One Book Shelf: Censorship Warfare

[Therumancer]

Unless I somehow missed this The Escapist hasn't covered the major controversy going on over the weekend with "One Book Shelf" which surprises me as it's one of the bigger digital distributors of RPGs, Comics, and Novels under it's various branches like "Drive Thru RPG".

A number of things have happened. The flashpoint of the entire thing is that two products on the site were pulled after complaints from various anonymous left wingers (and I say this without the usual rhetoric) one of them being a Collectible Card Game based off of the whole "Gamergate" controversy, and the other perhaps more understandably on the surface an adventure for the small press "Black Tokyo" RPG called "Tournament Of Rapists".

The CEO, formerly a major proponent of free speech and against censorship has under pressure decided that now censorship is a "moral responsibility he had been neglecting", and sadly that's almost a direct quote.

The disturbing part of this, and why it's noteworthy, is that despite the somewhat over the top title "Tournament Of Rapists" which is done for an over the top RPG meant to reflect edgy anime including extreme Hentai (which has it's following) the actual content is actually a bit more stereotypical in terms of horror. Basically a bunch of evil beings take over some people and they rape other people, and the PCs are out to stop them. That might not be to your tastes, but well, this was already marked as an adult product. What's more given that basic description it can be projected onto tons of other material across the gamut including horror novels, a lot of mature comic books, and even classic adventure modules like "Masks of Nylarthotep".

Given the role of One Book Shelf as one of the bigger distributors of indie RPG products, this is very bad news for those who are in the horror or dark fantasy generas, especially seeing as the new rulings are now so broad their companies can be effectively extinguished by a few complaints. Something which has drawn comments from indie success stories like the guys who did "Lamentations Of The Flame Princess" which is among Drivethru RPG's top 2% when it comes
to sellers. Companies like Postmortem studios have also sounded off on their sites.

Now as someone who is against censorship at all, it's pretty obvious which side of this I'm on, though I figure many here might not agree. I feel an "adult" warning is sufficient, and really if your someone offended by even the mere mention of rape in a fantasy context odds are your not going to be browsing the extreme horror section or looking at products for games like "Black Tokyo". To be fair I haven't read the product, as I have little interest in it or the game it is for (Black Tokyo is however one of their best sellers) but from the description and how broad the new policies are I do confess to some concern for a lot of other products and small press writers especially those in the horror genera.

Legally speaking, sadly to say, OBS is of course within it's rights as the law has yet to catch up with the modern needs of free speech (another long discussion I've gone through before here and won't rehash), that is not in question. However given Drivethru RPG's status as a go to site for digital RPG products and the usual distributor for products from things like "Bundle Of Holding" promotions, some people might be interested. I'm quite surprised that The Escapist hasn't been covering it since it usually has it's ear to the pulse of geekdom, and given how many small RPG producers depend on Drivethru RPG for digital distribution (the guys doing Lamentations Of The Flame Princess mention they depend on it) this could be a death knell for a lot of products and companies given what is a desire to start censoring as a "moral imperitive" and what are some pretty draconian standards given the reality of the situation rather than an intentionally jerkish title meant to get attention. SJWs are of course going to rejoice over this kind of victory, for everyone else... well, let's just say one of the remaining havens of free expression where "Extreme" authors could go to for distribution has fallen and the RPG hobby as a whole might be taking yet another hit just when it started seeing some recovery.

That said before yelling at me, which I expect many here will want to do, I recommend you head over to One Book Shelf's Blog, check out the video and mention on the "Post Mortem Studios" site, etc... whatever you think about it.

 

[DrownedAmmet]

Do you have to bring up the whole "Free Speech" and "censorship" thing? I disagree with them removing those titles from their platform, but in no way is it harming the author's ability to freely express themselves.

 

[Ragsnstitches]

It seems Therumancer forgot to add sources to his long spiel, which is an unfortunate oversight. For those wondering what he's talking about here are some useful sources:

Here's the policy change from Onebookshelf:

http://oneblogshelf.blogspot.ca/2015/09/offensive-content-policy.html

Here's a Reddit thread discussing and speculating on the policy change as well as briefly discussing the 2 games taken down. It's long but you get the general sentiment.

https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/comments/3jarzb/onebookshelfs_new_offensive_content_policy/

Within that thread here's an e-mail response from Onebookshelf that one of the folks received upon inquiry. It briefly mentions the GamerGate game:

Spoiler

We elected to ban a title from our marketplaces. Of the tens of thousands of titles that we carry, and after operating for 13 years, we have never before banned a title (other than for legal reasons). I hope those numbers make it clear this is not an action we have undertaken lightly, nor is it one we will undertake frequently, if ever again. Nonetheless, as this is the first time we?ve decided to ban a title, I thought a letter of explanation was in order.

The title in question is a card game whose theme is the Gamergate issue. The game attempted to present the issue in a satirical manner.

Normally, satirical works would be welcome on our marketplaces. However, we feel that there are situations where satire is inappropriate. For example, we do not think that a game released today that satirizes police killings of minorities in the USA would be appropriate. Regardless of how one feels about an issue like that, we feel that it is too current, too emotionally charged on both sides, and too related to real-world violence or death to make it an appropriate matter for satire.

Similarly, no matter how one feels about Gamergate, it is likewise too current, too emotionally frought, and too related to violence to be an appropriate subject for satire. Additionally, we considered that the violent element of the Gamergate issue has a basis in misogyny. For these reasons, we felt that this card game title was not welcome for sale on our site.

Note too that this is a card game, not a roleplaying game. Some may feel that if we were to ban an RPG from our marketplaces, that action would levy a significant economic penalty on that title since we have a long reach in the overall RPG market. This is not true of card games, where OneBookShelf is currently a tiny corner of the card game market. Our not carrying a card game should have minimal impact on that card game?s economic viability.

While we also considered the customer complaints on both sides of this issue (we are a business, after all, and we cannot ignore customer complaints and survive), these were not a major factor in our decision. Not surprisingly, given the gaming fanbase, many of the complaints we received were intelligently written and provided us with additional, thoughtful perspectives on the issue. Unfortunately, most customers were not in a position to review the content of the title itself and were therefore forced to be ?judging a book by its cover? only.

Some publishers also complained about this title, and a few publishers let us know they would not be interested in continuing to work with us if we carried it on our store. We will not allow any publisher to dictate content policy onto any other publisher, explicitly or implicitly. If any publisher ever decides to discontinue business with us because our content policy errs to the side of being too open, rather than restrictive, then we will respect their decision to leave our marketplaces and wish them well. To be clear, no publishers? comments had any bearing on our decision to discontinue selling this title.

Having now banned a title for the first time, we asked ourselves if we needed to establish any explicit policy for banning of future titles for reasons other than legality or production quality. Given that this is the first time such a thing has happened in 13 years, and given the difficulty of defining policies of this nature, we elected not to invest the time in creating a policy that would probably end up a poor guideline anyway. Our time is better spent getting back to retailing your titles to fans.

*We carry a lot of titles on our marketplaces that some or all of the members of the OneBookShelf staff find morally distasteful (and we?re generally a pretty open-minded lot), but we find anything that smacks of censorship even more distasteful. We will continue to have a content policy that is more open than will give many of our publishers and customers comfort. *

Regards

Steve Wieck

CEO

OneBookShelf

One of the titles banned is a game called "Tournament of Rapists" (sounds delightful). Here's a review of the game:

http://www.sarahdarkmagic.com/content/sunlight-best-disinfectant-nsfw

What's my opinion? Meh. Onebookshelf is stuck between upsetting one demographic or upsetting another. The 2 games taken down are controversial (why is a debate in and of itself, one I'm not having) to point of extreme divisiveness within the communities. I didn't do any research into the GG game cause I just don't care.

I found the review of Tower of Dicks or whatever, within the Reddit thread and just skimmed over it, but it's certainly not in its favor. I think the review was posted before the game was taken down, as Steve Wieck (of Onebookshelf) is being criticised for defending the game.

The reddit thread, as mentioned already, is long so there's undoubtedly more to read on. There are a couple of other forums talking about it but they are fairly brief.

The reason why no ones talking about this, is because it's a dull affair primarily related to PnPrpgs something this site only has a small interest in as far as content goes.

 

[Thunderous Cacophony]

Do you have to bring up the whole "Free Speech" and "censorship" thing? I disagree with them removing those titles from their platform, but in no way is it harming the author's ability to freely express themselves.

The thing is that One Shelf has an effective monopoly over digital RPG distribution. Theoretically, anyone can sell their games through their own website, but gaining any kind of notice for a game is very difficult, and pirating PDFs is ridiculously easy. Drivethru and it's brothers were the only way a lot of games made enough to keep their designers afloat, by getting enough volume to keep things going. And given how many FLGS are dying or converting into Magic stores to stay profitable, combined with the difficulties of printing and distributing hard copies, there's not a lot of options for designers looking to get their works out there.

With luck, someone will be able to start a more open RPG site, but that's an uphill battle. I know LotFP's devs are getting worried, and they're probably the only people with the resources and motive to make something new.

 

[Thunderous Cacophony]

Similarly, no matter how one feels about Gamergate, it is likewise too current, too emotionally frought, and too related to violence to be an appropriate subject for satire. Additionally, we considered that the violent element of the Gamergate issue has a basis in misogyny. For these reasons, we felt that this card game title was not welcome for sale on our site.
...
*We carry a lot of titles on our marketplaces that some or all of the members of the OneBookShelf staff find morally distasteful (and we?re generally a pretty open-minded lot), but we find anything that smacks of censorship even more distasteful. We will continue to have a content policy that is more open than will give many of our publishers and customers comfort. *
Regards

Steve Wieck

CEO

OneBookShelf

Thanks for quoting that, as it reminded me of something; are gays an emotionally fraught subject?

It's a loaded question, but one that needs to be asked. For example, there's a game called, A Place To Fuck Each Other which is explicitly about a lesbian couple trying to overcome an obstacle so that they can bump uglies. It seems very interesting, and I know a number of people personally who love the game, but you can be damn sure that there would be requests to pull it from RPGNow and DriveThru[footnote]This is just an example; it's actually available for free at the publisher's website because it was made more as a social piece than a product, but they have talked about turning those themes into a marketable game[/footnote].

Similarly, does something like Ironclaw, the infamous furry game, meet Wieck's standards of decency? What about indie darling Apocalypse World, with it's sex moves and a character (the Brainer) who seems built to be a psychic rapist? There's a lot of unanswered questions about what is and is not going to count as offensive, and it seems like OneBookShelf is going to have to answer some questions soon about what their policies are so that people don't feel they are being controlled by one guy's personal politics. And people are going to start asking about double standards as DNDClassics keeps adding old modules, a lot of which definitely have sexist undertones, and whether the big publishers are being protected from criticism and 'censorship' (watching him take on Paizo over Rise of the Runelords' torture porn would be an interesting test).

Here's his current statement on that issue:

Publishers who offer content on our marketplaces will understandably say to us, "We can't invest in creating RPG titles only to have DriveThru arbitrarily ban them, so if you're now banning titles for offensive content, give us guidelines for what titles you will and will not ban."

To which, I [Weick] have to say, "I hear you, but I don't know any better way." A work often has to be considered as a gestalt to know if it is offensive or not.

http://trollsmyth.blogspot.ca/2015/09/steve-wieck-sows-wind.html

That is not enough.

Also,

Note too that this is a card game, not a roleplaying game. Some may feel that if we were to ban an RPG from our marketplaces, that action would levy a significant economic penalty on that title since we have a long reach in the overall RPG market. This is not true of card games, where OneBookShelf is currently a tiny corner of the card game market. Our not carrying a card game should have minimal impact on that card game's economic viability.

is a very disingenuous statement. They have a site explicitly called DriveThruCARDS so that they can tap into the highly lucrative card game market, including printing and distributing cards from small designers who can't afford economy of scale on their own. They do not make up a small part of the card game market by choice, and given the chance they'd happily dominate it as thoroughly as they do RPGs. To say nothing of their extensions into comics and fiction, where you can happily find Judge Dredd titles.

 

[Ragsnstitches]

Similarly, no matter how one feels about Gamergate, it is likewise too current, too emotionally frought, and too related to violence to be an appropriate subject for satire. Additionally, we considered that the violent element of the Gamergate issue has a basis in misogyny. For these reasons, we felt that this card game title was not welcome for sale on our site.
...
*We carry a lot of titles on our marketplaces that some or all of the members of the OneBookShelf staff find morally distasteful (and we?re generally a pretty open-minded lot), but we find anything that smacks of censorship even more distasteful. We will continue to have a content policy that is more open than will give many of our publishers and customers comfort. *
Regards

Steve Wieck

CEO

OneBookShelf

Thanks for quoting that, as it reminded me of something; are gays an emotionally fraught subject?

It's a loaded question, but one that needs to be asked. For example, there's a game called, A Place To Fuck Each Other which is explicitly about a lesbian couple trying to overcome an obstacle so that they can bump uglies. It seems very interesting, and I know a number of people personally who love the game, but you can be damn sure that there would be requests to pull it from RPGNow and DriveThru[footnote]This is just an example; it's actually available for free at the publisher's website because it was made more as a social piece than a product, but they have talked about turning those themes into a marketable game[/footnote].

Similarly, does something like Ironclaw, the infamous furry game, meet Wieck's standards of decency? What about indie darling Apocalypse World, with it's sex moves and a character (the Brainer) who seems built to be a psychic rapist? There's a lot of unanswered questions about what is and is not going to count as offensive, and it seems like OneBookShelf is going to have to answer some questions soon about what their policies are so that people don't feel they are being controlled by one guy's personal politics. And people are going to start asking about double standards as DNDClassics keeps adding old modules, a lot of which definitely have sexist undertones, and whether the big publishers are being protected from criticism and 'censorship' (watching him take on Paizo over Rise of the Runelords' torture porn would be an interesting test).

Here's his current statement on that issue:

Publishers who offer content on our marketplaces will understandably say to us, "We can't invest in creating RPG titles only to have DriveThru arbitrarily ban them, so if you're now banning titles for offensive content, give us guidelines for what titles you will and will not ban."

To which, I [Weick] have to say, "I hear you, but I don't know any better way." A work often has to be considered as a gestalt to know if it is offensive or not.

http://trollsmyth.blogspot.ca/2015/09/steve-wieck-sows-wind.html

That is not enough.

Also,

Note too that this is a card game, not a roleplaying game. Some may feel that if we were to ban an RPG from our marketplaces, that action would levy a significant economic penalty on that title since we have a long reach in the overall RPG market. This is not true of card games, where OneBookShelf is currently a tiny corner of the card game market. Our not carrying a card game should have minimal impact on that card game's economic viability.

is a very disingenuous statement. They have a site explicitly called DriveThruCARDS so that they can tap into the highly lucrative card game market, including printing and distributing cards from small designers who can't afford economy of scale on their own. They do not make up a small part of the card game market by choice, and given the chance they'd happily dominate it as thoroughly as they do RPGs. To say nothing of their extensions into comics and fiction, where you can happily find Judge Dredd titles.

You know more about the subject then I do. I don't play pnp rpgs. I just stumbled into this thread and saw the OP writing a thesis on something and not showing sources. So I had a look around to see what's up, cause I was interested.

I then linked what I found with the most minimal of googlefu. I have no horse in this race nor am I even sure there are horses in this race to begin with.

From what I've read, I feel like the new policy is a little too much "feely" based. But given the fact these issues are mostly about feels anyway, is there any better way to gate of contentious content? You could argue for total freedom of content, but that's as much a pandoras box as the dreaded "censorship". Where's the middle ground?

It looks to me the guys at Onebookshelf are open to a dialogue with the community on the subject, but as a company they need to act on what they think is best. Whether that works out for them or not is another issue.

Though now I'm curious. How can a company corner the market on pnp rpgs? Aren't a lot of these rulesets delivered via pdf? How hard is it for someone to sell their own stuff? What does this platform offer that makes them so hard to top?

 

[And Man]

A platform/store choosing not to carry or sell a specific product is not censorship and doesn't go against free speech. That being said, I don't really care much that the games were removed. The reason given for that Gamergate game which @Ragsnstitches posted seems valid enough, and and I likewise agree with the obvious reason Tournament of Rapists was removed; in general, I have nothing against the subject of rape being addressed in games, jokes, etc., but it should at least be done with some fucking tact.

Edit: Just wanted to say that, while I'm not against rape being addressed in games, jokes, etc., I can understand why it makes some people uncomfortable; I've heard jokes from professional comedians about other specific subjects that hit too close to home for me, so while I didn't particularly enjoy some of those jokes (though there were some that I did find funny in a somewhat bittersweet way), I don't condemn them as subjects of jokes.

 

[MonsterCrit]

Do you have to bring up the whole "Free Speech" and "censorship" thing? I disagree with them removing those titles from their platform, but in no way is it harming the author's ability to freely express themselves.

I really wish this younger generation would learn the proper context for censorship.. but then again.. in the first world they don't really have in contemporary examples to contextualize the word. A store not selling something is not censorship. That is their right as the owners of their property to determine what can be placed on their property.

You can't put a sign post on someone else's lawn, if you do they are within their legal right to remove it or burn it as they see fit.

The thing is that One Shelf has an effective monopoly over digital RPG distribution. Theoretically, anyone can sell their games through their own website, but gaining any kind of notice for a game is very difficult, and pirating PDFs is ridiculously easy.

That's life. And mind you that is not an effective monopoly. Again another word used out of context. Being the dominant or leader in a field does not make you a defacto monopoly. A Monopoly is where no one else can enter the market as distributor. Basically like how Nintendo has a Monopoly on mArio games.

Drivethru and it's brothers were the only way a lot of games made enough to keep their designers afloat, by getting enough volume to keep things going.

So they have to make the same choice every creative person has to make at some point. Sales or starvation. DO you alter your material so it will be acceptable to the distributor's preferences or.......do you try to sell independently and accept the risk of starvation. Again this is not censorship. This is business. I know many pharmacy's and books stores that simply will not cary anything by playboy or hustler. That's not censorship, the owners just find the material offensive and want no part in it's distribution.

And given how many FLGS are dying or converting into Magic stores to stay profitable, combined with the difficulties of printing and distributing hard copies, there's not a lot of options for designers looking to get their works out there.

There are always options in business. Drivethru may be the major one but they aren't the only one and even if theey are, nothing stops direct sales and or starting one's own distribution platform.

With luck, someone will be able to start a more open RPG site, but that's an uphill battle. I know LotFP's devs are getting worried, and they're probably the only people with the resources and motive to make something new.

It's basically a small storm in a small pot. No distributor is going to sell any and everything.. I mean STeam is as close to that as it gets and the irony is, it is harshliy critiqued for allowing such things. FUnny huh?


But just to give the younglings some context.

Censorship is when someone else without permission or knowledge of the creator, alters the works to conform to some moral or civil code. It is typically an act of government. A Book store chain refusing to sell a book is not censorship. A Government banning the sale of a book could be considered censorship.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Censorship is when someone else without permission or knowledge of the creator, alters the works to conform to some moral or civil code. It is typically an act of government. A Book store chain refusing to sell a book is not censorship. A Government banning the sale of a book could be considered censorship.

You're addressing the legal definition of censorship. There is a secondary, more colloquial application of the word.

cen·sor·ship
ˈsensərˌSHip/
noun
noun: censorship

the practice of officially examining books, movies, etc., and suppressing unacceptable parts.

This usage of the term...almost so broad as to be useless...is the one popularly applied around here whenever someone gets a burr in their underpants about diversity bogeymen because someone somewhere didn't sell something, or someone somewhere caught flack for a joke, etc, etc. "This is censorship!" they scream. "No not that dangerous legal one, the other really mundane one!"

For example...petitioning Obsidian to remove a poem from their game was "censorship". So was petitioning them to put it back in, and thus removing its replacement. Calling for Pro-GG people to be silenced was censorship. So was calling for Anti-GG people to be fired. You'll find pretty much every person on these forums who is "anti-censorship" is actually pretty loud proponents of it when it suits their purposes.

Take the OP for example (sorry OP, nothing personal, just an illustration). OP was earlier today calling for The Escapist to "deal with its SJW problem" (whatever the fuck those are meant to be by OP's definition). He claims the sight is "slanted towards the left wing", and calls for site management to impose authority and balance out the political perspective of its members by force. There is no way to accomplish this ASIDE from censorship...literally removing voices from the discussion until the "mix" suits the OP's preference. This is a literal cry for censorship from a governing/overseeing entity. Alas, as OP was sage enough to point out:

Nobody sees themselves as the bad guy or the problem so to speak.

And this is what 99.9% of our conversations about "censorship" boil down to. "More of what I like, please, less of what I don't like". They will attempt to establish the specter of tyranny of the majority, usually by invoking terrifying slippery slope scenarios involving dystopian futures where no one can make a joke or express a dissenting thought if we don't immediately put our boots on the necks of these disagreeable assholes they've identified for our censure.

And that's....fine?...really, because it's pretty NORMAL for humans to behave this way. You'll note when the subject of confirmation bias comes up, people will say "OMG I see that all the time" but never "OMG I do that all the time", even though everyone does. We're hard-wired to prefer our own perspectives and believe ourselves to be in the right, whether we're progressive liberals or clamp-jawed conservatives or neo-facists.

 

[09philj]

This isn't censorship. This is a private company refusing to stock content it judges to be unsuitable for humanity. They don't have to stock the content if they don't want to, and forcing them to would be an infringement of their rights. There are also other ways to distribute such content.

The flashpoint of the entire thing is that two products on the site were pulled after complaints from various anonymous left wingers (and I say this without the usual rhetoric)

If they were anonymous, how do you know they were left? I can list plenty of examples of the right being behind moral panic and censorship.

 

[Something Amyss]

Do you have to bring up the whole "Free Speech" and "censorship" thing?

Well, think about it. "Storefront exercises its own right to not stock things" isn't going to draw people in.

 

[MonsterCrit]

Censorship is when someone else without permission or knowledge of the creator, alters the works to conform to some moral or civil code. It is typically an act of government. A Book store chain refusing to sell a book is not censorship. A Government banning the sale of a book could be considered censorship.

You're addressing the legal definition of censorship. There is a secondary, more colloquial application of the word.

The legal definition is all that matters in legal affairs. Colloquial definitions can change too quickly. 'See the word : gay'

cen·sor·ship
ˈsensərˌSHip/
noun
noun: censorship

the practice of officially examining books, movies, etc., and suppressing unacceptable parts.

Not the word official. Pretty much implies a government or other officiating body. And as for suppressing parts. That goes back to altering the original content without the creators consent or knowledge. That'd be the equivalent of a bookstore own cutting a chapter out of a book prior to sale. Technically that's not censorship either since the bookstore owner owns the books he has purchased for his inventory. He can use them for paper mache projects if he wants. His property, his decision.

This usage of the term...almost so broad as to be useless...is the one popularly applied around here whenever someone gets a burr in their underpants about diversity bogeymen because someone somewhere didn't sell something, or someone somewhere caught flack for a joke, etc, etc. "This is censorship!" they scream. "No not that dangerous legal one, the other really mundane one!"

But as said, your colloquial definition still boils down to the same thing as the legal one. A person or group choosing not to sell something is not censorship.

For example...petitioning Obsidian to remove a poem from their game was "censorship". So was petitioning them to put it back in, and thus removing its replacement.

Nope, if the creator is the one to make the change then it is never censorship. Sorry to burst your bubble there. It'd only be censorship if a government agency forced the removal or removed it themselves. WHich did not happen.

 

[Fox12]

Spoiler

This isn't censorship. A company deciding of its own free will not to carry a product because consumers exercised their right to free speech by criticizing them is not censorship. When Family Christian Bookstores decides not to stock the Ribbed Mecha-Dildo 3000, they aren't censoring your right to buy a dildo. They just decided that it doesn't fit their brand, especially given their target audience.

A company deciding not to carry Tournament of Rapists wasn't censorship, it was a competent business decision.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

You're addressing the legal definition of censorship.

To think how much time could've been spared if I'd been less lazy in copy/pasting a link.

Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication or other information which may be considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, politically incorrect or inconvenient as determined by governments, media outlets, authorities or other groups or institutions.

Governments, private organizations and individuals may engage in censorship. When an individual such as an author or other creator engages in censorship of their own works or speech, it is called self-censorship. Censorship may be direct or it may be indirect, in which case it is called soft censorship. It occurs in a variety of different media, including speech, books, music, films, and other arts, the press, radio, television, and the Internet for a variety of claimed reasons including national security, to control obscenity, child pornography, and hate speech, to protect children or other vulnerable groups, to promote or restrict political or religious views, and to prevent slander and libel.

The word "official" is not considered exclusive to the term, but it was in the definition I provided.

The legal definition is all that matters in legal affairs. Colloquial definitions can change too quickly. 'See the word : gay'

This isn't a legal affair, it's a discussion on a forum. If you're not prepared to accept colloquial usage of words, you're going to have a lot of really confusing and dissatisfying interactions with people, in which you are continually expressing umbrage at their refusal to acknowledge your preference for formal speech.

Sorry to burst your bubble there.

I think you're a bit confused as to just which side of this argument I'm weighing in on.

 

[Zontar]

"Similarly, no matter how one feels about Gamergate, it is likewise too current, too emotionally frought, and too related to violence to be an appropriate subject for satire. Additionally, we considered that the violent element of the Gamergate issue has a basis in misogyny. For these reasons, we felt that this card game title was not welcome for sale on our site."

what in the actual fuck?

really... what the fucking fuck?

who in their right minds would even say this with a straight face? I dont think even ghazi would accuse gamergate of outright violence.

wait, would they?

Ghazi probably would given the insane people who run it, but to be frank reasoning is, without a doubt, an excuse for an action and not a reason for it. Let's be frank, this was a dicision made based on pressure from a group who never would have bought it in the first place and much more then likely never would have bought a product from the company one way or the other anyway regardless of their having or not having the game on their shelves.

I honestly would like to meet someone who would stop buying things from a specific retailer they use because of something they have brought onto their shelves. I can't think of a single retailer I use who doesn't carry something I don't take exception to. But unlike the people who pressured for this to happen I don't act like a young teen who has just discovered Marx and try and have it removed, I instead act like an adult and just don't buy it.

And digital store fronts should really stop receiving the same consideration then normal stores in regards to what they stock. A normal retail store has limited retail space where customers can see their products so they streamline things to sell what will move copies. Digital store fronts don't have this problem don't have this problem for obvious reason, they don't have limitations on the space they can show customers items. To be quite frank, the only things which prevent a digital store front from having more products it can sell are either it not wanting or not having the ability to make a deal with the manufacture or wholesaler. Removal of items like this are honestly bad business decisions that even a high school level student could tell you are a terrible idea. The people complaining rarely are ones who buy any products from the retailer in question, and on the off-chance they are history has shown their complaints are hollow and that overall revenue will not be effected since they're still going to come back much more often then now. There is 0 negatives to keeping the product up, and hell the nontravercy is free advertisement both for the product and the retailer.

Meanwhile the removal of the product looses revenue from any sales of said product, gives potential sales to a competitor which would otherwise have gone to you, and makes manufacturers and wholesalers loose some faith in your ability to sell their products. Maybe not to the point of stopping business, but it isn't something that is typically forgotten.

I can only hope this leads to a competitor popping up, this market needs more then one lone company which can play moral guardian and be a de facto judge of what can and cannot be allowed to exist.

 

[Sarge034]

All I have to say is if you ban one thing because someone finds it offensive you better damn well ban everything someone finds offensive or it'll look like you're taking a side. Are you prepared to do that One Book Shelf?

And as for why the escapist hasn't covered it? I think they're still nursing their black eye from backing GG/AGG type issues without doing their homework. I expect a lot of that particular type of controversy is going to magically slip through the cracks so they just don't have to deal with it.

 

[Thunderous Cacophony]

From what I've read, I feel like the new policy is a little too much "feely" based. But given the fact these issues are mostly about feels anyway, is there any better way to gate of contentious content? You could argue for total freedom of content, but that's as much a pandoras box as the dreaded "censorship". Where's the middle ground?

It looks to me the guys at Onebookshelf are open to a dialogue with the community on the subject, but as a company they need to act on what they think is best. Whether that works out for them or not is another issue.

Though now I'm curious. How can a company corner the market on pnp rpgs? Aren't a lot of these rulesets delivered via pdf? How hard is it for someone to sell their own stuff? What does this platform offer that makes them so hard to top?

I can understand the argument for the company refusing to carry certain products, but as of now the only guidelines are "Wieck says no", which makes it very personal and uncertain from a business perspective. He can talk about working with devs to keep content up, or have them take it down voluntarily (as happened with the Tournament of Rapists game), but a lot of people are justifiably worried that this arrangement will lead to Wieck striking favourable deals with the 5 or 6 companies big enough to matter, and pushing around the thousands of indie devs (most of whom are literally one man studios doing this on the side) who have no grounds to make a financial threat to Wieck.

As for your question about how a company corners the market on distributing PDFs, over the past 10 years OneBookShelf bought out it's competitors, made deals with a lot of publishers and small game devs to only publish stuff through their portals or the dev's personal sites, and they've done a good job in the past of making publishing and buying products incredibly streamlined. It's the same thing as Steam: Technically you can get a lot of those games elsewhere, but you've already put your credit card details into this site, and the deals they offer make it so that you have more games than you can play.

That's life. And mind you that is not an effective monopoly. Again another word used out of context. Being the dominant or leader in a field does not make you a defacto monopoly. A Monopoly is where no one else can enter the market as distributor. Basically like how Nintendo has a Monopoly on mArio games.

It is an effective monopoly. An effective monopoly is a term for when someone dominates a field, characterized by an absence of competition, even though it is not legally enforced. For example, in large parts of the world certain telecom companies have effective monopolies on cable and internet, not because the government said you could only use Bell but because the telecoms agree not to compete in certain markets. We live in a world where a company can hold a monopoly over something while carefully avoiding meeting the legal requirements to prevent themselves from being broken up or leashed. I'm not sure you understand what 'de facto' means as opposed to 'de jure', or at least that you don't understand how big OneBookShelf is.

After it's merger with RPGNow, DriveThruRPG became an effective monopoly; about 80% of online RPG PDF sales take place through one or the other, and even Paizo, one of the largest companies in the RPG industry, only sells 1/10th of their online products through their own storefront, with the rest going through DriveThru. To use the Nintendo/Mario metaphor, it would be like if Mario was technically the product of another company, but their only options for publishing it were "on Nintendo consoles" or "through CDs printed in their garage".

 

[Secondhand Revenant]

All I have to say is if you ban one thing because someone finds it offensive you better damn well ban everything someone finds offensive or it'll look like you're taking a side. Are you prepared to do that One Book Shelf?

And as for why the escapist hasn't covered it? I think they're still nursing their black eye from backing GG/AGG type issues without doing their homework. I expect a lot of that particular type of controversy is going to magically slip through the cracks so they just don't have to deal with it.

Is there some reason they just can't take a side?

 

[Zontar]

All I have to say is if you ban one thing because someone finds it offensive you better damn well ban everything someone finds offensive or it'll look like you're taking a side. Are you prepared to do that One Book Shelf?

And as for why the escapist hasn't covered it? I think they're still nursing their black eye from backing GG/AGG type issues without doing their homework. I expect a lot of that particular type of controversy is going to magically slip through the cracks so they just don't have to deal with it.

Is there some reason they just can't take a side?

Yes, the staff, espeically those at the top, lean more in one direction, but that's also the direction whose opponents have a record of attacking, DDoSing, calling in bomb threats pretty consistently and having a general "attack the person, not their arguments" type. Openly being neutral is about as good of a position as they can take on the matter.

Also doesn't help that many of their competitors are openly aliened with the group who they don't lean towards, so that could potentially make matters worst if they did openly take a stand.