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.

 

[TrippyHippy]

So now even more people know about it? Why is this a bad thing? What is there to regret?

The regretful thing is that I don't think people will continue to think about it now that the relevance to a gaming product has been rescinded.

No I asked what you're doing about it. What have these "charitable events" and letters done? I can escalate this to its inevitable conclusion: Why aren't you in Chechnya doing something about this? Why aren't you taking up arms and overthrowing the government?

They have provided awareness and funds towards groups that have a lot more know-how about how to pressurise and influence governments - despite it always being an uphill battle - than people who seem to think violent revolution is an answer to everything.

Also, idk how you're questioning how voting can affect this issue just because politicians didn't bring up the issue specifically. Voting for LGBT positive candidates, does that help?

What LGBT candidates, that have stood on this platform, are you referring to?

No, no, that's not the controversy. The controversy isn't highlighting a real world event, it's trivializing it. Either you don't get this point and need to better understand the controversy, or you do and should just take your concern trolling elsewhere.

Firstly, I'm not trolling - and that is immediately trying to use ad hominem here. Secondly, this was not trivialising a real world event - any more than Pan's Labrynth was 'trivialising' the Spanish Ciivil war with a fairy tale, or Black Sabbath was trivialising the Vietnam war by singing about 'witches at black masses', or Death of Stalin was trivialising one of the most murderous regimes in history, or a whole multitude of writings and works.

This piece was taking a real world event and interpreting it within a fictional setting framework. You could argue that it is clumsy - apparently the editing had been compromised according to some, where it was made more apparent that the statements were being made by an unreliable author. However, it is not 'fake news' to purport that vampires are involved in the situation - it's clearly a work of fiction.

 

[Morrus]

In terms of using real world events for entertainment, it's worth noting that 'entertainment' can mean a lot of things and doesn't mean it is inherently 'making light' of a serious matter in a dismissive way. Notably, Death of Stalin was also banned in Russia this year too.

But that wasn't the case in this instance. The issue here is that Chechnya officials deny these events are happening, and claim reports are merely 'Western propaganda'. This book also denies these events are happening, and says reports are 'Vampire propaganda' to hide the truth. That's not highlighting the events, it's reinforcing the narrative of the perpetrators.

In this particular instance, that's trivializing the real world issue. Sure, fiction can be used to highlight real issues. This isn't an example of that, though. And those involved have recognised this and acted accordingly.

 

[Shasarak]

I was recently listening to a podcast about what was happening in Chechnya and the other concentration camps around the world like in China and the USA.

Too soon, White Wolf, too soon.

 

[Alzrius]

But that wasn't the case in this instance. The issue here is that Chechnya officials deny these events are happening, and claim reports are merely 'Western propaganda'. This book also denies these events are happening, and says reports are 'Vampire propaganda' to hide the truth. That's not highlighting the events, it's reinforcing the narrative of the perpetrators.

No, it isn't. It's exactly the opposite of that.

Making a comparison between "it's all lies from the Western media" and "it's all lies from vampire cabals" rightfully mocks the "Western media" claim, illustrating how those lies are so blatant as to be utterly unbelievable. It weakens the narrative of the perpetrators by pointing out how ludicrous their narrative is, flat-out stating it's no more plausible than if they were saying it was all one big cover-up orchestrated by vampires.

 

[Morrus]

Making a comparison between "it's all lies from the Western media" and "it's all lies from vampire cabals" rightfully mocks the "Western media" claim, illustrating how those lies are so blatant as to be utterly unbelievable. It weakens the narrative of the perpetrators by pointing out how ludicrous their narrative is, flat-out stating it's no more plausible than if they were saying it was all one big cover-up orchestrated by vampires.

Even they don't say that's what they were doing.

 

[Calithorne]

Well, it looks like the political correctness warriors have captured another scalp.

 

[TrippyHippy]

But that wasn't the case in this instance. The issue here is that Chechnya officials deny these events are happening, and claim reports are merely 'Western propaganda'. This book also denies these events are happening, and says reports are 'Vampire propaganda' to hide the truth. That's not highlighting the events, it's reinforcing the narrative of the perpetrators.

In this particular instance, that's trivializing the real world issue. Sure, fiction can be used to highlight real issues. This isn't an example of that, though. And those involved have recognised this and acted accordingly.

Thats not the case. The book doesn’t deny anything - a fictional character does. And even though there hasn’t been any official statement by the writer, communications with him from other parties involved apparently do point out that the intent was meant to be satirical.

Those involved have made a business decision, which was part of an overall decision that had been coming since before the book was even released. While this official statement is an attempt to manage the situation, as a customer I remain concerned at the future implications.

 

[Arnwolf666]

I worked at CCP on the World of Darkness MMO, specifically on the web portal and social network that was designed to support the game. It's possible something changed since then but the idea that the people I worked with day in and day out on the World of Darkness could be even considered alt-right, fascist, fascist supporting, racist, or anti-LBGT is out right insane. In my first few days there, I was "warned" that the Icelanders might get a bit more friendly when they're drunk than we might expect as Americans and that if you pulled back or seemed uncomfortable, they'd take offense thinking that you were homophobic. This was from the straight guys! I wasn't just out as a gay man while I worked there, I was out as an HIV+ individual in the workplace. One of my co-workers began their transition there. I knew close to a dozen LGBT people working on the project in one way or another and there were enough of us, and we were so accepted, that we were talking about having our own float in the Pride parade in Atlanta (these discussions ended largely because of the layoffs that ultimately killed the WoD project).

Of all the places I've ever worked in my over 30 years in software development, if I could go back to any of them and work there again... it would be CCP/White Wolf (they were merged at the time). It wouldn't even take conscious thought to make that decision.

There were of course (given the size of the group) people who fell on the conservative side of things but they were WAY in the minority and even they were tremendously respectful of the differences and value of every other person there. I never once felt disrespected for being gay, nor did I ever hear of behavior I would have considered disrespectful.

The idea that these charges are being leveled against White Wolf and the people there is mind-blowing to me. I simply cannot imagine the people I worked with being accused of the things they're being accused of.

Are you anti-alt-right? and why are you grouping us with fascists and racists. we are the most freedom and liberty group out there that doesn’t want controlled by big government and big business. i think it would be nice if people were not made to feel unwelcome playing a game because of what political party we support. we are not rioting and vandalizing and threatening people like antifa.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Seems pretty straightforward to me. Regardless of whether you think the work is satire or allegory, poorly handled or well portrayed...there’s a lot of negative response. And this isn’t the first time.

So the company is making changes. It’s what companies do when they think there’s money to lose. I can’t really blame them, and it’s not really surprising.

 

[Cergorach]

That must have been some serious fallout on the product mentioned. I don't follow World of Darkness any more (haven't since the early 2000s, truthfully) and I did catch wind of some potentially poor-taste stuff during the playtest phases through this site, but this recent business sounds like Paradox felt the need to come down on them HARD.

Truthfully, sounds like the REAL end of White Wolf. "Brand Management only?" Ouch.

First: White Wolf was always edgy and going over the 'line' (HOL anyone?), anyone expecting a political correct RPG is just smoking some stuff that might not even be legal in Amsterdam...

Second: Paradox is a computer game company first and doesn't want to alienate their US customers due to controversy. I suspect that WW would never have cared about this storm in a glass water. These guys handled topics like Auschwitz, etc.

Third: Onyx Path Publishing has been doing great products in the Old World of Darkness for years!

Personally: I (and many with me) were absolutely flabbergasted, why WW would even try to publish a Vampire 5E game themselves. They hadn't done RPG books in many, many years. I suspect that they didn't even have any staff that could actually do a pnp game. And if we remember nWoD, they didn't have anyone who could make a succesfull WoD for many more years... I also detest the graphical design of the 5th edition game, it looks totally cheap with the photographs and what drawn art there is is often drawn by artists that have no business working for big publishers and products.

Imho WW died the first time when they released nWoD, then again before they were taken over by CCP. This is just someone wearing a WW t-shirt trying to make a WoD pnp game with very little talent (imho). The shirt doesn't fit!

What's happening in Chechnya isn't great, but that isn't new. If your from the US, look at your own back yard, in certain African regions this isn't unknown either (plus if your an Albino your sliced and diced). Now, if you want to intervene in Chechnya that might be a mightily bad idea for global 'security', I don't want the folks currently in control of the US and Russia playing chicken with nukes again... And other countries won't intervene, because it's been happening for decades in countries where there wouldn't be a danger of another WW for intervening. Hell, in my own backyard (Netherlands), this stuff still happens to a certain degree. Stupid bigots seem to penetrate every layer of society...