale point of view, Avalon Hill's Source of the Nile, which was more of a white-man-stumbles-around-Africa-and-'discovers'-things-while-trying-not-to-die game, Victory Games Pax Britannica a diplomatic/economic game which treated all colonies, not just African ones, as pawns in the game European power politics.
Where GMT's proposed game differed from these was that it was put out there as a Euro style game of conquest and exploitation that treated Africa as a literal playing board and the native populations at things to be exploited with no reference to actual history. They could have just as easily made a game that involved fantasy races divvying up the continent of Blobbica with the same mechanic. Needless to say this proposal was met with a large outcry because of how it handled - or more appropriately didn't handle - the subject of European colonialism and it's effects on Africa. GMT then wisely decided to pull the proposal and cancel the game.
The problem with the hobby that I enjoy is that many of the others in it tend to skew politically to the right and there are now many blog posts and YouTube videos out there (none of which I am going to link to and give oxygen) screaming about how GMT has given into "political correctness" and that the company has just written it's own death warrant for giving into the SJWs.
In short the Gamergaters and Sad Puppies have finally raised their ugly heads in the wargaming hobby. I suspect it will create a lot of sound and fury but in the end will signal nothing. There are a lot of wargame companies out there but there are darn few that are continually successful like GMT and the reason they are is because they have a good sense of what will and will not work in the hobby that doesn't have much in the way of a profit. However in the short term, I do suspect GMT is going to feel some pain as orders are canceled while some people have snits. So if you are thinking of buying a board game in the near future, please give GMT a try. And if you want some suggestions about what to buy, please feel free to ask me, I've got a lot of their games.
