After outcry, “edutainment” game removes slave-Tetris mode

In recent years, online video game store Steam has exploded with more games thanks to looser release rules. This has happened in large part thanks to store subsections like Early Release, where unfinished games can be sold with giant asterisks attached, and Steam Greenlight, where fan votes can dictate which games get approved for the store.

Still, the growing deluge of Steam games is so huge that even questionable stuff can sit on the store for months at a time. A recent 25 percent sale on the Steam version of Playing History 2: Slave Trade brought it back into the limelight—especially its trailer video, which showcased a "slave Tetris" mode. On Monday, following wider reactions from users on Steam and social media, the creator removed that mode from both the trailer and the game itself, explaining on Twitter and Steam that "it was perceived to be extremely insensitive by some people."

The mode, which can still be seen in Let's Play videos captured before the game's update, flatly asked players to stack dead-eyed African bodies that had been squished into uncomfortable Tetris shapes into a slave ship. (The mode's instructions included an oddly rhetorical question: "How come the slave traders were so inhumane?") Players didn't try to "clear" the board by creating full lines; instead, they accumulated points for fitting more bodies onto the ship before reaching its top line. The mode concluded with an informational note about slaves being "packed to use every square millimeter."