Painkillers

In the 1990s, pharmaceutical companies successfully lobbied the Federal Drug Administration of the United States government to approve opioid-based pharmaceuticals for use beyond their traditional application in end of life care. Since then, more than 700,000 people have died from opioid-related overdoses in the United States alone. Painkillers is a game that explores this tragic history and asks hard questions about the insidiousness of corporate greed, the complicity of the US government and medical communities, and the failure of the justice system in dealing with this crisis. In the game, players each act as pharmaceutical executives attempting to enrich themselves while avoiding responsibility, both legal and moral, for their actions. On each turn, you choose either to build up your company to make future actions stronger or more efficient, or to activate one of your company's departments: HR, legal, marketing, R&D, or sales. Your goal is to establish a strong sales presence in central Appalachia, where this crisis started, lobby the federal government to approve new drug types, manage your public reputation, and deal with incriminating evidence your employees leave behind. All of this is in service of profit. Play continues in this way until a National Reckoning card appears, at which time the game stops to assess the severity of the situation. Throughout the game, your actions have consequences, both in the form of an ever-increasing rate of addiction and a growing community response. The greedier you are, the stronger these responses will be, potentially disrupting your company's activities. The game continues until one of three things happens: the epidemic gets out of control and all players lose; the federal government collects enough evidence to regulate the industry and all players lose; time passes and the third national reckoning card is revealed, and the player who has accumulated the most personal wealth wins the game. Painkillers is a game about the systemic failures that led to the opioid crisis. It depicts a bleak time in American history, and it does not shy away from hard truths. But it also pushes players to reflect on what can be done in response to this crisis. —description from the designer