Beyond the Board: The Complicated Legacy of Puerto Rico and the Failure of “Inclusion”

The board game industry, often celebrated for its ability to foster community and intellectual engagement, has increasingly found itself at a crossroads regarding its historical representations. At the center of this ongoing debate is one of the hobby’s most storied titles: Puerto Rico. Originally released in 2002, the game has long been a staple of strategy gaming, yet it has faced sustained criticism for its trivialization of colonialism and slavery. In 2022, publisher Alea/Ravensburger attempted to address these controversies with Puerto Rico 1897, a thematic remake designed to decouple the game from its problematic roots. However, recent developments have revealed that the project, far from healing old wounds, has ignited a fresh debate about the nature of corporate “inclusion” and the ethics of cultural consultation.

Jason Perez, a prominent board game critic, creator of the Shelf Stories YouTube channel, and a Puerto Rican advocate who served as the cultural consultant for Puerto Rico 1897, has publicly rejected the final product. His critique highlights a widening chasm between the industry’s performative attempts at sensitivity and the lived realities of the communities it claims to represent.

A Chronology of Controversy

To understand the weight of Perez’s recent rejection, one must look at the historical trajectory of the Puerto Rico brand.

• 2002: The original Puerto Rico is released. It becomes a massive critical success, lauded for its tight, asymmetric gameplay. However, it is immediately criticized by some for its theme: players act as Spanish governors exploiting resources, including “colonists” represented by brown wooden discs, a thinly veiled allusion to enslaved people.
• The Decades of Silence: For nearly twenty years, the game remained a top-tier title on board gaming databases like BoardGameGeek, despite frequent online discourse regarding its erasure of the colonial violence inherent to its setting. The game famously ignored the historical reality of the Spanish Empire’s subjugation of the indigenous Taíno people and the importation of enslaved Africans.
• 2020–2021: Under intense pressure during a broader industry reckoning regarding diversity and representation, publishers began to audit their catalogs. Puerto Rico became a primary target for re-theming.
• 2022: Puerto Rico 1897 is launched. It features a new historical framing: players are now Puerto Rican farmers operating in the aftermath of the Spanish-American War, attempting to build a post-colonial economy.
• May 2024: Jason Perez publishes a video titled, “I Created the Theme of Puerto Rico 1897. Now, I Reject It.” He subsequently removes the video, citing misinterpretations, but issues a firm, permanent statement doubling down on his disillusionment with the project.

The Mechanics of Erasure: Understanding the Original Game

The original Puerto Rico is a classic "Eurogame" that focuses on economic engine-building. Players construct buildings, plant crops, and manage shipping routes to maximize victory points. The controversy has always stemmed from the thematic disconnect between its "civilized" mechanics and the brutal history of the region.

When the game was released, the term "colonist" was used to describe the workers arriving on ships. While the rulebook avoided the word "slave," the visual and thematic implications were clear to any student of history. The Spanish colonization of Puerto Rico was marked by the near-total destruction of the indigenous population through disease and forced labor, followed by the systemic enslavement of African people to fuel the plantation economy. By abstracting this into a game of efficient resource management, the original design effectively sanitized a genocide and the institution of chattel slavery, treating human suffering as a mere mechanical inconvenience.

Puerto Rico 1897 sought to solve this by moving the timeline forward to the end of the 19th century, focusing on local agricultural independence. While mechanically similar, the narrative shift was intended to honor the resilience of the Puerto Rican people rather than the exploitative prowess of their former oppressors.

The Consultant’s Dilemma: What Went Wrong?

Jason Perez, an respected voice in the community, was brought on to lend authenticity to the 1897 iteration. His goal was to infuse the project with a sense of genuine Puerto Rican identity. However, his recent testimony reveals that the collaboration was marred by structural failures.

In his communications, Perez noted that he encountered “pit traps” that creators often fall into due to their own enthusiasm for a project. When working within a corporate framework, consultants often find that their input is treated as a "thematic skin" rather than a foundational shift. Perez’s frustration stems from a feeling that his identity was utilized to grant the game a stamp of approval, rather than being allowed to shape the game’s core ethos of inclusion.

“Real inclusion means uplifting creators, not just their creations,” Perez stated. His rejection serves as a warning to the industry: hiring a consultant to “fix” a game is not the same as practicing inclusion. If the underlying power dynamics of the production process remain extractive—where the consultant’s cultural capital is harvested to make a product more palatable to modern sensibilities—the resulting “inclusion” is, as Perez puts it, “not real.”

Industry Implications and Ethical Challenges

The rejection of Puerto Rico 1897 by its own cultural consultant poses significant questions for the tabletop industry:

1. The Limits of Re-theming

Can a game built on the mechanics of colonial exploitation ever be truly "redeemed"? Some critics argue that the core loop of these games—extracting resources from land and labor—is inherently colonial in nature. By merely changing the date on the box, companies may be engaging in "colonial-washing," providing a thin veil of progressivism while maintaining the same exploitative ludic structures.

2. The Tokenization of Consultants

When publishers hire marginalized creators to "fix" problematic games, they risk tokenizing those individuals. If the consultant’s vision is diluted or ignored in favor of maintaining the status quo of the gameplay, the publisher effectively uses the consultant as a shield against legitimate criticism.

3. The Definition of "Fixed"

The gaming community often refers to games as "fixed" once a re-theme or a rule change is implemented. Perez’s statement invites a much-needed reflection on this term. If a game is "fixed" but the industry continues to prioritize profit over authentic representation, the "fix" is merely cosmetic.

Moving Toward "Real" Inclusion

The discourse surrounding Puerto Rico 1897 suggests that the board game industry is in a state of growing pains. As games become more culturally aware, the demands for accountability rise. The industry can no longer rely on the passive consumption of historical themes without expecting pushback from a more informed and diverse player base.

Real inclusion, as defined by the current crisis, requires several shifts:

• Transparency: Publishers must be more open about the extent to which a consultant’s advice was integrated into the final design.
• Agency: Cultural consultants should have a seat at the table during the earliest phases of development, not just during the marketing or final polishing stages.
• Acknowledgement: The industry must be willing to admit that some themes are too deeply rooted in historical trauma to be effectively translated into lighthearted strategy games, regardless of the level of "polish."

Conclusion: A Long Road Ahead

Jason Perez’s final statement—"Our industry has a long way to go"—is a somber reflection on the state of modern gaming. While the industry has made strides in acknowledging its past, the case of Puerto Rico 1897 serves as a stark reminder that intent does not equal impact.

For the board game community, the lesson is clear: progress is not found in simply updating the box art or shifting the historical timeline. True progress lies in structural change—in how games are conceived, who is allowed to design them, and how the industry treats the stories it chooses to tell. Until then, the shadow of the colonial past will continue to loom over the hobby, and the label of "inclusion" will remain, for many, a hollow promise.