Big Changes At White Wolf Following Controversy

Following an online backlash regarding the content of their recent publications, White Wolf Publishing has just announced some big changes, including the suspension of the Vampire 5th Edition Camarilla and Anarch books, and a restructuring of management.

White Wolf's Shams Jorjani made the following announcement about an hour ago:

"Hello everyone,

My name is Shams Jorjani, VP of Business Development at Paradox Interactive and interim manager at White Wolf Publishing. I wanted to inform you of some changes that will be implemented at White Wolf, starting immediately.

Sales and printing of the V5 Camarilla and Anarch books will be temporarily suspended. The section on Chechnya will be removed in both the print and PDF versions of the Camarilla book. We anticipate that this will require about three weeks. This means shipping will be delayed; if you have pre-ordered a copy of Camarilla or Anarchs, further information will follow via e-mail.

In practical terms, White Wolf will no longer function as a separate entity. The White Wolf team will be restructured and integrated directly into Paradox Interactive, and I will be temporarily managing things during this process. We are recruiting new leadership to guide White Wolf both creatively and commercially into the future, a process that has been ongoing since September.

Going forward, White Wolf will focus on brand management. This means White Wolf will develop the guiding principles for its vision of the World of Darkness, and give licensees the tools they need to create new, excellent products in this story world. White Wolf will no longer develop and publish these products internally. This has always been the intended goal for White Wolf as a company, and it is now time to enact it.

The World of Darkness has always been about horror, and horror is about exploring the darkest parts of our society, our culture, and ourselves. Horror should not be afraid to explore difficult or sensitive topics, but it should never do so without understanding who those topics are about and what it means to them. Real evil does exist in the world, and we can’t ever excuse its real perpetrators or cheapen the suffering of its real victims.

In the Chechnya chapter of the V5 Camarilla book, we lost sight of this. The result was a chapter that dealt with a real-world, ongoing tragedy in a crude and disrespectful way. We should have identified this either during the creative process or in editing. This did not happen, and for this we apologize.

We ask for your patience while we implement these changes. In the meantime, let’s keep talking. I’m available for any and all thoughts, comments and feedback, on shams.jorjani@paradoxinteractive.com."

White Wolf is currently own by Paradox Interactive, who acquired the World of Darkness rights in 2015 from previous owner CCP (who you might know from Eve Online) whose plans for a WoD MMO failed to bear fruit.

The recent Camarilla and Anarch books have met widespread criticism. The former, Camarilla, includes a section which appears to trivialise current real-life events in Chechnya, where the LGBTQ community is being persecuted, tortured, and murdered and uses that current tragedy as a backdrop for the setting. This comes after the company was forced to deny links to neo-Nazi ideology. White Wolf recently announced that "White Wolf is currently undergoing some significant transitions up to and including a change in leadership. The team needs a short time to understand what this means, so we ask for your patience as we figure out our next steps" and this appears to be the result of that decision.

 

[Hussar]

/snip

I don't know if you can or should differentiate such people. Again, removed of the commercial concerns that were relevant in this case, I think that it's pretty clearly been established that protection of the unpopular opinion is more important than protection of the popular opinion. If it's a choice between allowing all opinions to be expressed or to begin picking and choosing, the only rational answer is to allow them all.

There are so many people throughout history that would have been considered trolls of their time who later on have become to be appreciated as great artists.

Sorry, but, how were they stopped from expressing their opinion? They expressed it quite clearly - they published it in a book after months of marketing. It's not like they couldn't express their thoughts.

And society looked at those expressed thoughts and said, "Nope. That's not acceptable".

I mean, they could STILL go through and publish the book and put it on the shelves. There's nothing stopping them from doing so. Granted, it would likely result in very strong negative consequences for their company, but, again, they are not, in any way, being stopped from doing so.

Freedom of speech is not the same as freedom from consequence.

/snip

And I do think that authorial intent does matter. Do we think the authors included this with the intention of controversy? Were they trying to provoke a negative reaction in readers? Or just any kind of emotional reaction? They certainly wound up offending people, that's clear, but was that what they wanted? It's hard to say.

Authorial intent never matters. Because authors can and do lie. This is how trolls work. "Oh, you're offended? Really? Well, I never meant for you to be offended, so, it's all good. What do you mean I should take back what I said? I didn't mean it that way and ((Insert numerous dictionary definitions cherry picked to mislead)) if you're taking offense, that's on you."

No. Authorial intent is a virtually pointless argument to make.

 

[Rygar]

It's not very complex at all.

When my ox is being gored, then it's faux outrage by officious busybodies acting out of spite and partisan motivation who were never customers and probably couldn't spell cat if you provided them the "c" and the "a."

When someone else's ox is being gored, then it's a genuine and heartfelt boycott by people that are personally affected by the terrible decision and deeply hurt because they had previously trusted the entity that they are now forced to boycott due to deeply held and universal principles.

...pretty sure this is true, not just for this, but for all things.


OTOH, given the general tenor and intelligence of @Umbran and his posts, I do have admire the chutzpah behind a post that is the equivalent of, "Sit down and edumacate yourself before you post on the internet."

I disagree.

At this point in time all it takes is one person to view something and post it to Twitter or Facebook, and potentially a large number of people will latch onto it and express outrage. It's very possible none of those people expressing outrage ever had any intention of purchasing said product, or even knew it existed before in the case of RPGs, but they'll announce loudly how they're going to "Boycott" the company they weren't patronizing to start out with.

In the end, if the company capitulates to the "Boycott" and it was largely a group of non-customers who were outraged, the company has a serious problem. If they change the product to meet the demands of the outrage by non-customers and it runs counter to the desires of the actual customers except for the one who took offense, then there's a very high probability that the company will make a change to the product to satisfy one customer, a lot of people who still have no intention of buying the product, and they've now lost some/many/all of their other customers.

Philosophy and allegory isn't really applicable here. It's a complex question confronting pretty much all businesses today on all sides of the political war. "How do I identify how many of the people who are expressing outrage are actually customers or potential customers and make informed decisions?".

 

[Rygar]

Umm, I did, didn't I? All links are quoted with "forum.rpg.net" quite clearly visible to a naked eye.
If you're clicking a link without reading even a plain-text part, the security of your computer may be at risk.

Please do be more careful.

Regards,
Ruemere

Morrus runs a very safe site, I don't think it's necessary to carefully examine all URL's posted here. OTOH, you're posting links to a website that literally bans you for supporting the President of the United States anywhere on the internet if they can connect it to you. The onus is upon you to very clearly indicate where you're linking to when linking to a site with such controversial and political policies.

It's one thing to link to a standard site with standard behavior policies, it's quite another to link to a site that bans anyone who supports the sitting President.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Morrus runs a very safe site, I don't think it's necessary to carefully examine all URL's posted here. OTOH, you're posting links to a website that literally bans you for supporting the President of the United States anywhere on the internet if they can connect it to you. The onus is upon you to very clearly indicate where you're linking to when linking to a site with such controversial and political policies.

It's one thing to link to a standard site with standard behavior policies, it's quite another to link to a site that bans anyone who supports the sitting President.

With respect and amplifying what the poster has already said: the fact that it was a “forum.rpg.net” link was clearly and plainly visible. He didn’t disguise the link with alternative/descriptive text.

The onus, thus, is shifted to the reader to notice and comprehend that text.

 

[Shasarak]

There are so many people throughout history that would have been considered trolls of their time who later on have become to be appreciated as great artists.

Like the Surrealist painters in the 1920s for example.

 

[Shasarak]

At this point in time all it takes is one person to view something and post it to Twitter or Facebook, and potentially a large number of people will latch onto it and express outrage. It's very possible none of those people expressing outrage ever had any intention of purchasing said product, or even knew it existed before in the case of RPGs, but they'll announce loudly how they're going to "Boycott" the company they weren't patronizing to start out with.

If you look at it from a different angle, it provides some pretty good advertising for Camarilla and Anarch and it also gives Paradox Interactive a good excuse to axe White Wolf (which they wanted to do anyway) without any potential blow back onto them.

I mean was anyone even talking about the new Vampire supplements before now?

 

[hawkeyefan]

Sorry, but, how were they stopped from expressing their opinion? They expressed it quite clearly - they published it in a book after months of marketing. It's not like they couldn't express their thoughts.

And society looked at those expressed thoughts and said, "Nope. That's not acceptable".

I mean, they could STILL go through and publish the book and put it on the shelves. There's nothing stopping them from doing so. Granted, it would likely result in very strong negative consequences for their company, but, again, they are not, in any way, being stopped from doing so.

Freedom of speech is not the same as freedom from consequence.

My comments that you quoted above were in reply to Jestwr David where we were discussing the larger issue. I wasn’t referencing the Camarilla/Anarch writers in those remarks.

As for “society”....is that what happened here? Was it society that spoke out? Or was it a subsection of society? And is that sufficient? And would members of that subsection even have been aware of the books? Were these actually dissatisfied customers?

I think those are some interesting questions to consider.

Authorial intent never matters. Because authors can and do lie. This is how trolls work. "Oh, you're offended? Really? Well, I never meant for you to be offended, so, it's all good. What do you mean I should take back what I said? I didn't mean it that way and ((Insert numerous dictionary definitions cherry picked to mislead)) if you're taking offense, that's on you."

No. Authorial intent is a virtually pointless argument to make.

Again, my comments were in reply to Gradine when he mentioned he felt it boiled down to authorial intent. His comments seem to imply that the intention of the authors was to shock or provoke the audience. I don’t know if I agree. It’s certainly possible, though.

But I think authorial intent does matter. I think the difference between a troll and someone who offends accidentally is very clearly one of intent. I would imagine that you would likely thibk less of a troll than of someone who unintentionally offended you. Or do you think of them equally?

 

[Gradine]

Again, my comments were in reply to Gradine when he mentioned he felt it boiled down to authorial intent. His comments seem to imply that the intention of the authors was to shock or provoke the audience. I don’t know if I agree. It’s certainly possible, though.

That was not at all what I meant. I was actually implying the opposite; that it's doubtful that the attempting to shock or provoke their audience. This is why I don't think the "what about artists who are trying to be provocative!" argument doesn't really apply here.

But I think authorial intent does matter. I think the difference between a troll and someone who offends accidentally is very clearly one of intent. I would imagine that you would likely thibk less of a troll than of someone who unintentionally offended you. Or do you think of them equally?

Authorial intent matters both more or less than most people suspect; I think it matters quite a bit, for the reasons you aptly point out. I don't think, however, that intent takes people completely off the hook for the impact of their actions, intentional or otherwise.

 

[hawkeyefan]

That was not at all what I meant. I was actually implying the opposite; that it's doubtful that the attempting to shock or provoke their audience. This is why I don't think the "what about artists who are trying to be provocative!" argument doesn't really apply here.

Authorial intent matters both more or less than most people suspect; I think it matters quite a bit, for the reasons you aptly point out. I don't think, however, that intent takes people completely off the hook for the impact of their actions, intentional or otherwise.

My apologies...I misread your post when I checked it to reply to Hussar. But I had understood when I first responded to you.

And I agree that it does not take people completely off the hook.

 

[Hussar]

I disagree.

At this point in time all it takes is one person to view something and post it to Twitter or Facebook, and potentially a large number of people will latch onto it and express outrage. It's very possible none of those people expressing outrage ever had any intention of purchasing said product, or even knew it existed before in the case of RPGs, but they'll announce loudly how they're going to "Boycott" the company they weren't patronizing to start out with.

In the end, if the company capitulates to the "Boycott" and it was largely a group of non-customers who were outraged, the company has a serious problem. If they change the product to meet the demands of the outrage by non-customers and it runs counter to the desires of the actual customers except for the one who took offense, then there's a very high probability that the company will make a change to the product to satisfy one customer, a lot of people who still have no intention of buying the product, and they've now lost some/many/all of their other customers.

Philosophy and allegory isn't really applicable here. It's a complex question confronting pretty much all businesses today on all sides of the political war. "How do I identify how many of the people who are expressing outrage are actually customers or potential customers and make informed decisions?".

Prove it.

No, seriously, prove it. Prove that all it takes is one person to post to Twitter or Facebook and a large number of people who have zero interest in this issue will express outrage. This is the narrative that feeds trolls and promotes toxic ideologies. "Oh, look, it's the knee jerk (insert insulting group name here) just virtue signaling. They wouldn't care otherwise, but, they just want to look good to their other (insulting group name here) fellows, so, I'm being oppressed and my freedom of speech is being curtailed".

No. Sorry, but no.

And, heck, if your customers only buy your products so long as it's kept a secret that your product contains ideologies that large numbers of people find offensive, then, well, perhaps a bit of self examination is in order.

Allowing these ideologies to fester in secret, quietly bubbling around the echo chamber of that group is how groups become radicalized and run over women and children on the streets of Toronto. No. Shine a light and bright freaking 1000W spotlight on things like this and if more people would actually stand up and say, "No, this is not acceptable", the world would be a lot better place.