Hello everyone, Darryl here with this week’s gaming news. Patreon did a bad and went back on it when everyone got grumpy about it, Wizards of the Coast set new sales records, Barnes & Noble pulling away from games, DCI sanctions multiple players and judges, and more!
If you follow any creative people on social media, you’ve probably heard something about the troubles facing Patreon. This section is going to go in-depth on what exactly happened, but here’s a short version if you want to get right to the more specifically gaming-focused news: Patreon announced new fees for backers, people were very upset about this and, after a week, Patreon changed their minds and decided not to add additional fees.
On Wednesday, December 6, an email was sent out to some (but not all) creators on Patreon announcing a new fee structure. This new fee moved the transaction fees associated with digital payments. Instead of being included with the amount pledged to a Patreon creator (and deducted along with Patreon’s service fees), the fee would now be added as an additional charge for all backers. It would also be assessed for each creator separately. So if you backed ten creators for $1 per month each, you would be billed a total of $13.80. The change would take place effective December 18. What followed was almost universal backlash against the idea. Patreon claimed in their announcement that the changes were to promote creators and allow them to take home more of their donations. However, the math does not work out as creators did not receive the same percentage of the total amount paid by Patreon backers until the reward tier of $10/mo.
It came to light later that week that this may have been an intentional move by Patreon, after users began digging to find what caused this sudden change. An interview on June 20 with Patreon Growth Project Manager Tal Raviv stated that they did not view low-tier or low-producing creators as helping growth but rather hindering it. From the article: “This posed a conundrum for the growth team. For example, an 80% drop-off at a given onboarding step would typically be alarming to any other growth team working on user activation. But at Patreon, a big drop-off could actually mean something good is happening -- unqualified leads are getting weeded out.” Also telling was this quote directly from Raviv, “We have very clear, rigorous internal criteria for what we consider financially successful -- there is a specific threshold that we've found to be ‘life-changing’ for our Creators. It's a number where we believe the platform has meaningfully changed a creator's life and ability to create more, focus more on their craft, and in many cases go full time." This, for obvious reasons, did not sit well with creators who felt that even a few hundred dollars a month for their creations was “life-changing”.
Due to the backlash, including from several of the “financially successful Creators (FSCs)” coveted by the growth team, Patreon announced on Wednesday, December 13, that they would not be rolling out the new fee changes. The damage for many creators had been done as many creators posted huge backer losses with the new fees given as a reason. In this announcement rolling back the changes, Patreon included a link to backers to take them to their pledge history, making it easier for former Patreon backers to renew their pledges for campaigns they previously backed.
In previous columns, I have highlighted many game designers, writers, publishers, podcasts, and streamers focused on tabletop roleplaying games. To make it easier for those who may have unsubscribed due to these fee changes and wished to re-subscribe now that they have been canceled, here is a full list. EN World will also be publishing a more extensive list of game industry Patreons soon.
Disclosure: The campaigns under the EN World and EN Publishing header are owned by the publisher of this column or an affiliated company. Sean Patrick Fannon is a paid contributor to EN World. The author of this column has previously done paid work for Zombie Orpheus.
EN World posted its poll for the most anticipated game of 2018. The poll closes this Saturday, December 16, so be sure to go and vote for the games you’re most looking forward to in the coming year. And remember, you can vote for more than one product. Previous winners include Trudvang Chronicles in 2017, Rifts for Savage Worlds in 2016, Star Wars: Force & Destiny in 2015, and 13th Age in 2013. I’m not sure if there was a poll in 2014, but that was also the year of Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition’s release so that feels like a gimme.
Xanathar’s Guide to Everything made more than a few records this past week. Wizards of the Coast stated that it is the fastest-selling book in the history of Dungeons & Dragons. In addition, the book was listed on several sales charts. The Wall Street Journal has it listed as the #1 book for nonfiction, Publisher’s Weekly as the #1 hardcover nonfiction, USA Today as the #12 bestseller (all genres), and Amazon at #12 in their nonfiction category. The book did not list on the New York Times Bestseller List as they eliminated the category Dungeons & Dragons game books previously appeared under in January of 2017, where the Player's Handbook was still at the #1 spot.
The first release from Fantasy Flight Interactive, the new video game division of Fantasy Flight and Asmodee, was announced: Lord of the Rings: The Card Game. The game will be based on the tabletop Lord of the Rings Living Card Game with a story-based campaign mode against computer components. Similar to the physical card game, packs of new cards will not be randomized like other popular card games, but will be set packs. The game will launch as a free-to-play game (with premium purchases available) in Early Access via Steam in 2018. A cooperative two-player mode is scheduled to be added before the game leaves the Early Access period.
The Judge Conduct Committee for Magic: The Gathering in Canada de-certified Level 3 Judge Chris Lansdell. This is the first time in DCI history that an L3 judge has lost certification. The decision was reached at the conclusion of a sexual harassment investigation against Lansdell. According to the statement, “Originally, to protect the victim(s) from potential backlash, gossip, or ‘outing’, the JCC and I made the decision not to make a public announcement, and I chose to notify a select group of people privately. […] however, that changed this week when Chris posted on Facebook. Now there are many questions, rumours, and I think it’s best for the Canadian community for me to get some facts out there and plant a flag on what happened.”
Also announced last week, Jeremy Hambly of Unsleeved Media has received a lifetime ban from the DCI. Hambly, through his YouTube show MTG Headquarters, was accused of spearheading a long-term harassment campaign against cosplayer and brand mascot Christine Sprankle, who announced last month that she was withdrawing from Magic: The Gathering events due to the stress of the harassment campaign. Professional Magic: The Gathering player Travis Woo also received a one-year ban for his participation in a Facebook group “Magic for Bad”, which included content deemed “sexist, racist, and misogynistic”. One post in particular included a listing of female Magic: The Gathering players ranked by their physical attractiveness. Woo has previously crossed lines as he was dropped from the YouTube channel Channel Fireball after “talking about the merits of Adolf Hitler and Mein Kampf” during a live stream.
Barnes & Noble announced that, after a disappointing fiscal Q2 showing (the quarter that ended in October), they will be reducing the number of SKUs in the gift, games, and toys section of its retail stores. Depending on the inventory system of the distributor, this will affect many in the game industry as some roleplaying game books – particularly boxed sets – tend to be classified as “Games” rather than “Books”. This follows a push for a reduced non-returnable inventory in stores (books can be returned to a distributor, while games, gift items, and some types of periodicals cannot), especially following a pilot program this year of store sizes reduced to half or one quarter the size of average Barnes & Noble locations. Barnes & Noble CEO Damos Parneros said, “This decision is part of our broader strategy to grow sales and become more productive by featuring a narrower product assortment with higher turnover. Going forward we will place a greater emphasis on books, while further narrowing our non-book assortment. […] Clearly, we’re going to prioritize books first and then as space permits, we’ll go into our gift and educational toys & games category.”
Kobold Press and Frog God Games have put together the Humble RPG Book Bundle Dungeons, Monsters, and Dragons for 5th Edition. The bundle has three pledge levels of $1, $8, and $17 each of which adds on more books for a total of over thirty PDFs plus map packs, quest generators, and more featuring adventures, tokens, encounter tables, monsters, and more. This campaign runs until Wednesday, December 20.
Humble also has the Yogscast Jingle Jam 2017 which has several video games and books available advent calendar style with more releases added until December 25 (though the bundle will be available until Sunday, December 31). In addition to all the video games are Tales from Candlekeep DLC for Tomb of Annihilation, the Feywild Starter Pack for the Neverwinter MMO, the Celeste’s Epic Starter Pack for Idle Champion of the Forgotten Realms, beta access for Warhammer Vermintide 2, and the Dwarf Helmet DLC for Warhammer Vermitide.
Finally, this one’s not exactly related to gaming, but I’ve known many people wanting to edit live streams or video recordings of their games and, knowing my history with video production, ask me for cheap video editing software. And, frankly, there isn’t any. Well right now, as part of the Vegas Pro Creative Bundle, the video editing suite Vegas Pro 14 Edit (formerly known as Sony Vegas) is available at the $20 level (along with a lot of other audio and video production tools). This bundle runs until Wednesday, December 27.
Red Sonja: Hyrkania’s Legacy is a cooperative card-and-dice questing game from Dynamite. You may remember them as the comic publishers behind the recent Pathfinder Worldscape comics crossing over the world of Golarion with other fictional worlds of classic pulp fantasy. The game is based on the Legacy Line from Lynnvander Studios, which features characters from classic fiction with crossover potential with this new game as well. The core game is available for a $45 pledge, the deluxe edition for $65, and the Legacy Line Character Pack (including King Arthur, Queen Gwenivere, Robyn Hood, Marian, Peter Pan, Wendy Darling, D’Artagnan, and Lady Constance) for $85. This project is still short of its $15,000 funding goal, but has until Wednesday, December 20 to cross that line.
SIGMATA: This Signal Kills Fascists is a cyberpunk roleplaying game from Chad Walker set in an alternate dystopian 1980s where the Resistance fights against the Regime, a fascist government oppressing the citizens. The players are superhumans with powers only available to them when in range of “The Signal”, a mysterious numbers station set up in FM radio towers. The game’s rules are an interesting narativist take where your ability to control the narrative of a scene relies on your rolls on your processors, with a strong focus on the reputation of the heroes among various communities due to their actions in the face of the Regime’s oppression. A PDF copy is available for a $16 pledge, stretch goal additional content for $26, a softcover rulebook for $28 ($41 to include stretch goals), or a hardcover for $37 ($52 to include stretch goals). This project is fully funded and runs until Thursday, December 28.
That’s all from me for this week! Find more gaming crowdfunding news at the EN World RPG Kickstarter News website, and don’t forget to support our Patreon to bring you even more gaming news content. If you have any news to submit, email us at news@enworldnews.com. You can follow me on Twitter @Abstruse where I’ve been trying to retweet more pictures of cute animals, follow Gamer’s Tavern on YouTube featuring videos on gaming history and Let’s Plays, or you can listen to the archives of the Gamer’s Tavern podcast. Until next time, may all your hits be crits! Note: Links to Amazon, Humble Store, Humble Bundle, and/or DriveThru may contain affiliate links with the proceeds going to the author of this column.
If you follow any creative people on social media, you’ve probably heard something about the troubles facing Patreon. This section is going to go in-depth on what exactly happened, but here’s a short version if you want to get right to the more specifically gaming-focused news: Patreon announced new fees for backers, people were very upset about this and, after a week, Patreon changed their minds and decided not to add additional fees.
On Wednesday, December 6, an email was sent out to some (but not all) creators on Patreon announcing a new fee structure. This new fee moved the transaction fees associated with digital payments. Instead of being included with the amount pledged to a Patreon creator (and deducted along with Patreon’s service fees), the fee would now be added as an additional charge for all backers. It would also be assessed for each creator separately. So if you backed ten creators for $1 per month each, you would be billed a total of $13.80. The change would take place effective December 18. What followed was almost universal backlash against the idea. Patreon claimed in their announcement that the changes were to promote creators and allow them to take home more of their donations. However, the math does not work out as creators did not receive the same percentage of the total amount paid by Patreon backers until the reward tier of $10/mo.
It came to light later that week that this may have been an intentional move by Patreon, after users began digging to find what caused this sudden change. An interview on June 20 with Patreon Growth Project Manager Tal Raviv stated that they did not view low-tier or low-producing creators as helping growth but rather hindering it. From the article: “This posed a conundrum for the growth team. For example, an 80% drop-off at a given onboarding step would typically be alarming to any other growth team working on user activation. But at Patreon, a big drop-off could actually mean something good is happening -- unqualified leads are getting weeded out.” Also telling was this quote directly from Raviv, “We have very clear, rigorous internal criteria for what we consider financially successful -- there is a specific threshold that we've found to be ‘life-changing’ for our Creators. It's a number where we believe the platform has meaningfully changed a creator's life and ability to create more, focus more on their craft, and in many cases go full time." This, for obvious reasons, did not sit well with creators who felt that even a few hundred dollars a month for their creations was “life-changing”.
Due to the backlash, including from several of the “financially successful Creators (FSCs)” coveted by the growth team, Patreon announced on Wednesday, December 13, that they would not be rolling out the new fee changes. The damage for many creators had been done as many creators posted huge backer losses with the new fees given as a reason. In this announcement rolling back the changes, Patreon included a link to backers to take them to their pledge history, making it easier for former Patreon backers to renew their pledges for campaigns they previously backed.
In previous columns, I have highlighted many game designers, writers, publishers, podcasts, and streamers focused on tabletop roleplaying games. To make it easier for those who may have unsubscribed due to these fee changes and wished to re-subscribe now that they have been canceled, here is a full list. EN World will also be publishing a more extensive list of game industry Patreons soon.
Authors and Game Designers
Ari Marmell
Brian Patterson
Own K.C. Stephens
Steven “Bull” Ratkovich
Russell Zimmerman
Lee Garvin
Sean Patrick Fannon
Tracy Barnett
Cam Banks
Evil Hat
Jamie Chambers
Podcasters, Video Makers, and Live Streamers
Zombie Orpheus
Saving Throw
Arcology Podcast
Neo-Anarchist Podcast
Complex Action
Violent Life
EN World and EN Publishing
EN World Trailseeker
EN World EN5ider
EONS
EN World News
Ari Marmell
Brian Patterson
Own K.C. Stephens
Steven “Bull” Ratkovich
Russell Zimmerman
Lee Garvin
Sean Patrick Fannon
Tracy Barnett
Cam Banks
Evil Hat
Jamie Chambers
Podcasters, Video Makers, and Live Streamers
Zombie Orpheus
Saving Throw
Arcology Podcast
Neo-Anarchist Podcast
Complex Action
Violent Life
EN World and EN Publishing
EN World Trailseeker
EN World EN5ider
EONS
EN World News
Disclosure: The campaigns under the EN World and EN Publishing header are owned by the publisher of this column or an affiliated company. Sean Patrick Fannon is a paid contributor to EN World. The author of this column has previously done paid work for Zombie Orpheus.
EN World posted its poll for the most anticipated game of 2018. The poll closes this Saturday, December 16, so be sure to go and vote for the games you’re most looking forward to in the coming year. And remember, you can vote for more than one product. Previous winners include Trudvang Chronicles in 2017, Rifts for Savage Worlds in 2016, Star Wars: Force & Destiny in 2015, and 13th Age in 2013. I’m not sure if there was a poll in 2014, but that was also the year of Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition’s release so that feels like a gimme.
Xanathar’s Guide to Everything made more than a few records this past week. Wizards of the Coast stated that it is the fastest-selling book in the history of Dungeons & Dragons. In addition, the book was listed on several sales charts. The Wall Street Journal has it listed as the #1 book for nonfiction, Publisher’s Weekly as the #1 hardcover nonfiction, USA Today as the #12 bestseller (all genres), and Amazon at #12 in their nonfiction category. The book did not list on the New York Times Bestseller List as they eliminated the category Dungeons & Dragons game books previously appeared under in January of 2017, where the Player's Handbook was still at the #1 spot.
The first release from Fantasy Flight Interactive, the new video game division of Fantasy Flight and Asmodee, was announced: Lord of the Rings: The Card Game. The game will be based on the tabletop Lord of the Rings Living Card Game with a story-based campaign mode against computer components. Similar to the physical card game, packs of new cards will not be randomized like other popular card games, but will be set packs. The game will launch as a free-to-play game (with premium purchases available) in Early Access via Steam in 2018. A cooperative two-player mode is scheduled to be added before the game leaves the Early Access period.
The Judge Conduct Committee for Magic: The Gathering in Canada de-certified Level 3 Judge Chris Lansdell. This is the first time in DCI history that an L3 judge has lost certification. The decision was reached at the conclusion of a sexual harassment investigation against Lansdell. According to the statement, “Originally, to protect the victim(s) from potential backlash, gossip, or ‘outing’, the JCC and I made the decision not to make a public announcement, and I chose to notify a select group of people privately. […] however, that changed this week when Chris posted on Facebook. Now there are many questions, rumours, and I think it’s best for the Canadian community for me to get some facts out there and plant a flag on what happened.”
Also announced last week, Jeremy Hambly of Unsleeved Media has received a lifetime ban from the DCI. Hambly, through his YouTube show MTG Headquarters, was accused of spearheading a long-term harassment campaign against cosplayer and brand mascot Christine Sprankle, who announced last month that she was withdrawing from Magic: The Gathering events due to the stress of the harassment campaign. Professional Magic: The Gathering player Travis Woo also received a one-year ban for his participation in a Facebook group “Magic for Bad”, which included content deemed “sexist, racist, and misogynistic”. One post in particular included a listing of female Magic: The Gathering players ranked by their physical attractiveness. Woo has previously crossed lines as he was dropped from the YouTube channel Channel Fireball after “talking about the merits of Adolf Hitler and Mein Kampf” during a live stream.
Barnes & Noble announced that, after a disappointing fiscal Q2 showing (the quarter that ended in October), they will be reducing the number of SKUs in the gift, games, and toys section of its retail stores. Depending on the inventory system of the distributor, this will affect many in the game industry as some roleplaying game books – particularly boxed sets – tend to be classified as “Games” rather than “Books”. This follows a push for a reduced non-returnable inventory in stores (books can be returned to a distributor, while games, gift items, and some types of periodicals cannot), especially following a pilot program this year of store sizes reduced to half or one quarter the size of average Barnes & Noble locations. Barnes & Noble CEO Damos Parneros said, “This decision is part of our broader strategy to grow sales and become more productive by featuring a narrower product assortment with higher turnover. Going forward we will place a greater emphasis on books, while further narrowing our non-book assortment. […] Clearly, we’re going to prioritize books first and then as space permits, we’ll go into our gift and educational toys & games category.”
Kobold Press and Frog God Games have put together the Humble RPG Book Bundle Dungeons, Monsters, and Dragons for 5th Edition. The bundle has three pledge levels of $1, $8, and $17 each of which adds on more books for a total of over thirty PDFs plus map packs, quest generators, and more featuring adventures, tokens, encounter tables, monsters, and more. This campaign runs until Wednesday, December 20.
Humble also has the Yogscast Jingle Jam 2017 which has several video games and books available advent calendar style with more releases added until December 25 (though the bundle will be available until Sunday, December 31). In addition to all the video games are Tales from Candlekeep DLC for Tomb of Annihilation, the Feywild Starter Pack for the Neverwinter MMO, the Celeste’s Epic Starter Pack for Idle Champion of the Forgotten Realms, beta access for Warhammer Vermintide 2, and the Dwarf Helmet DLC for Warhammer Vermitide.
Finally, this one’s not exactly related to gaming, but I’ve known many people wanting to edit live streams or video recordings of their games and, knowing my history with video production, ask me for cheap video editing software. And, frankly, there isn’t any. Well right now, as part of the Vegas Pro Creative Bundle, the video editing suite Vegas Pro 14 Edit (formerly known as Sony Vegas) is available at the $20 level (along with a lot of other audio and video production tools). This bundle runs until Wednesday, December 27.
Red Sonja: Hyrkania’s Legacy is a cooperative card-and-dice questing game from Dynamite. You may remember them as the comic publishers behind the recent Pathfinder Worldscape comics crossing over the world of Golarion with other fictional worlds of classic pulp fantasy. The game is based on the Legacy Line from Lynnvander Studios, which features characters from classic fiction with crossover potential with this new game as well. The core game is available for a $45 pledge, the deluxe edition for $65, and the Legacy Line Character Pack (including King Arthur, Queen Gwenivere, Robyn Hood, Marian, Peter Pan, Wendy Darling, D’Artagnan, and Lady Constance) for $85. This project is still short of its $15,000 funding goal, but has until Wednesday, December 20 to cross that line.
SIGMATA: This Signal Kills Fascists is a cyberpunk roleplaying game from Chad Walker set in an alternate dystopian 1980s where the Resistance fights against the Regime, a fascist government oppressing the citizens. The players are superhumans with powers only available to them when in range of “The Signal”, a mysterious numbers station set up in FM radio towers. The game’s rules are an interesting narativist take where your ability to control the narrative of a scene relies on your rolls on your processors, with a strong focus on the reputation of the heroes among various communities due to their actions in the face of the Regime’s oppression. A PDF copy is available for a $16 pledge, stretch goal additional content for $26, a softcover rulebook for $28 ($41 to include stretch goals), or a hardcover for $37 ($52 to include stretch goals). This project is fully funded and runs until Thursday, December 28.
That’s all from me for this week! Find more gaming crowdfunding news at the EN World RPG Kickstarter News website, and don’t forget to support our Patreon to bring you even more gaming news content. If you have any news to submit, email us at news@enworldnews.com. You can follow me on Twitter @Abstruse where I’ve been trying to retweet more pictures of cute animals, follow Gamer’s Tavern on YouTube featuring videos on gaming history and Let’s Plays, or you can listen to the archives of the Gamer’s Tavern podcast. Until next time, may all your hits be crits! Note: Links to Amazon, Humble Store, Humble Bundle, and/or DriveThru may contain affiliate links with the proceeds going to the author of this column.
