50 thoughts on “Is anyone following this mess with DriveThru?”

  3. I heard about it last night, just got caught up on it now.  The twitter conversation is definitely one of the most WTF things I’ve seen regarding it.  Apparently it’s been taken down, per that tumblr

    looks like there’s been some other commentary on it, but my stance is thus:  the game is not bringing any respect or decency to the topic, nor handling it in a mature way.  By handling the game in this manner, DriveThruRPG is definitely showing that it regards the topic as something to be used as a joke.  The concept of the game itself reminds me of that terribly racist Battle-Royale ripoff, where no matter what kind of camp or humor it may be trying to bring to the table, it’s tarnished by the uglyness of the topic.

    A review can be found here:  http://www.sarahdarkmagic.com/content/sunlight-best-disinfectant-nsfw

    And an opinion piece:

    http://www.cosmodrome.org/home/its-not-about-censorship-its-about-professional-standards

  4. I heard about it last night, just got caught up on it now.  The twitter conversation is definitely one of the most WTF things I’ve seen regarding it.  Apparently it’s been taken down, per that tumblr

    looks like there’s been some other commentary on it, but my stance is thus:  the game is not bringing any respect or decency to the topic, nor handling it in a mature way.  By handling the game in this manner, DriveThruRPG is definitely showing that it regards the topic as something to be used as a joke.  The concept of the game itself reminds me of that terribly racist Battle-Royale ripoff, where no matter what kind of camp or humor it may be trying to bring to the table, it’s tarnished by the uglyness of the topic.

    A review can be found here:  http://www.sarahdarkmagic.com/content/sunlight-best-disinfectant-nsfw

    And an opinion piece:

    http://www.cosmodrome.org/home/its-not-about-censorship-its-about-professional-standards

  9. I keep wanting to comment on Jame’s post, because it seems as though politeness is getting in the way of making a point.  Thankfully I can be as harsh as I want to be here, due to my post on the Committee of Public Safety.  The TL;DR is that they have the right to post up what they want and sell what they want, and we as the community have both the right and responsibility to call them irresponsible, alert others to the issues, and boycott not only the publisher but the supplier as well, and if possible establish alternative suppliers to use.

    I feel that the issue clouding this is “freedom of speech”, in that people are worried that removing this product will cause the environment to be restrictive and content creators will be unable to bring new ideas to the table for fear of the mob coming with pitchforks and torches.  And yet, as a private company, DriveThruRPG is not an entity that should be concerned about “freedom”, they should instead be worried about reputation and what standards they are supporting in the industry.  They are a business, and if they choose to open the floodgates for sewage, in order to rake in the pennies in the muck, that is their call.  

    What they have done is a PR disaster, and will haunt them everytime a future similar event comes up.  I will give them a break, the item was removed fairly swiftly for something that came up over a weekend (correct me if I’m wrong and it was brought up over a week-day when staff should of been in the office and dealing with these issues), but the response from the head of the company is disturbing.  I understand that the head is not the entire company, but his actions reflect on it’s public fact, and are a possible glimpse of the internal policies and politics of the company.  A very public apology and some good spin are necessary to erase as much of the stain as possible, though it will be remembered and counted against them.

    As to the actual product, the community has done what it needed to do:  identified the offense, alerted others, and created an outcry until it was taken down.  There has been pushback by those worried that this may lead to other painful subject material being reviewed and removed, and it is an understandable fear.  However, part of creating material that deal with said subjects is not only doing the homework and presenting it in a respectful manner, but showing that to the public.  We had this conversation about Cartel a while back, and I believe in Episode 24 we discussed this as well.  Respect for the subject cannot merely be said, but must be shown, and if you are the creator, you must be ready for questions and attacks, and be able to show said respect for the material.

    So what is the way forward?  For the company, they have pulled the product, and hopefully the rest of the series, as the offending book was merely the most public of a terrible series.  Their part now is to clean up the PR mess and create internal policies to deal with this kind of issue in the future.  For us?  The plan is simple.  Vigilance by the community, the willingness to go to the fight, and the ability to pierce the issues surrounding an argument, and strike at the heart of the matter.  The battle is won, but we must continue the war against a very entrenched foe.

  10. I keep wanting to comment on Jame’s post, because it seems as though politeness is getting in the way of making a point.  Thankfully I can be as harsh as I want to be here, due to my post on the Committee of Public Safety.  The TL;DR is that they have the right to post up what they want and sell what they want, and we as the community have both the right and responsibility to call them irresponsible, alert others to the issues, and boycott not only the publisher but the supplier as well, and if possible establish alternative suppliers to use.

    I feel that the issue clouding this is “freedom of speech”, in that people are worried that removing this product will cause the environment to be restrictive and content creators will be unable to bring new ideas to the table for fear of the mob coming with pitchforks and torches.  And yet, as a private company, DriveThruRPG is not an entity that should be concerned about “freedom”, they should instead be worried about reputation and what standards they are supporting in the industry.  They are a business, and if they choose to open the floodgates for sewage, in order to rake in the pennies in the muck, that is their call.  

    What they have done is a PR disaster, and will haunt them everytime a future similar event comes up.  I will give them a break, the item was removed fairly swiftly for something that came up over a weekend (correct me if I’m wrong and it was brought up over a week-day when staff should of been in the office and dealing with these issues), but the response from the head of the company is disturbing.  I understand that the head is not the entire company, but his actions reflect on it’s public fact, and are a possible glimpse of the internal policies and politics of the company.  A very public apology and some good spin are necessary to erase as much of the stain as possible, though it will be remembered and counted against them.

    As to the actual product, the community has done what it needed to do:  identified the offense, alerted others, and created an outcry until it was taken down.  There has been pushback by those worried that this may lead to other painful subject material being reviewed and removed, and it is an understandable fear.  However, part of creating material that deal with said subjects is not only doing the homework and presenting it in a respectful manner, but showing that to the public.  We had this conversation about Cartel a while back, and I believe in Episode 24 we discussed this as well.  Respect for the subject cannot merely be said, but must be shown, and if you are the creator, you must be ready for questions and attacks, and be able to show said respect for the material.

    So what is the way forward?  For the company, they have pulled the product, and hopefully the rest of the series, as the offending book was merely the most public of a terrible series.  Their part now is to clean up the PR mess and create internal policies to deal with this kind of issue in the future.  For us?  The plan is simple.  Vigilance by the community, the willingness to go to the fight, and the ability to pierce the issues surrounding an argument, and strike at the heart of the matter.  The battle is won, but we must continue the war against a very entrenched foe.

  11. Freedom of speech:

    Should the designer be leagaly stoped?no

    Should DTR be leagaly compeled to take it down?no

    Can they chose not to answer questions? Sure

    Outside of freedom of speech:

    Can DTR pick and chose the products they sell?yes

    Does what they do and do not tolerate on thier site reflect them?yes

    Can we make judgments about them and whether or not to give them buisness?sure can

    I might even be able to understand a policy of “yes we will sell anything without judgment” but given the current state of the hobby, this would not be helpfull. Balking at the idea of glorifying racisim but tolerating the same treatment of rape does say something about them.

    DTR is a great product and it would suck to lose it. But hey, someone else can do it, and we can and should decide who gets our rpg dollar.

  12. Freedom of speech:

    Should the designer be leagaly stoped?no

    Should DTR be leagaly compeled to take it down?no

    Can they chose not to answer questions? Sure

    Outside of freedom of speech:

    Can DTR pick and chose the products they sell?yes

    Does what they do and do not tolerate on thier site reflect them?yes

    Can we make judgments about them and whether or not to give them buisness?sure can

    I might even be able to understand a policy of “yes we will sell anything without judgment” but given the current state of the hobby, this would not be helpfull. Balking at the idea of glorifying racisim but tolerating the same treatment of rape does say something about them.

    DTR is a great product and it would suck to lose it. But hey, someone else can do it, and we can and should decide who gets our rpg dollar.

  13. A few things you guys might not be aware of about DTRPG

    The own over 80% of the RPG PDF market

    Their system is setup so that their publishers are the gatekeepers of products, not the DTRPG staff

    the DTRPG staff is pretty small, it’s one of ways they keep their costs down

  14. A few things you guys might not be aware of about DTRPG

    The own over 80% of the RPG PDF market

    Their system is setup so that their publishers are the gatekeepers of products, not the DTRPG staff

    the DTRPG staff is pretty small, it’s one of ways they keep their costs down

  15. Aware of it. One of the things that gets pointed out in these discussions. I think it comes down to how it was handled when the problem was pointed out . Might have been better for them to say nothing.

  16. Aware of it. One of the things that gets pointed out in these discussions. I think it comes down to how it was handled when the problem was pointed out . Might have been better for them to say nothing.

  17. Thats touched on in James’ article. I could publish any thing i want on Dtrpg and they wont know till people start raising hell. Thats understandable. What i think most of us are upset about is the lack of response once the problem was pointed out. Even a “the views expresed by creators…. do not reflect our views but our policy is to host and sell anything…” would have been better then a complete failure to acknowledge it as a serious problem.

  18. Thats touched on in James’ article. I could publish any thing i want on Dtrpg and they wont know till people start raising hell. Thats understandable. What i think most of us are upset about is the lack of response once the problem was pointed out. Even a “the views expresed by creators…. do not reflect our views but our policy is to host and sell anything…” would have been better then a complete failure to acknowledge it as a serious problem.

  19. I can understand that they have a small staff and don’t want to take responsibility for the content because it means a lot of costs and work but they must. If the publishers are the gatekeepers of products then this is an example of a failure. Its time for them to be the gatekeeper of their publishers

  20. I can understand that they have a small staff and don’t want to take responsibility for the content because it means a lot of costs and work but they must. If the publishers are the gatekeepers of products then this is an example of a failure. Its time for them to be the gatekeeper of their publishers

  21. It’s not too much to ask them, even as a small staff, to have a policy on acceptable material and consistently enforce it (as well as modify it over time). I know there is a lot of gray area and that gaming material can be offensive in soooo many ways if you try to police it too heavily. That being said, this kind of thing should be resolved quickly by having a prepared checklist of things that you won’t allow and then running your decision process through that checklist. Clearly they weren’t prepared. Now they are in a real hole. If they ban this one without having such a policy, they open themselves up to all kinds of questions about why A was banned, but not B, C, … X, Y, or Z. This is a crisis because they either have to cave and let the community be their content police (not good for them or for the community) or they have to very quickly come up with clear, legally savvy, and open-to-the-public guidelines and then enforce them retroactively. I fear they will just do the former. Cave to public pressure and ban this one (which I, and pretty much everyone else, feel they should have done in the first place) without creating an enforceable policy to protect them and deal with questionable content in the future.

  22. It’s not too much to ask them, even as a small staff, to have a policy on acceptable material and consistently enforce it (as well as modify it over time). I know there is a lot of gray area and that gaming material can be offensive in soooo many ways if you try to police it too heavily. That being said, this kind of thing should be resolved quickly by having a prepared checklist of things that you won’t allow and then running your decision process through that checklist. Clearly they weren’t prepared. Now they are in a real hole. If they ban this one without having such a policy, they open themselves up to all kinds of questions about why A was banned, but not B, C, … X, Y, or Z. This is a crisis because they either have to cave and let the community be their content police (not good for them or for the community) or they have to very quickly come up with clear, legally savvy, and open-to-the-public guidelines and then enforce them retroactively. I fear they will just do the former. Cave to public pressure and ban this one (which I, and pretty much everyone else, feel they should have done in the first place) without creating an enforceable policy to protect them and deal with questionable content in the future.

  23. I think DriveThru is handling this very badly, but I think abandoning them is a bad idea for publishers who actually want to sell their products. I’m already seeing a few indie game designers, here and there, discussing the possibility of leaving DriveThru, and while that is a decision anyone would have to respect, I think it’s the wrong move. The practices at DriveThru that allow garbage like Tournament of Rapists to get onto the storefront are the same practices that allow small publishers to find a market. 

    I also think it’s interesting the two people who originally brought attention to this situation, and who engaged Steve Wieck on Twitter, are both Paizo employees. I’m not suggesting a conspiracy, but I am suggesting a publisher who depended on DriveThru for sales might have tried to work it out with them in a more constructive way (as it appears Bully Pulpit, Evil Hat, and some others are trying to do). 

  24. I think DriveThru is handling this very badly, but I think abandoning them is a bad idea for publishers who actually want to sell their products. I’m already seeing a few indie game designers, here and there, discussing the possibility of leaving DriveThru, and while that is a decision anyone would have to respect, I think it’s the wrong move. The practices at DriveThru that allow garbage like Tournament of Rapists to get onto the storefront are the same practices that allow small publishers to find a market. 

    I also think it’s interesting the two people who originally brought attention to this situation, and who engaged Steve Wieck on Twitter, are both Paizo employees. I’m not suggesting a conspiracy, but I am suggesting a publisher who depended on DriveThru for sales might have tried to work it out with them in a more constructive way (as it appears Bully Pulpit, Evil Hat, and some others are trying to do). 

  25. It just dawned on me. Are we allowing this repulsive product to draw more water than it should? The conversation is valid but are we driving sales? No such thing as bad publicity they say.

  26. It just dawned on me. Are we allowing this repulsive product to draw more water than it should? The conversation is valid but are we driving sales? No such thing as bad publicity they say.

  27. I would agree with that Jason Cordova. While I think DTRPG could do better, I don’t plan on changing my relationship with them as a purchaser or publisher. At least I want to see if/how they rectify this problem before taking any stances. I don’t think we should trash X years of supporting indie publishers over one bad incident, or even a couple. I’m hoping they learn from it.

  28. I would agree with that Jason Cordova. While I think DTRPG could do better, I don’t plan on changing my relationship with them as a purchaser or publisher. At least I want to see if/how they rectify this problem before taking any stances. I don’t think we should trash X years of supporting indie publishers over one bad incident, or even a couple. I’m hoping they learn from it.

  29. parrish warren But then what would we do, just not discuss things we find offensive? That can’t be the right answer, either. Certainly no one in this community is going to purchase Tournament of Rapists. 

    Ray Otus Yeah, that’s my take on it, too. Dumb shit like this is going to happen from time-to-time (and, in fact, I imagine there are dozens of equally offensive titles already on the site, but that don’t have a title so on-the-nose as “Tournament of Rapists”). It’s a whole baby/bathwater thing to ditch DriveThru over something like this. 

  30. parrish warren But then what would we do, just not discuss things we find offensive? That can’t be the right answer, either. Certainly no one in this community is going to purchase Tournament of Rapists. 

    Ray Otus Yeah, that’s my take on it, too. Dumb shit like this is going to happen from time-to-time (and, in fact, I imagine there are dozens of equally offensive titles already on the site, but that don’t have a title so on-the-nose as “Tournament of Rapists”). It’s a whole baby/bathwater thing to ditch DriveThru over something like this. 

  31. Yeah, this was definitely something that should’ve gotten redflagged and nuked from orbit. Just a common-sense thing; it’s so far beyond the line that there’s really no ambiguity about it.

  32. Yeah, this was definitely something that should’ve gotten redflagged and nuked from orbit. Just a common-sense thing; it’s so far beyond the line that there’s really no ambiguity about it.

  37. I wonder how everyone’s going to feel when the mob starts using the new ‘abuse’ tool that DTRPG is implementing to censor games like Monsterhearts or Apocalyse World? 

    Cuz, you know it’s only a matter of time.

  38. I wonder how everyone’s going to feel when the mob starts using the new ‘abuse’ tool that DTRPG is implementing to censor games like Monsterhearts or Apocalyse World? 

    Cuz, you know it’s only a matter of time.

  39. Kerry Harrison Or Lamentations, for that matter. There will certainly be some of that going on, and one aspect of the change I’m not happy with is the suspension of sales until the book is investigated, but I imagine it will be a pretty marginal occurrence, overall.

  40. Kerry Harrison Or Lamentations, for that matter. There will certainly be some of that going on, and one aspect of the change I’m not happy with is the suspension of sales until the book is investigated, but I imagine it will be a pretty marginal occurrence, overall.

  41. Just got an email from Lamentations of the Flame Princess, and they are clearly worried about this policy change. Rightfully so, I guess; they publish a lot of grotesque shit. I really hope their products don’t get caught-up in this new policy, though, because I think they have a lot of artistic merit, as well.

    Tournament of Rapists, which has a monster that is a swarm of rape-dicks? Not so much. 

  42. Just got an email from Lamentations of the Flame Princess, and they are clearly worried about this policy change. Rightfully so, I guess; they publish a lot of grotesque shit. I really hope their products don’t get caught-up in this new policy, though, because I think they have a lot of artistic merit, as well.

    Tournament of Rapists, which has a monster that is a swarm of rape-dicks? Not so much. 

  45. James Raggi has already said he will pull every Lamentations product off OBS if any of his or his peers (I’m assuming he means the OSR) products are pulled. This could get messier quickly. 

  46. James Raggi has already said he will pull every Lamentations product off OBS if any of his or his peers (I’m assuming he means the OSR) products are pulled. This could get messier quickly. 

  47. The line from the newsletter (out of context I suppose) is thus:

    “I might also suggest you (politely!) email OBS and voice your support for being able to decide for yourself what products you choose to buy or not, and not having such things dictated to you.”

    The man seems to be missing the point here.  The policy was put in place not to dictate what you can buy, but rather to as a way to avoid this situation coming up again.  I’m sure LotFP will be flagged, but considering it’s content and the way it’s handled, I don’t think it would be removed.

  48. The line from the newsletter (out of context I suppose) is thus:

    “I might also suggest you (politely!) email OBS and voice your support for being able to decide for yourself what products you choose to buy or not, and not having such things dictated to you.”

    The man seems to be missing the point here.  The policy was put in place not to dictate what you can buy, but rather to as a way to avoid this situation coming up again.  I’m sure LotFP will be flagged, but considering it’s content and the way it’s handled, I don’t think it would be removed.

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