Talk:Fortress America

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Untitled[edit]

No mention of the Saddam/Twin towers box art cover? Gront 00:48, 14 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

saddam?[edit]

Who says it is Saddam on the box? Not every swarthy guy with a moustache is S.H. Saddam was a US ally when this game was made, so why depict him with a "soviet" star on his beret? Prove it or don't claim it!

Here's further info from boardgamegeek.com (not my work, just c/p)

Rumor: Various covers exist, including one prominantly featuring Saddam Hussein. The cover was nixed due to public outcry and reprinted with a genericized ethnic caricature featuring sunglasses.

Truth of the Matter: Information varies greatly on the motivation behind the change, but there were multiple versions of the cover art -- that much is factual. The reasoning behind the change (or why they put Saddam on in the first place) may never be truly known.

This GeekList entry on Fortress America provides some add'l insights from various Geeks about the purported history of the cover controversy:

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/geeklist.php3?action=view&listi...

The following is an interesting rundown of the storied past of the cover, quoted from a fan site:

Fortress America was already out of print before the Gulf War conflict started. The first ("Saddam") edition made its debut at Origins 1986, the subsequent ("Sunglasses") edition was released about a year latter (and *possibly* still distributed as late as 1988). Sales were poor by Milton Bradley's criteria, it seems the second edition may have been released only to supply those few areas that had run out of the original edition. And then MB called it quits on the title. The second edition was almost certainly of a smaller print run, personally I never saw the "Sunglasses" edition in any game or toy store, only in auctions and private sales after the game went OOP. I own 4 copies of the game, 3 are "Saddam" edition and 1 is the "Sunglasses" edition, and this is roughly the ratio of them I've seen in auctions and conventions ever since.

I've never got any solid information on the cover art change, only conjecture. No one from Milton Bradley / Hasbro has ever stated anything I've heard about. Nothing logical points to why a relatively obscure item such as a board game would warrant such a change.

During that time period (1986-1988) the U.S. was halfway between a "make overtures to Iranian moderates" and "support Iraq as a counter to Iran", moving towards the former. Most Americans hadn't even heard of Saddam Hussein, much less be able to name which country he controlled. The highly publicized use of chemical weapons by Iraq against a Kurdish village in 1988 had yet to take place. Outside of the U.S. fewer still had heard of the game, and those that would have taken objection would have objected over the paranoid theme (U.S. being gang invaded by the rest of the world) rather than a cover art resemblance to a Middle East dictator.

Another rumor, which I can't find any confirmation of, purports that it's not even a portrait of Saddam Hussein, but a caricature of someone in the industry, and that it's merely a coincidence it looks so much like Saddam, and it was meant as an inside joke/homage that got out of hand. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.8.212.254 (talk) 20:16, 16 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]