Evil Genius Games Attempts To Remove Bad Press [Update--And Then Adds Legal Threats!]

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Evil Genius Games, publisher of the Everyday Heroes tabletop roleplaying game, and subject of two articles in 2024 here on EN World, is attempting to remove references to documented history which delves into the company's actions by citing court documents and interviews with former employees.

[Update--EGG has recruited a lawyer who has sent us a cease-and-desist letter; scroll down to the end of the article for the update]

In early 2024 several employees of Evil Genius Game resigned, citing ethical concerns with the company's activities. I investigated the allegations, obtained court documents and internal correspondence, and interviewed a number of ex-employees, as well as CEO Dave Scott himself, culminating in a lengthy article which provided a deep dive into the issue. That article was followed by another in June 2024 covering EGG's participation in a pitch competition at an event at Consensus 2024, a convention in Texas run by Coindesk, and its description of the Web3 technologies it proposed using.


Reddit user calculusbear posted a link in 2024 to my article about EGG's business practices. On January 14th of this year (2025), EGG's CEO Dave Scott messaged calculusbear asking them to take down the link claiming that it (the Reddit link, not the article or, indeed, EGG's own actions) was "destroying my company". Calculusbear has, to date, not taken down that link.

Last year, I had shared an Enworld article regarding the activities of Evil Genius Games, makers of Everyday Heroes in this sub.

A week ago, I received a message on reddit from their CEO, Dave Scott, asking me to remove the post. He claimed it was hurting his company. This is quite the interesting situation I find myself in; a reddit post causing harm to a company. But it's not like there has been any clarifying news since.

Either way, I would ask Mr Scott to share the discussion he wishes to have first, before asking me to remove the post.

This isn't the first time that EGG has attempted to quell criticism. In 2024 the CEO threatened ex-employees with legal action should they speak openly about their experiences--at the time I was shown letters to multiple staff from EGG's legal representatives threatening action in response to their post-resignation statements; and when I spoke to them while researching my article last year, they all expressed concerns about retribution.

In the interests of balance, I'll note that Scott claims in his message that my article (which backs up every statement with court documents, internal company documents, email transcripts, and interview statements) "sighted many inaccurate facts" [sic].

Hi Calculus Bear. My name is Dave Scott and I am the CEO of Evil Genius Games. About a year ago there was a post that highlighted an article by ENWorld that predicted the fall of my company. The article is one sided. It sighted many inaccurate facts that really hurt me personally and my company. Since then, the thread has been archived, but for some reason it still shows up on the front page of Google Search. A year later, this article is destroying my company. Is there any chance you would consider removing the archived thread? I'm happy to have a deeper discussion about what is going on with the thread and my company. Thank you.

Whether the Reddit link is 'destroying the company' is hard to say. Just three months ago, in November 2024, the venture capital firm Alumni Ventures, part of a syndicate which includes Blockchain Founders Fund and Hustle Fund, amongst others, talked about their proud investment in EGG. EGG's most recent crowdfunder, The Armory, raised $47.5K (their original Everyday Heroes Kickstarter raised nearly $400K, while the followup Legendary Bundle raised $115K).

This week EGG launched its digital platform, 'Sidekick'. The advertising for the platform contains no references to technologies such as NFTs and blockchains, for which the company has previously been criticised. It's not clear whether EGG has reversed its position on the ethics of Web3 tech or whether it's still planning on using it.

The original article had largely fallen off the radar, but has seen increased traffic recently due to the company's attempts to hide it (an effect known popularly as the Streisand Effect).

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Update (Jan 23, 2025) -- "Legal Cease and Desist Letter To Remove the Defamatory Content under Defamation Law"

Evil Genius Games' CEO Dave Scott is making legal threats against journalists and news outlets which covered the original story.

EN World received an email from a gmail account named 'Legal Law' purporting to be a lawyer. The email is titled "Legal Cease and Desist Letter To Remove the Defamatory Content under Defamation Law", and was the first and only contact I'd had with or from EGG since the original article in early 2024.*

Dear Legal Team,

I hope this letter finds you well. I am writing to formally request the immediate removal of a defamatory post that has been published on your website. The defamatory post in question was posted on your website without knowing the truth. The post contains false and damaging statements that have caused significant harm to the reputation and well-being of the company.

As you may be aware, defamation refers to the act of making false statements about an individual or entity that harm their reputation. It is my duty to inform you that the defamatory post on your website violates defamation laws and poses legal ramifications for all parties involved. The false information contained within the post has caused substantial harm to company's professional and personal character.

We kindly request that you remove the defamatory post immediately to prevent further dissemination of false information and to avoid potential legal consequences. Failure to comply with this request will leave us with no option but to pursue legal action against your website and the user responsible for the defamatory post.

Here is the link in question;

[Link to original article about Evil Genius Games]

In accordance with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and the Communications Decency Act (CDA), has a legal obligation to promptly remove defamatory content upon receipt of a valid takedown notice. We trust that, as a responsible platform, will take immediate action to remove the defamatory post and prevent further harm to company's reputation.

We appreciate your prompt attention to this matter and request confirmation of the removal of the defamatory post within reasonable time frame from the receipt of this letter. Should you have any questions or require additional information, please do not hesitate to contact me directly.

Thank you for your cooperation. We hope to resolve this matter amicably and without resorting to legal measures.

Yours sincerely,

Tauqeer Ahmed

With a quick Google search, it became quickly apparent that this exact letter (word for word) has been posted numerous times on the internet (such as here, here, here, and here--this last one by Irfan Karim, DMCA AGENT), and is extremely unspecific--it doesn't say who his client is, what law firm he works for, comes from a gmail account, refers to IP-related legislation in the context of an alleged libel accusation, and contains no indication that the author is familiar with the subject in question. As such we weren't convinced that it was genuine and felt it prudent to contact Dave Scott to confirm whether Tauqeer Ahmed did, in fact, represent Evil Genius Games. Scott replied in the affirmative.



*For transparency, I'll note that after I posted this article Scott then posted on my personal Facebook page (which I removed) and emailed me again; but since a legal threat has been issued I felt it inappropriate that we interact further and passed the threatening letter to our legal advisers. Additionally, as EN World's terms and conditions make clear, once a legal threat has been issued EGG is no longer entitled to post on EN World.

Legal Threats
If you make a legal threat (including accusations using legal terminology like "slander" or "libel", or a threat of legal action) against the site, or against a staff member, we will treat it respectfully and seriously. To this end:
  • You may no longer use or post on the site.
  • We will no longer respond to direct messages from you; we refer you to our mailing address, and your correspondence will be passed to our legal counsel.
  • We refer you to our mailing address which is provided on our contact page on enworld.org for the convenience of your legal counsel.



Update (Jan 24, 2025) -- Not Being Sued After All
I woke up this morning to see Dave Scott had sent me a note indicating that he does not intend to sue EN World. I haven't replied, as my policy is not to engage with people who have threatened me with legal action, but I figure folks would want to know. Hopefully that puts an end to the matter, but who knows?
 

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So your actual article isn’t on the front page of a google search about EGG, but some rando Reddit post about your article is? Wonderful algorithm they have going over there.
My work is on the front page, but yes, lower down than a social media post about my work. I'm sure there's some ironic comment on the state of the world today, and tech billionaires and stuff in there, but I'm too tired!
 


I got a marketing email about the new Sidekick digital platform . . . and once again, felt frustrated that Everyday Heroes seems like a great game (with some major flaws), but one I will not be purchasing or playing due to Scott's problematic behavior and how he has treated his staff.

Not sure how good of a service Sidekick will end up being, but I won't be finding out first hand.

Dave, it's not CalculusBear's link, or Morrus' article that is "destroying your company". It's you man, it's all you.
 

With a company name like Evil Genius Games, I don't expect them to have a company motto like "Don't be evil"... ;)

But I think that Dave Scott underestimated the 'community' aspect of running a pnp RPG company and how easily you can offend and alienate a very loud minority of that pnp RPG community. For example, Web3 is more then just NFTs and Blockchain, but for many it's enough to raise the pitchforks and burn it all down (it feels a bit how publishers viewed pdfs 30 years ago). I find the technical aspect behind blockchain interesting, but how most companies/investors want to implement it is just another money grabbing venture that is as much 'fun' as a casino (the house always wins!)...

To be honest, I don't expect that what they tell potential investors, what they tell employees, and what they actually do to line up. That's not just an Evil Genius Games thing, that's often a (startup) company things. I really dislike that, but it's a reality of much of modern business. The only thing you can do personally is not play that 'game'. The consequence of that is growing your company will take 20 years instead of 2, and there's still a huge chance of failure. But if you say the right keywords to the right investors, there's a bigger chance they'll invest in your company. It's not... Good. But it is what it is...

I liked the idea of a modern D20 Modern, not that I ever really used it. The one-shot big IP releases are interesting, but also feel like an unsupported cash grab that's cashing in on a lot of nostalgia. I eventually wound up buying a Humble Bundle with the PDFs, haven't done anything with them really. I don't expect to buy physical books or their services, I might if we where to run something like this, buy the Foundry VTT implementations of these products, but I doubt that'll ever happen... I have no interest in their online service, at all.

At what point do these articles become EGG bashing or generating 'news'? I think the the previous article was well researched and put together, but this is just rehashing what came before and adding that they are asking people (nicely) to take down links (not demanding). On the other hand, we have Morrus the Journalist, who is also owner of ENworld and EN Publishing, at least the later is a competing business to EGG, the former you could consider an online service (platform). Some of these hats are imho conflicting in this case. Just to be clear, I do not allude to any form of malice on the journalists part.
 


This week EGG launched its digital platform, 'Sidekick'. The advertising for the platform contains no references to technologies such as NFTs and blockchains, for which the company has previously been criticised.
It has, however, a lot of "Coming Soon" and "20% off" and seems keen to take money in advance for things to be delivered later. That's something of a red flag from any game company, and from one that's been enthusiastic about blockchains and NFTs, is a huge flashing "caveat emptor" sign.
 

It has, however, a lot of "Coming Soon" and "20% off" and seems keen to take money in advance for things to be delivered later. That's something of a red flag from any game company, and from one that's been enthusiastic about blockchains and NFTs, is a huge flashing "caveat emptor" sign.
I have stopped backing any kick starters due to the long delays or failures of delivery, i am only waiting on two i think as of now and both have been so over due and delayed i am not sure if i will even see the books. So this sidekick thing and other subscription services that many are doing i will never join as i prefer to have the physical books in hand and not electronic only. PDF is ok but many are limiting them as well.
 

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