Goodman Games: Our Efforts Have Been Mischaracterized

Goodman Games' CEO Joseph Goodman made a statement via YouTube over the weekend*. The video itself focused on the content of the controversial upcoming City State of the Invincible Overlord crowdfunding product, but was prefaced by a short introduction by Joseph Goodman, in which he reiterates his company's commitment to inclusivity and diversity and its opposition to bigotry, something which they say they "don't want to be associated with".

Goodman goes on to say that the company's efforts have been "mischaracterized by some folks" but does not go so far as to identify the mischaracterization, so it's not entirely clear what they consider to be untrue other than the "inaccurate" statements made by Bob Bledsaw II of Judges Guild about Goodman Games' plans, which Goodman mentioned last week.

For those who haven't been following this story, it has been covered in the articles Goodman Games Revives Relationship With Anti-Semitic Publisher For New City State Kickstarter, Goodman Games Offers Assurances About Judges Guild Royalties, and Judges Guild Makes Statement About Goodman Controversy. In short, Goodman Games is currently licensing an old property from a company with which it claimed to have cut ties in 2020 after the owner of that company made a number of bigoted comments on social media. Goodman Games has repeatedly said that this move would allow them to provide backers of an old unfulfilled Judges Guild Kickstarter with refunds, but there are many people questioning seeming contradictions in both the timelines involved and in the appropriateness of the whole endeavour.

Despite the backlash, the prospects of the crowdfunding project do not seem to have been harmed. The pre-launch page has over 3,000 followers, and many of the comments under the YouTube videos or on other social media are not only very supportive of the project, but also condemn those who question its appropriateness. In comparison, the original (failed) Judges Guild Kickstarter had only 965 backers.

The video is embedded below, followed by a transcript of the relevant section.

Hi everybody, I'm Joseph Goodman of Goodman Games. We recently announced our City State of the Invincible Overlord crowdfunding project for 5E and DCC RPG.

In the video you're about to see, some of our product development team is going to tell you about what makes the City State so amazing and why we're bringing it back to 5E and DCC audiences nearly 50 years after it was first released. It really is an amazing setting.

But we could have rolled this project out with a lot more clarity. Now, to be clear, Goodman Games absolutely opposes any sort of bigotry, racism, anti-semitism, homophobia, transphobia. We don't want to support it. We don't want to be associated with it.

Our well-intentioned effort to launch this project in a way that refunds backers of a former failed Kickstarter from another publisher kind of backfired in the way we announced it. Rest assured, the funds from this crowdfunding will actually fund refunds to backers of the original City State crowdfunding for the Pathfinder edition from 2014.

Unfortunately, our efforts have been—you know, I didn’t clarify them perfectly when we rolled it out—and they've been mischaracterized by some folks since then. But please rest assured, we stand for inclusivity and diversity.

You can read a lot more detail in the post that's linked below, and there's another video linked below where we talk about this in even more detail. But for now, we hope you will sit back and enjoy as some of the product development team tells you about really what makes the City State of the Invincible Overlord so amazing, and why you might want to check it out when it comes to crowdfunding soon.

Thanks, and I'll turn it over to them now.

The statement refers to a post about this that is supposed to be linked below, but at the time of writing no post is linked below the video, so it's not clear if that refers to a new post or one of Goodman Games' previous statements on the issue.

I reached out to Joseph Goodman last week to offer a non-confrontational (although direct and candid) interview in which he could answer some ongoing questions and talk on his reasoning behind the decision; I have not yet received a response to the offer--I did, however, indicate that I was just leaving for UK Games Expo, and wouldn't be back until this week.

*Normally I would have covered this in a more timely fashion, but I was away at UK Games Expo from Thursday through to Monday.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Apparently Goodman wants that racist money real bad.

Let's see. CSIO funded at $600,000. Caverns of Thracia (also JG) reached $655,000. Dark Tower (also JG) was $450K. Most of their other BackerKits are in the $200K - $300K range, with their current at $160K.

So it does look like JG products bring in about double the funding of other games for Goodman.

Their other Backerkits aren't OAR products, though. I think the numbers to look at -- which Goodman won't and maybe can't share -- are how those numbers stack up to the TSR OAR books. I would bet the TSR products did a lot better.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Not that I want to buy more Goodman stuff at this point, but it'll be interesting to see what else really notable they find to license, if anything.

The fact that they're pivoting to doing big hardcover adventures about pinball tables suggests to me that they're out of OAR-worthy stuff to license. (The current owner of Flying Buffalo's Citybooks, who hasn't managed to publish anything yet, is making a bad call by not licensing this stuff to Goodman, as they would have been an extremely strong choice for one or more OAR books.)

 

[Umbran]

...and Jaquays' CoT and DT are also two legendary products which have specifically been lauded for their innovative design, both historically and since the OSR.

And that's an awkward one - an author whose products you'd want to support, from a publisher that you might not want to support.

 

[The Firebird]

I’m a black dude, an army brat born in Louisiana, and who has lived in a number of places. I’ve lived most of my life in the American South- including Texas since 1982.

Someone asked me why I don’t move away from Texas and all the racism. I responded:

1) I’ve never lived anywhere wherever racism didn’t exist, and

2) it’s a lot easier to spot racism when the racists are comfortable spewing it publicly.

IOW, I’m happy when people open their mouths and confess their bigotry. Saves me a lot of time, effort and possible regrets down the road.

My wife is from the South, encountered a lot of discrimination, and has a similar opinion. She says they are racist in the South and in the North -- but in the South they're honest about it, while in the North they think they're too good for it.

We have gotten dirty looks in several places, but it is more hyper local than regional. The wrong neighborhood, not the wrong state.