I could really care less about the term, but I could go with that.  I love confrontation in my gaming, the one thing that I dislike is player elimination in long games.  I short games it’s fine, but long games it makes for bad situations.

On the BGG thing, being a lurker more than a poster I thought that the confrontational posting was getting out of hand.  It seemed like half the posts were “mine is bigger” type posts.  So I can see why Aldie wanted it changed.  I like their new website, although it would be so much better if they didn’t spend half their time talking about how bad Eurogames and Eurogamers were and put that extra into talking about games.

I was confused by the name at first. Now that I know what it means, I still think the term itself is bad. It doesn’t say much about the games other than that they’re probably of US origin.

While not really liking the genre, I do have to agree that the term will not have a positive effect on the genre, or the boardgame world in general, as it just has a bad sound to it.

Ameritrashers: change the term for the better!

I’ve always felt that the term was purposefully created to be controversial.  Note that the creators, users, and proponents of the term are those people who enjoy that type of game.  They want to be thought of as rejects, as somehow undermining the status quo of BGG.  They are the 1908’s “punk” music of the board game hobby.  Hence the “Ameritrash” and “Eurosnoot” labels.

I almost wrote a post on BGG a long time ago about changing the term AmeriTrash to something else. Then I realized it was pointless to try to enter into a debate like that when I started to see where it was going, and sure enough, it went there.

I have a little more confidence that the discussion here will stay civil, so let’s really look at this for a second.

I think the “point of origin” approach to naming large groups of games as Euro vs. AmeriTrash is a dead end. Let’s try to come at it from a different angle.

“Ameritrash” games tend to be: Open-ended in length, more tolerant of randomizers, heavily interactive, with highly integrated themes, and designed for enjoyment of immersion through a closer adherence to simulation than abstraction. They are, essentially, interactive adventures featuring interesting conflict. My entertainment analogy for AmeriTrash type games is “Cinematic,” blockbuster movie-style games where the focus is on plot, action and special effects, in order to immerse the viewer in the experience.

In contrast, Euros are more typically: Paced and/or with fixed length, segregated in terms of player interaction, with more pasted-on themes, and designed for enjoyment of manipulating systems through mechanics, inspiring thoughtful reflection on future strategy and analysis of past games. They are, essentially, interactive puzzles featuring emergent complexity. My entertainment analogy for Euros is “Theatrical,” where the focus is on dialogue, art, and maximization of simple stage elements that focus on the talents of the actors (mechanics) and their interactions.

What’s interesting is that both film and theater are compelling and immersive, but for different reasons and using different approaches. Both have their fans, and those fan bases have valid reasons for their preferences. But if you have a fan who values simplicity, interesting interactions with a few key elements, and a preference for “elegance,” you’re probably going to suggest a theatre experience.

If you have a fan who likes to escape, likes big special effects, lots of explosions and shooting, or eye candy, with a strong plot that carries him away to another place for a while and feels like a roller coaster ride when it’s over, then you’re more likely to suggest a cinema experience.

That’s the kind of comparison I think is most useful: not so much where the game came from, or what game it’s more like, but what kind of experience does it provide the player, and how does it do that?

When I think of Euros I think of a good play by Shakespeare or Henrik Ibsen: you know how it will end, and when, but how you get there and the elegance of the story, the dialogue and interaction of the characters, and their subtle changes and transformations, are what keep you coming back. You might have “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” memorized, but you still love to see it recreated on stage from time to time.

When I think of Ameritrash I think of epic movies like Star Wars or the Lord of the Rings or Dune: the dialogue and relationships are less interesting than the exotic settings, twisting plots, amazing special effects, great battles, and heroic conflict resolution. You might have seen it many times, but it still creates a sense of wonder and magic that overcomes its fixed sequences and sometimes corny dialogue.

To me, framing the Euro/Ameritrash debate in these terms helps liberate the discussion from what is essentially an endless harangue over apples and oranges. I think it’s more interesting to look at how well they do what they do for the players, rather than which category is better. It’s like asking, “Which is better, ‘Gladiator’ or ‘Julius Caesar?’” or, “Braveheart is better than Macbeth any day of the week.” or, “Boats are sooooo much better than cars.” Actually boats and cars are just fine either way, depending on where you want to go.

What are some other analogies that take the Euro/Ameri-X discussion away from “Land Masses of Origin”?

Scott, I heartily agree. I don’t like the term, and I do, on occasion, play the games. My argument has been, since the beginning of the rise of this vocal minority, that most of us play all forms of games and the polarization and polemics are not needed. The acrimony on BGG was old and irritating long ago, and I find that I spend less time looking at GeekLists and general threads. This is sad, since I have found some great games that I would have otherwise missed through these, but I find that I have no need to see (or participate in) the spleen-venting.

I think that Jon may have hit on something. The punk analogy may hold, though I can’t remember if the name for the movement was originally self-applied or whether it was embraced by the fans once the press applied it.

I am not sure that Ameritrash is any more self-disparaging than Boardgame Geek?  I frequently use the latter appellation self-referentially. 

AT games aren’t, in general, my favorites, but they used to be when time didn’t seem so hard to find and I suspect that some of them may come back into my playlist when my perceived game time is more abundant.  But calling them trash hasn’t affected how I feel about them. 

I do agree that both terms, Geek and Trash, aren’t likely to spur sales without knowing the background of the terms.

FWIW, Ameritrash has less negative connotations than Amerithrash does to me.

The name, and for that matter games themselves of any type, was really irrelevant to the whole controversy.

The point of it was solely to stir up trouble for the sake of stirring up trouble. The genre of games and the name that was given to them, were just handy means to that end. Their aim was to take shots at certain people, with those shots making them some sort of celebrity or something. I couldn’t figure out what exactly the point was of creating some imaginary persecution and then making personal attacks, but it seemed to give them a thrill.

For me, this makes any discussion of any substance at all over this issue pointless. The side of the “debate” that is out to stir up controversy will just continue to do so, regardless of any statements that are made, even by those who also enjoy the genre of games they are allegedly defending in their “war.”

Thankfully, the whole mess ended up as a tempest in a teapot, except for a handful of people who insist on trying to recapture those glory days when they thought they had all of BGG hanging on their every post. In reality, the whole controversy came and went with relatively few people ever realizing what happened, or at best, having a passing knowledge, enough to avoid it.

I think the point of having a discussion on this is that we could be wrong trying to estimate their original goal. Although I understand how Paul can see in the whole AT movement a simple “desire to take shots at certain people”, it may really be something else. Refusing to have a debate based on a possible interpretation of their intentions is similar to using a straw man argument. I don’t think resorting to such a logical fallacy to discredit a debate is useful. I understand that some are personally involved and that they don’t feel like discussing the issue, but that shouldn’t be a reason to try to stop a fair and honest discussion on the topic.

Regarding the amerithrash term, I find it offensive. But I am somewhat a “petit-bourgeois” and could be overly sensitive. As long as there is substance behind any label, I’ll go along with it and try to understand what it means. Although I might give up before fully understanding it if Ineed to suffer too much “thrash talk” in order to grab its substance.

I still can’t get over the fact that you name-checked Dan Savage and linked to an article describing Santorum!

I await BGN’s addition to most workplaces’ Banned Sites List shortly. :)

pk

J.M., That’s a wonderful analogy.  I agree with you that there’s never a point debating which girl is prettier: Mary Ann or Ginger.

Scott & Philippe, I actually think there might be better choices of names for Ameritrash games, but I thought that AmeriThrash had the greatest chance for actually being used since it was so close to the original.

Patrick,

I was a little concerned as well, which is why I didn’t give the actual definition of the word!

I am actually quite interested in the AT thing. Unfortunately, a few of its proponents began to dismiss people and get truly obnoxious in their comments.

The core idea is that a group of people got tired of having a style of game they like being dismissed by others in the BGG community. The sentiment doesn’t just cover Ameritrash games, but also wargames and party games.

Sometimes it isn’t entirely intentional. When Rick Thornquist did his video at the Gathering last year, he described several of the games with slightly derogatory terms as silly and I think even pointless in one case. (Invariably, I was seated around one of those games.)

Sandi watched the video and blurted out “So what does Rick have against fun?”

Rick actually plays silly fluffy games as well. He was suffering from trying to comment a video on almost no sleep.

So sadly, I suspect that many of the problems are that we frequently communicate spectacularly badly.

Moo,
Frank

Paul,
I disagree with your statement that the entire goal was to take pot-shots and individuals.  My impression is that there were (are) some people who do feel that their particular interests are not supported, indeed even denigrated, by the “influential people” involved.  The sad thing is that I think this is not the cases, and certainly the people involved are not actually all that influential.  On top of that, there certainly were a few pot-stirrers who don’t help the situation.

What is unfortunate to me is that a group managed to talk themselves into believing they were ‘outsiders’ when the games they like are also liked by many of the ‘insiders’ they were busy insulting.  But, that is the way of a social site, and the post-mortem has dragged on longer than the actual events as near as I can tell.

You can’t have a proper town without the crazy man in the town square.  As long as I can get what I want out of the Geek, I don’t care what other folks want to do with it.

As to the Geek and Trash monikers, I agree with the original post.  Geek is quickly becoming an accolade used self-referentially with pride.  Trash on the other hand is on the way down (if it was ever up).  It would take a strong and confident publisher with a remarkable game to both embrace the term and bring it to any level of acceptance.  In the meantime I wouldn’t want to touch it with a 10’ pole.

As Frank said “So sadly, I suspect that many of the problems are that we frequently communicate spectacularly badly.”

I should have waited five more minutes and saved my effort.

Dear Scott,

Please let me apologize on behalf of the F:AT crew for using a name you find so offensive. Sometimes we forget ourselves, and when Robartin reused the old term we didn’t realize it would catch on as it did. If we had of known this would happen we would have submitted the term to yourself and the rest of the Board Game Gods for pre-approval before releasing it to the masses. You will have to forgive us, as sometimes we forget our lowly station, and don’t consider important things like publishers needs and wonderful award labels when we coin terms we personally like for our own everyday use.

Dear Frank La Terra,

Regardless, Scott did bring up a valid point which I whole-heartedly agree with: consider that publishers can use a better label to further promote the hobby and the games we love.

Since as part of the F:AT crew you have started using the AT name, perhaps you would like to put forward a more publisher/award-friendly name?

Or perhaps put forward a case for the continuation of the usage of the AT term?

Heng,

I believe the term is fine. It’s fitting, fun, catchy and sounds good. And most importantly it’s the term that caught on - it’s nonsense to try and change words people use via a committee because that is not how the world works.

As far as the name not being publisher/award friendly, so what? We are talking about a niche within a niche here, with the only people who are going to hear these terms being the people already in the gaming hobby.

It’s like music, within every style there are many subcategories - for example heavy metal has thrash, power metal, gothic metal, neu metal, christain metal, dealmetal, gridecore, black, doom, yadda yadda yadda. While publications which are targeted to those ‘in the know’ such as metal hammer may have awards for “best thrash album of 2007”, when it comes to the big awards like the Grammies all of them just get dumped under the ‘hard rock’ award.

Ditto with boardgames, sure we may do a “trashies” award at the end of the year for a bit of fun, but are the big awards targeted to a more general audience like the SDJ going to really bother splitting awards into these subcategories which are meaningless to it’s main target audience? Or is it just going to give out an award for the “top game” of 2007 and dump everything under that? It will obviously do the latter, which means the whole publisher/industry argument is a moot point, because they don’t have to deal with it anyway.

I agree with Mr. Branham’s post.  There has been a great deal of misunderstanding and lack of communication on both sides of this brouhaha.  I truly believe that the AT movement is more than just a few loud voices ranting at The Man and represents the gaming tastes of a goodly number of folks.  I also believe that these people felt marginalized and insulted by the attitudes of The Nameless Majority which eventually came to be called Eurogamers.  But while some of this disdain was deliberate, most of it was accidental or just misunderstood by the ATers.

For example, I’ve spoken with gamers who had no idea that Eurogamer complaints about dice and luck weren’t aimed principally at “their games” but at the large American publishers and roll and move games like Monopoly.  These digs come from the days when Euros were hardly mainstream (to be honest, they’re still not) and it was the Eurogamers who were the minority struggling to be noticed.  Another non-existent slight is the term TGOO (These Games of Ours).  Most ATers don’t realize that this was a joke name that just caught on.  I spoke with one very earnest ATer who said he didn’t know which games were being referred to by this phrase, but he was certain they weren’t HIS games.  Anyone who knows the history of TGOO realizes that this was never the intent of the term.  And yet, how can you blame the ATers, many of whom came into the middle of the Eurogamer discussion without any reference to what the hell was being talked about.

So maybe the Geek bannings were a good thing, in that they’ve let cooler heads prevail.  If it has led to further splintering, that’s unfortunate, but I can’t imagine it being worse than the situation that existed in the recent past.

Frank La Terra’s posts illustrate the two sides of the AT reprentatives.  On the one hand is the reasoned and insightful responses that I’ve frequently heard from Frank.  On the other is the chip on the shoulder, insult first and ask questions later reflex.  It’s the latter that make so many eurogamers frustrated with the AT movement.  It may be too late in the game to emphasize that we’re all pretty much on the same side and that the crossover between the two movements is pretty great.  But it’s true.

Please keep posting and keeping us honest, Frank.  There’s as much misunderstanding about the AT movement on the part of eurogamers as there is in the other direction.  But you don’t have to come out swinging.  Even if we don’t always express ourselves accurately over here, you’re among friends.

Wow, we made Boardgamenews!  We’ve arrived!

;))

Here’s a little bit of history on this, to maybe make things more clear.  After all, this is about communication, or lack thereof.

I signed up for BGG in June of 2005, trying to track down a copy of Star Wars: The Queen’s Gambit and find out more about a new game I’d heard of called War of the Ring.

Within three months of my sign-up, I’d noticed the badmouthing of these plastic-filled dicefests that were my bread and butter and chief source of interest.  I had never even heard the term “dicefest” before that, but over those few months I’d seen it mentioned quite often, usually with a taste of venom right behind it.  “Bah.  Dicefest.”

I created a Geeklist at the time based off of a negative comment I’d read about one of Eagle’s games--"Typical Ameriplasty Trash”.  Fed up a bit but more importantly just looking for other gamers like myself, I created a Geeklist describing the games I liked, attempting to co-opt the “Ameirplasty” negative word in the process.  I wasn’t part of a clique or movement or any of that crap--I was a gamer who felt a little alone in the types of games he liked and I was looking for gamers with similar interests.

The next year, Robert Martin and Michael Barnes have a similar idea completely independant of this--nabbing an email deriding these types of games as “Ameritrash”, they went with that term.  It caught on like wildfire.  And here we are today.

Really, though, focusing on this part of the discussion isn’t as germane as it seems.  The issue is BGGers inability to not leap into threads about things they don’t like and wildly pissing over everything and everyone in them.  As stated above, this has been going on with wargamers and party gamers for years, and it’s easy to see this going on even today ("Don’t you wargamers have better things to do with your time?")

Wargamers could often slink off to Consimworld to find like-minded individuals; party gamers really couldn’t care less what you think, they’ve got a house full of friends waiting on them to play Apples to Apples.

However, the “fight” was picked against gamers who were fond of conflict and didn’t have a “place to go” otherwise.  Instead of just rolling with it, they dug in, and ugliness and nastiness ensued.

There was much of the mudslinging on both sides, but I find it very telling in all of this that the only ones to get banned or suspended were those on the AT side of the debate.

Anyway, that’s neither here nor there.  Fortress: Ameritrash is a site that celebrates those types of games and gives Euros and Eurofans some good-natured ribbing in the process.  Discussion over there gets heated but you know what?  We’re passionate gamers.  It’s to be expected.  AT games tend to attract extroverts who aren’t afraid of conflict.  That’s just how it is.

In retrospect, if you start honing in on where the attacks came from against AT style games, it was from relatively few users who just happened to be very vocal.  So things get blown out of proportion...those very few start to appear to be speaking for the masses, especially when the masses don’t bother to try to police their own in any meaningful way.

Anyway, if you don’t like the term, blame the critics...they came up with it, we stole it.  And the focus of the “movement” is to celebrate these games, believe it or not.

I should also add that none of us labor under the delusion that any of the big game developers are going to latch on to this term and use it in any capacity.

It’s sort of a buzzword shorthand that quickly sums up a genre of games, links them together, without having to go into a lengthy description each time (I think Scott’s points above are excellent, and they closely echo an article I did that listed some of the defining traits of AT games). 

Eurogamers can say “Eurogames” and there is an influx of assumed information there...game types, mechanisms, prominent designers...all in one word.  Why shouldn’t AT fans have that same luxury?  It makes communication a whole lot easier.

Ken,

Great comment, thanks. However, I would argue against the fact that “AT games tend to attract extroverts who aren’t afraid of conflict”. I know a lot of people who like AT games and who do not fit your definition. These are people who do not feel the need to defend their “game” or to participate in the heated debates going on either at F:AT or BGG.

Fair enough.  It was intended to be a generalization to help create more discussion in a very broad sense.

Thanks for the background information, Ken.  It’s very interesting and gives a valuable perspective.

The negative comments on Eagle’s games were indeed widespread.  Part of it did come from the kind of game they were trying to emulate (the Milton Bradley GameMaster’s series), which some eurogamers considered “behind us”.  But many eurogamers had fond memories of these games.  In fact, I think much of what you saw was due to disappointment from those gamers who hoped that Eagle would succeed.  The most common complaint was about the poor to nonexistent playtesting these titles seemed to have.  That was more of an issue than the number of dice they contained.  But I can see this sounding like an attack.

You mentioned wargamers and Consimworld.  Part of the reason for the sometimes defensive attitude of the established BGGers was that this was “our” site from the moment of its inception.  Then came the wargamers, streaming over after Consimworld decided to charge for its services.  The resentment of these “interlopers” was perhaps understandable, but still unfortunate.  I think the ATers got some of the residual flak from that still simmering feud.

I also found the following quote from your posting most interesting:  “AT games tend to attract extroverts who aren’t afraid of conflict.  That’s just how it is.”

I’m not sure if this is indeed the reason, but there’s no doubt that there’s a wide gulf between most eurogamers and most ATers when it comes to online conflict, controversy, and mixing things up.  The eurogamers seem to want to avoid confict.  Maybe it’s because of the games we play.  Maybe it’s because most of us are older and have been in the hobby for a decade or longer.  Or maybe it’s because as the entrenched group on BGG, we had less to fight about.  Whatever the cause, much of the reason for the schism was the enthusiasm of the ATers for a good argument and the weariness of the eurogamers of the same.  (Which isn’t to say that there aren’t some eurogamers who delight in insults and screaming--just that there are many more who wish we could all get along.) It seemed as if there were entire Geeklists that consisted of nothing more than eurogamers saying “Will you shut up already?” and ATers responding, “Come out and fight like a man!”.  Just a different philosophy, but one that led to much hard feelings.

Anyway, I welcome this kind of exchange and hope it can lead to more understanding between the two groups.  Not to put Eric on the spot, but has anyone considered having an AT leaning gamer provide semi-regular commentary on BGN?  It could be a lot of fun and quite informative if it was pitched as a glimpse from the Other Side, rather than a taunting (and hopefully the comments would be insult-free as well).  Just a thought.

I agree with Larry, Frank’s two posts represent both what I dislike and like about the vocal ATers.  First, he comes in and posts a sarcasm ridden post that talks down to it’s readers, followed up by an excellent post that describes his viewpoint.

I personally like AT games alot, probably more than Euro, although I tend to like most games.  But the vocal ATers attacks made it so I stopped reading their posts, even though of lot of the posts had good comment thrown in with the attacks.

Larry:

You called for an AT-leaning gamer on BGN. What am I, chopped liver?

Admittedly, I like party games, abstracts, the occasional wargame, and Eurogames, and of course videogames, and dexterity games and trick taking games.

I’ve been trying to sneak as much in, reviewing things like Hour of Glory, Battlelore, and Prophecy.  And even videogames and movie and book reviews. Shhhh. Nobody tell Eric.

"On the other is the chip on the shoulder, insult first and ask questions later reflex.  It’s the latter that make so many eurogamers frustrated with the AT movement.”

Fair point, but from my perspective Scott’s article was a swing, as were some of the following comments.  The whole thing just reeked of the ‘old boys club’ mentality that I simply cannot stand. So while many eurogamers are frustrated with the “AT movement”, we are just as frustrated with this old guard mentality that seems so firmly entrenched in the hobby. Yes, many of these people did do / still do a lot of good for the ‘hobby’; but that doesn’t mean that they own it and can dictate terms to the rest of “us” - those are our choices to make. To be fair I don’t think “the Illuminati” realize that they are coming across as elitist as they do (self awareness seems to be a trait none of us has), which is why there is so much surprise each year when the Gathering of Friends complaining starts up on queue.

As far as the whole ‘war’ goes I have always maintained it’s more about a clash of personality types (Family Oriented/Church crowd vs Kevin Smith style nerds) rather than game genres but that is a separate issue.

Frank: The old guard comment is drifting a bit into the region that I suspect that got Barnes banned.

The idea that there is an old guard among the Eurogamers does seem silly. Sort of silly. Eurogames definitely first spread through the people at the Gathering, and a lot of the rec.games.board folks turned up at the early ones.

There isn’t massive amounts of agreement, and the sort so things that get played vary from tons of Age of Steam to 12 hour wargames. One group pretty much married Descent, party games are broken out at all hours, and I remember a seeing full crowd for Magic Realm.

The people who write Eurogame articles are dong pretty much what you are over at Fortress:AT. They are just writing about what they like.

Rick T does write well ( I want to see rough drafts of his Infocom book ) and he ended up in a position to try the game journalist thing. Ward Batty ended up writing a newspaper column because he pitched the idea.

Occasionally, reading online reviews I do see a bit of a tone that implies that the reviewer is correct because they’ve written so many reviews, know the game designer. And there is the bit of name dropping.

I don’t feel that it is all the time, and certainly not a large percentage of the Euro crowd. But unfortunately, I’m somewhat of an insider in the Euro crowd. ( And a bit of an insider on the AT crowd as well. As I type this, I’m wearing my Atlanta Game Factory shirt.) And the people, and motivations aren’t really that much different.

‘cept the AT-ers definitely have better taste in movies.

Frank B:
I have no problem whatsoever with the whole game game journalist thing, and can’t recall having any issue with anything Rick T ever wrote. It’s no secret I personally thought Weeks and Barnes hounding of Rick, Tom & Greg was, to put it bluntly, quite dumb.

This article of Scott’s (who I must admit I know nothing about) did come across to me as some old fart with mutton chop sideburns and walrus mustache sitting in the mens only mahogany room, cigar in hand, pontificating to us young whippersnappers that we don’t know what’s good for us.

Not that there is anything wrong with that in an of itself, but one can hardly act surprised when some young punk skates past and flips him the bird.

Posted by Jonathan Greisz: “I like their new website, although it would be so much better if they didn’t spend half their time talking about how bad Eurogames and Eurogamers were and put that extra into talking about games.”

This is like the whole situation in a nutshell for me. If Barnes & Co. had stuck to talking about games then things would have been much different. Nobody’s getting banned for debating the merits of TI3 on the TI3 page or how boring Through the Desert might be. Such discussions about a game are good for BGG and its members. Now move that same debate to the front page and add in generalizations about groups of people who play certain games. No longer good for BGG or its members.

Of course the blame lies just as much with Aldie though. BGG used to be a game database with a nice community in the background. Now its a game community with a database in the background. If the site wasn’t now based around the frontpage then Michael Barnes would be just another user posting in the background.

Frank La Terra wrote: “This article of Scott’s (who I must admit I know nothing about) did come across to me as some old fart with mutton chop sideburns and walrus mustache sitting in the mens only mahogany room, cigar in hand, pontificating to us young whippersnappers that we don’t know what’s good for us.”

For anyone who’s seen Scott, this is a hilarious image.

On a more general topic, I’m always open to the idea of adding new columnists to BGN. I like Euro games, but I like plenty of other games as well. Since taking over as editor, I’ve tried to increase coverage of self-published games, abstract games, party games, and so on, but I have only so much time in the day.

I’m in discussions with a few folks about having them contribute to BGN; anyone else who wants to write for BGN, whether once or on a regular basis, is welcome to contact me through the link at the top of the page. The only criteria are that you can write well and that you can talk about games in an interesting, fun and civil way.

I do what I can to spread the love of and awareness of board games to as many people as possible through articles in mainstream publications, but for every article I place, twenty more proposals are rejected by editors. I’d love to see people everywhere playing board games more than they do, mostly so that I have more opportunities to play!