ABSTRACT
Critics of videogames often claim that they are too violent. However, developers of videogames with historical settings face a problem of equal importance: whether to ignore or play down past atrocities on the one hand, or risk indulging players’ racism and sadism on the other. Which type of violent acts are acceptable to portray differs among videogames, and often depends on the target audience of the game and the laws of the country in which it lives. In order to examine videogames’ portrayals of past violence, this chapter first discusses what historians and other scholars have written on the topic. It then examines the portrayal of combat and collateral damage. Finally, it deals with games’ portrayals of more systemic forms of violence: slavery and genocide. In all these cases videogame designers must compromise with reality. The question is how much.
