General Discussion

Is it just me, or have there really been NO games featuring (not just including) Indians, being the Native American Indians from North America.
I mean, we've got games (not just MMOs) about the Romans, American society, Germans, Japanese, and so forth.. But I really can't recall any games based around the Native American society. I mean, sure.. WoW kinda incorporates them with the Tauren race, and Vanguard had the wolf race that was reminiscent of the Native Americans..

Although, Age of Empires recently had an expansion with them as the main focus, didn't it?

Reason I bring this up is in my college courses one of the studies is about the Native American tribes accross the western US, so naturally being a gamer I started to wonder. Evens searching I found nothing really..
So am I the only one who hasn't noticed this?

Game Companies sell to demographics more than just about any other industry on the market.

I never really noticed it per say except for a few games but I think a lot of it has to do with demographics as Paulscott says and what would interest a gamer.

The biggest games that comes to mind is Turok: The Dinasaur Hunter, Civ series, and Age of Empires.

Prey

I imagine it would be a difficult game to pull off.  The recorded history is on the depressing side.  If you play as indians, you get small pox.  If you play as a settler, you spread small pox. 

The Tauren in World of Warcraft.

www.regressionx.com/wow/Images/tauren-city.jpg

Prey and (as i mentioned before) the Tauren in Wow are all well and great but Prey is about aliens. Not Native American life. It's more an inclusion, than featured. Much like the Tauren. The game isn't about the Native American society, it's just another theme. Such as the Trolls being Jamaican, Drenai being Russian-like, and so forth.

Lacrosse - this is a native american game.

The problem is the most popular representation if made into a game would be "Cowboys and Indians".

Considering how  ridiculously politically correct society is now, do you think an honest representation could be done? 

Indians would be suing because they were depicted scalping soldiers, smoking peyote (ah, drug use, there's a mature rating now ), raping settlers wives, getting drunk off 'fire water", etc. ( which would all be factual representations of activities during that time ).

The white people would all be suing the devs for depicting them as slave runners, "savage" hunters, taking Indian land, raping and pillaging Indian settlements/camps, spreading disease through blankets in an effort to commit genocide, etc. ( which would all be factual representations of activities during that time ).

99% of all the things which would make a game based on the Native American culture interesting to gamers, and especially mmorpg gamers, would be forbidden due to overbearing censors, idiotic useless parents who want someone else to be responsible for their children, historical "revisionists", and political flunkies.

Does this count