Gamifying Tragedy: Pass Go and Exploit Historical Trauma for Profit
By Sean Colligan
Compass Games LLC, a company which aims to provide “professional-quality games at affordable prices for all levels of the gaming experience” and whose mission statement is concisely summarised by the company motto, “New Directions in Gaming” [1], have recently announced their latest attempt to honour that commitment to their niche clientele of hobbyists, armchair generals, and history buffs—The Troubles: Shadow War in Northern Ireland 1964-1998. The board gaming experience promises to retell the thirty years of conflict that caused the deaths of 3,532 people and the injury of over 47,500 more [2], all in the leisure of a six-hour sitting with up to as many players. Despite no mention of a release date, the game is available for prospective punters to pre-order for the sum of $85.00 [3], and even in its infancy has already attracted much controversy across Northern Ireland. The strongest condemnation has came from victims’ groups like the South East Fermanagh Foundation, with representative Kenny Donaldson stating that the game is “oversimplifying what is a very complex issue,” and that the game’s motive to “educate” was a “stretch”, more so a “minimisation of what this [The Troubles] was”[4]. General feeling among victims and survivors themselves is that the game is clearly in bad taste, or at worst downright exploitative.
This is not the only project that promises to adapt sensitive parts of history on the island of Ireland, nor in fact not the only project of this nature by the same company. Only a week before The Troubles: Shadow War sparked outrage, Compass Games had announced The Great Hunger: Ireland’s Tragedy in the 19th Century, where between two and five players attempt to survive the onset of the Great Famine through either taking their chances on the coffin ships or by staying, finding aid or employment to avoid starvation [5]. To make matters worse one of the game’s designers, the very much American Kevin McPartland, has stated on RTE’s Liveline that he does not “expect a single Irish person to buy this game.”[6] It is solely intended for the American market, where ostensibly it will educate players on one of the darkest periods of Ireland’s history, with the deaths of one million people and flight of another million from its shores will be retold through playing cards. Average time to play is between sixty to ninety minutes, merely a fraction of the time the company recommends that players take for their participation in the accurate and humane reenactment of over thirty years of bloodshed that The Troubles board game promises.
The fact of the matter is that these games are only tangentially interested in attempting to provide any sort of historical education into the very real and sensitive issues depicted in them, and are at best pop history—history as entertainment and pleasure for the small but dedicated fanbase of Compasses’ board gamers, cattle feed for middle-aged men who get their fix off sectarian killings, punishment beatings, and indiscriminate bombings, or alternatively the mass starvation and disease that caused suffering and misery for millions of people. Or both, enthusiasm and wallet depending. History’s real purpose, to inform and to educate, to allow reflection upon all that has come before us and to allow a greater understanding of the present, is a mere dog whistle, something for the company’s executives (perhaps a bit generous to award them such a corporate title) to rattle off at the rightful criticism levied at these projects.
There is no stopping people from attempting to cash-in on tragedy, but one can take some solace in the fact that games such as these are not being enjoyed en masse, played by a very small minority of people with nothing else better to do. The best revenge is to award these ventures very little acclaim or attention: the last project of this nature was an attempt to create a Troubles MMORPG way back in 2007, and it has since vanished off the face of the earth to a fanfare of sweet nothing. While of course deserving of condemnation in no uncertain terms, until a major video game company decides to turn any of the conflict’s numerous massacres into a Call of Duty-esque shooter, complete with loot boxes and battle royale elements, we can safely dismiss projects like this as mere snake oil that needn’t be laboured over.
References
1 – Compass Games. https://www.linkedin.com/company/compass-games
2 – Melaugh, Martin, Lynn, Brendan, and McKenna, F. “Background Information on Northern Ireland Society – Security and Defence.” https://cain.ulster.ac.uk/ni/security.htm#05
3 – “The Troubles: Shadow War in Northern Ireland (Pay Later)”. Compass Games. https://www.compassgames.com/product/the-troubles-shadow-war-in-northern-ireland-pay-later/?sfw=pass1770221420
4 – Johnston, Victoria. 2026. “Troubles Board Game’ Condemned by Fermanagh Victims Group.” Impartial Reporter. January 23, 2026. https://www.impartialreporter.com/news/25790152.troubles-board-game-condemned-fermanagh-victims-group/.
5 – “The Great Hunger (Pay Later).” Compass Games. https://www.compassgames.com/product/the-great-hunger-pay-later/
6 – Cuddihy, Kieran . 2026. Review of The Great Hunger Board Game. RTE Radio 1.
