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]

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.

You keep wanting to put numbers to this. How many people is sufficient? There is no answer to that. None and never will be.

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?

Well, the person who accidentally offends, when learning that they have offended will generally apologize and amend their statements. After all, they didn't mean to offend and have made some sort of mistake in doing so. The troll likely won't apologize or amend their statements.

But, in no case should we simply try to guess what the person meant. The offense should be clearly highlighted and then it's back on the person making the statement to respond. It's not on me to say, "Well, I don't think he was trying to be offensive, so, you are wrong for taking offense." which is where this line of thinking is leading.

 

[Umbran]

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?".

Ah, you see, it isn't all that complicated on such points...

If you do something, and a bunch of people hear about it, and show up to tell you that you were being an insensitive, ill-informed jerk, whether or not you have potential business with them is not material in determining if you were, in fact, being an insensitive, ill-informed jerk. They are not wrong just because they weren't going to give you money.

Worrying about who is a customer, and who isn't, is a business decision. But the core issue here isn't a business problem - it is an ethical problem. If your basic answer to ethical questions is to check your bottom line, you have probably missed the point of the ethical question.

 

[hawkeyefan]

You keep wanting to put numbers to this. How many people is sufficient? There is no answer to that. None and never will be.

It’s not necessarily a number that I’m asking for so much as I’m trying to understand how this works. Is the requirement simply that people complain loudly enough? When is a product considered generally offensive? I mean, I like plenty of things that have been considered offensive by many people...music, television, books, D&D, comics...

Should those things have gone away because at one point a large number of people wanted them to?

Well, the person who accidentally offends, when learning that they have offended will generally apologize and amend their statements. After all, they didn't mean to offend and have made some sort of mistake in doing so. The troll likely won't apologize or amend their statements.

But, in no case should we simply try to guess what the person meant. The offense should be clearly highlighted and then it's back on the person making the statement to respond. It's not on me to say, "Well, I don't think he was trying to be offensive, so, you are wrong for taking offense." which is where this line of thinking is leading.

I generally agree with this. I don’t think the end result you’ve stated is quite right....but otherwise, I agree.

 

[Sadras]

It’s not necessarily a number that I’m asking for so much as I’m trying to understand how this works. Is the requirement simply that people complain loudly enough? When is a product considered generally offensive? I mean, I like plenty of things that have been considered offensive by many people...music, television, books, D&D, comics...

Should those things have gone away because at one point a large number of people wanted them to?

I generally agree with this. I don’t think the end result you’ve stated is quite right....but otherwise, I agree.

Perhaps the answer to such a question has more to do with the historical period one lives in and what is deemed offensive at the time and what is not.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

We have our own rules about where is the limit, but anytime we don't agree about this, and when we offend anybody there is consequences, you wanted theses or didn't.

Homophobes characters can appear in a story because the author wants them to be used as antagonist. Gayfriendly fiction can show us homophobia not to be promoted but to be reported. In WoD youngest vampires can find older ones are homophobes because they came from a age where homosexuality wasn't yet allowed, and this may be the hook of some stories.

My opinion is maybe WW's mistake was to give a supernatural origin to an uneasy matter for the real world. This is like writing Pentex caused the fight among Seleka and anti-Balaka to sell more weapons in Africa. This is a real blunder, or the 1840's USA-Mexican war was caused because vampires wanted those new lands full of fresh flock but without rival predators (terminated by Inquisition). Let's imagine a speculative fiction work about how mason lodges controlled by vampires, and demons, plotted to cause the Anglican schism because Catholic Church was too strong to be controlled by regalism ( = clergy ruled by lay powers) or the black legend against Spanish empire was a revenge by the Camarilla because that was the best ally of Inquisition in the vampire hunt, and because faith's communities are stronger then their disciplines and powers to control that sectors of humankind are weaker.

This is not about homophobia, but because supernatural fiction was linked to "evil" groups from real life and somebody may be uncomfortable when suspects this could trivialize suffering by real people. This is the limit, we can't trivialize suffering by real people from the current age.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Ah, you see, it isn't all that complicated on such points...

If you do something, and a bunch of people hear about it, and show up to tell you that you were being an insensitive, ill-informed jerk, whether or not you have potential business with them is not material in determining if you were, in fact, being an insensitive, ill-informed jerk. They are not wrong just because they weren't going to give you money.

Worrying about who is a customer, and who isn't, is a business decision. But the core issue here isn't a business problem - it is an ethical problem. If your basic answer to ethical questions is to check your bottom line, you have probably missed the point of the ethical question.

Now do this analysis for Lolita, Catcher in the Rye, Harry Potter, and the Satanic Verses. I'm curious as to the simple analysis of ethics in these cases.

 

[Maxperson]

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".

Society never saw it, let alone judged it. A minority(people speaking out against it) of a minority(people who actually are aware of White Wolf) said "Nope. That's not acceptable."

 

[Maxperson]

Well, the person who accidentally offends, when learning that they have offended will generally apologize and amend their statements. After all, they didn't mean to offend and have made some sort of mistake in doing so. The troll likely won't apologize or amend their statements.

If I truly did make a mistake, I will apologize. However, what happens fair often these days, is that the other person reads into my words something that just plain isn't there and become offended by what they read into those words. I won't apologize for that, since I am not responsible for the actions of others.

But, in no case should we simply try to guess what the person meant.

Also in no case should you read into someone's words something that isn't there.

 

[Maxperson]

Ah, you see, it isn't all that complicated on such points...

If you do something, and a bunch of people hear about it, and show up to tell you that you were being an insensitive, ill-informed jerk, whether or not you have potential business with them is not material in determining if you were, in fact, being an insensitive, ill-informed jerk. They are not wrong just because they weren't going to give you money.

Worrying about who is a customer, and who isn't, is a business decision. But the core issue here isn't a business problem - it is an ethical problem. If your basic answer to ethical questions is to check your bottom line, you have probably missed the point of the ethical question.

It's not that simple for corporations, though. Corporations are quite literally law bound to maximize profits whenever possible, so an ethical problem that is going to negatively affect the bottom line if the company does the ethical thing must be ignored, or your stock holders can sue the hell out of you for violating your fiduciary duty. Smaller businesses have the luxury of considering ethics.

 

[Umbran]

Now do this analysis for Lolita, Catcher in the Rye, Harry Potter, and the Satanic Verses. I'm curious as to the simple analysis of ethics in these cases.

All of the works you name have cheesed people off, but they differ from this WoD case in (at least) one central element - they are all entirely fiction.

The WoD issue is about taking the *actual events* that happened to specific people that actually exist (and may still be alive) and then making the source of their suffering fictional.

So... not much of an analogy to be had. The ethical question isn't, "Did I cheese people off?" The ethical question is around what you did to cheese people off.