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Yeah. With how many fangames like A2MR, the Streets of Rage remake, and Pokemon Uranium just get unceremoniously snapped out of existence, Astartes being brought, hosted for free, and given the greenlight for an official sequel seems like living the dream. I'd get it if GW was actually taking fan videos down. And I agree that the policy, even if its just a scarecrow, may have been a little too effective at scaring fan creators off. But so far the only takedowns have been poo poo like literal piracy, like the Moth Trove. Even people that were making fan videos before and turned down GW's offer were allowed to keep doing it, just demonetized in the process.
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Aug 30, 2021 17:50
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GW did nothing wrong is certainly a take.
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Aug 30, 2021 17:51
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GW's done plenty of wrong in their existence. And if GW really does start beating fanworks down with a lead pipe, I'll be right there complaining with everyone. Hell, I actually really enjoyed TTS and thought it was pretty heartbreaking that the guy had to end the project the way he did. But compared to a lot of other copyright poo poo in the games industry, this has been downright merciful, and people with thirdhand information blowing it up into a massive issue is a headache.
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Aug 30, 2021 17:58
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homullus posted:I thought they were trying to cash in on the enthusiasm for Pandemic's "seasons." Sure, and all that's fine, I don't think Gloomhaven is like, the best possible or anything. It made a lot of choices that cohered sensibly with each other and the broader shape of the project (and some that didn't IMO, like the way losing isn't fun), but you could make the opposite choices for a lot of them and if they cohere that's fine. In some sense I think doing the opposite in lots of cases makes more sense, since a lot of those decisions work together. But that's really tangential to the point that it just feels like there's way less substance in that box than there is in Gloomhaven's, and it's more expensive and invites that comparison by being far more similar than like, Journeys in Middle Earth vs Gloomhaven, or w/e (nevermind that JIME is a full $60 cheaper than Descent). I get wanting to cash in on the Pandemic Legacy seasons, but each of those is a complete game and also half the price of Descent or less.
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Aug 30, 2021 18:07
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Ultiville posted:Sure, and all that's fine, I don't think Gloomhaven is like, the best possible or anything. It made a lot of choices that cohered sensibly with each other and the broader shape of the project (and some that didn't IMO, like the way losing isn't fun), but you could make the opposite choices for a lot of them and if they cohere that's fine. In some sense I think doing the opposite in lots of cases makes more sense, since a lot of those decisions work together. I can't hear you over the sound of my plastic Descent mans rubbing together
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Aug 30, 2021 18:09
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Halloween Jack posted:This is why all of Kevin Crawford's stuff is built on his version of OSR D&D and he hasn't jumped on the 5e train. The lawyers at Hasbro must seethe daily at the OGL honestly
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Aug 30, 2021 20:58
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TheDiceMustRoll posted:The lawyers at Hasbro must seethe daily at the OGL honestly Is the 5e OGL any more restrictive than the Version 3 one? And also, unless I'm mistaken, I don't think Crawford uses an OGL-excused version at all; I looked through Wolves of God and the free edition of Stars Without Number and couldn't find a reference to OGL, Open Gaming, or Wizards of the Coast.
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Aug 30, 2021 21:24
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SkyeAuroline posted:The other problem is what happens when the app disappears. The internet can be forever for any given thing, but it's never guaranteed to be forever for any specific thing, and if you base your game design on something people have to download online to see basic mechanics, you run the obvious problem of your game not working when that resource is no longer available. Yeah I bought Night Witches from a random game shop on holiday and it was a pain in the rear end having to locate the support files so i could understand the book. Also, for example, https://www.ice-bound.com/ is a really neat book + ipad app AR game where you flip through the book and discover puzzle elements and stuff using the app .. oh wait, ios apps have to be updated every year or so or they stop working, so the AR element is completely gone now.
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Aug 30, 2021 21:38
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TheDiceMustRoll posted:The lawyers at Hasbro must seethe daily at the OGL honestly Third party OGL supplements get people to buy fuckloads of D&D rulebooks so I'm pretty sure they're okay with it
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Aug 30, 2021 22:03
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It also helped foster the current marketplace dominance by driving a generation of would-be rivals into unpaid collaboration.
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Aug 30, 2021 22:11
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xiw posted:Yeah I bought Night Witches from a random game shop on holiday and it was a pain in the rear end having to locate the support files so i could understand the book. Haha that was exactly my experience with Night Witches as well. Never occurred to me any game designer just wouldn't put the character sheets etc in the book.
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Aug 30, 2021 22:44
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TheDiceMustRoll posted:The lawyers at Hasbro must seethe daily at the OGL honestly They brought the OGL back for 5e after not using it for 4e, so they can’t be TOO mad.
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Aug 30, 2021 22:49
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xiw posted:Yeah I bought Night Witches from a random game shop on holiday and it was a pain in the rear end having to locate the support files so i could understand the book. HopperUK posted:Haha that was exactly my experience with Night Witches as well. Never occurred to me any game designer just wouldn't put the character sheets etc in the book. Yup, me three. I rather like Night Witches, for all its flaws, but it winds me up that not everything you need to play is in the book.
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Aug 31, 2021 00:00
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I feel like in the GW discussion there's a disconnect where some people are discussing the "is" (in the current legal climate, it's extremely risky to make and publish fanwork) and some people are discussing the "ought" (it is kind of lovely to have work one has poured effort into-- and which may bring one income to offset one's labor in creating that work-- be stricken from the internet suddenly because the rights holder feels like it). Someone can talk about how it's not a super wise plan to put all your eggs in the basket of fanwork without believing that it's cool for rights holders to then drop a brick on the basket. Someone can also think the brick-dropper's lovely while understanding that they are legally within their rights to hurl masonry into that particular basket.
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Aug 31, 2021 00:31
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There's really I think two or three distinct issues
What I would absolutely love to see, as a moderator, is people engaging with issues without instantly categorizing people who have a slightly different take as either "GW defenders" or "shrill angry nerds" or similar. The commentary about parasocial relationships is also fraught with accusation and defense from emotional, personal points of view, again from both people pointing it out and people defending their own patreon memberships etc. One thing I think is a positive is that the TTS guys want to continue to be creative, but with their own original IP. That's a good thing, although I suspect that the audience they'll attract while moving away from parodying the world's most popular tabletop wargame is an order of magnitude or two smaller. I wish them success in their future endeavors and I hope all the TTS fans will at least give their new projects a chance. We will not solve, on SA, the tensions between creative fandom and intellectual property rights. Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 01:32 on Aug 31, 2021 |
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Aug 31, 2021 01:30
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The problem being YouTube gives out strikes and bans channels at the drop of a hat at the command of any barely seeming copy-right owning authority. Here's an example - the person *paid* for the rights to play a piece of music for their video, but still got hit by an automated de-monitiser. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3GGuby-PR4 The ball is firmly in GW's court and they've thrown a tantrum and taken the ball home.
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Aug 31, 2021 02:12
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Leperflesh posted:What I would absolutely love to see, as a moderator, is people engaging with issues without instantly categorizing people who have a slightly different take as either "GW defenders" or "shrill angry nerds" or similar. There's an unfortunate tendency in internet communication (and probably real life, I wouldn't know) to forget about nuance, so a single opinion is immediately extrapolated to "my side" or "not my side" and it blows for productive and interesting discussion because anything vaguely critical of an argument becomes "the X defender has logged on!" instead of "Oh hey I didn't know/think about that, better revise my thinking." Probably partly because things in general have gotten so poo poo that literally everything feels like it's some form of symbolic good vs evil life or death struggle and/or the human brain just doesn't work well under stress. Anyway TG feels like one of the best places I've seen for actually having good discussions most of the time so I appreciate that a lot.
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Aug 31, 2021 02:14
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Leperflesh posted:The commentary about parasocial relationships is also fraught with accusation and defense from emotional, personal points of view, again from both people pointing it out and people defending their own patreon memberships etc. I think it's worth stressing that parasocial relationships are in a relatively new, unexplored territory. Services like Paetreon, Only Fans, and even Twitch and Kickstarter enable users to pay for the trappings of friendship: access, acknowledgement, gifts, etc. In TG circles, that most often looks like getting monthly game content. Rules or scenarios, miniatures STLs, or actionable hobby painting tips and advice. This isn't a new concept at all - the role of the "paid friend" had been filed by bartenders, barbers, and hairdressers for as long as those jobs existed. What IS new is 1) how that relationship is commodified 2) the extent of access, and 3) how covid drove our existing social rituals to more closely resemble parasocial ones, letting that line blur. Formalizing a fandom into subscribers and supporters strengthens the feeling of a team bond. When you back a creator, there's a feeling that you're helping to create the media. This, psychologically, is huge because now you're a little part of it. So when someone says that Critical Role sucks, that little bit of you hears them saying you suck. Access and engagement is more constant than ever. To use a previous example, you'd see your bartender whenever you went to the bar, but that parasocial relationship only existed there. Today it's possible to listen to near-constant content streams, engage with other fans in comments, interact directly on social media, read updates and podcasts, watch a backlog of video, etc. Imagine bringing the hairdresser on your commute, or having the barber tell you amusing stories throughout your work day. The closest previous analogue to that would be talk radio; I think that's widespread enough that everyone is acquainted with at least one person who bonded with a radio host. The Stern fans. The Limbaugh "Dittoheads." People who never miss "The View." COVID made everyone lonely. Quarantining meant that our loved ones had, by necessity, become pen pals. The line between "loved one" and "internet friend" vanished. The distinction between "internet friend" and "content producer" got thinner than ever before. I'm not saying it's unhealthy or unseemly to engage in parasocial relationships, and it wasn't my intent to come across as judgy. I support monthly 3d print STLs, a podcast, and a shameful number of kickstarters - I'm not opposed to this at all. My point was that that this unprecedented level of engagement can easily devour objectivity. Any conversation about Critical Role inevitably turns into like an argument as more passionate supporters weigh in. Games Workshop's expanded social presence has largely had the same effect on dedicated fans, as subreddits are becoming more like tribal identities. These are weird times. Technology is outpacing our understanding of it, and it's pushing other aspects of our lives in completely unforeseeable ways. The GW v TTS issue is hard to discuss here (or anywhere really) exactly because of the investment both parties have made in seeding a loyal, emotionally invested base of supporters.
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Aug 31, 2021 05:21
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moths posted:I think it's worth stressing that parasocial relationships are in a relatively new, unexplored territory. It's really not, the term was coined in 1956 about television performers. You can argue that the internet has intensified it, or that social media has, but parasocial bonds have been exploited for a very long time. Talk radio is a good analogue, but 'brand as identity' has been a thing for much longer, and in particular nerd culture has had this tendency for quite a while. And parallel to that, fan culture has also pulled towards a sense of ownership distinct from legal ownership: Fanfiction, fan conventions, etc. It's not really anything new, it's just that instead of subscribing to a magazine you can pay into a patreon.
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Aug 31, 2021 05:26
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I'd say that actually yes, today's brand engagement would be a thing of abject terror to those initially describing it in 1956. We're getting brand logos tattooed on ourselves, and immersed in near constant consumption-adjacent activities. More childhood nostalgia is associated with brands than experiences. This is the monkey's paw version of some 1950's Madison Avenue advertising executive's wildest fantasy.
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Aug 31, 2021 05:37
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Can we not use Hasbro as an example of a "chill" company? They used slave labor, for christ's sake...
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Aug 31, 2021 05:44
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I mean Star Wars and Star Trek. People have been arguing over Coke and Pepsi from when I was a child. People have always identified and picked sides and overly identified with Brands from like my earliest memories. Chevy vs Ford or whatever other car nonsense. They've always weaponized a feeling of being "in" when you tie yourself to a specific company or brand.
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Aug 31, 2021 05:47
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neaden posted:Didn't Astartes get basically bought out by GW? It is up for free on GWs site now. It's not really a cautionary tale. Yup. And there's an all-episodes compilation of Astartes with 1.2 million views still on YouTube. One thing a lot of people have missed about the TTS farewell video is that Alfabusa specifically cited the chilling effects on creativity that the renewed threat of legal action brought. He went into detail on how it felt to have his work under (more) immediate threat and how he didn't think he could continue with that hanging over his head. Yes, that threat was always there, despite the parody exception, but the new policy really brought that home. So a very talented creative and production team is going to pivot to licensed or original IP. In the long run, that's a win for the community. TTS' version of Magnus the Red will always be Canon to me.
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Aug 31, 2021 05:48
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LashLightning posted:The problem being YouTube gives out strikes and bans channels at the drop of a hat at the command of any barely seeming copy-right owning authority. It feels like a good half of the issue is YouTube's hilariously fuckin terrible monetization rules, not just GW.
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Aug 31, 2021 05:52
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Really the argument just started because moths couldn't resist calling them parasites.
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Aug 31, 2021 06:02
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Dexo posted:They've always weaponized a feeling of being "in" when you tie yourself to a specific company or brand. They have, but there has never been a time in history when it was this pervasive. For example, you can right now become friends with Coke through the same channels you'd normally interact with family.
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Aug 31, 2021 06:03
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I think what's new now is the injection of social media into the parasocial relationship, which amplifies and extends personal feedback and engagement. And that's a change in degree: You could call in to a talk radio host, and if the screener decided to let you, you might get to ask a question or engage in a very brief conversation, for example; but until the Internet, you couldn't directly engage with a few thousand of that talk radio host's fans, establish communities, etc. After the talk radio host's 3 hour set was done, it used to be you were done, time to do something else with your day; now, you can spend 24/7 talking with the fans of that host on reddit or wherever, engaged in fandom 24/7. So yeah, I'll buy that's a factor for sure. LashLightning posted:The ball is firmly in GW's court and they've thrown a tantrum and taken the ball home. GW has made announcements that they will more actively defend their intellectual property rights, and in those announcements, they've carefully not said anything about respecting fair use - exactly as basically every other company with significant IP acts, most likely because that's what their lawyers tell them to do. That's not a defense; this state of affairs sucks, and the platforms, as your video points out, are heavily favoring the side with the expensive lawyers vs. the basically helpless individual non-corporate content creators that generate the content that drives their billions in ad revenue. But it is an explanation, and it's one that goons who provide it are catching heat for, sometimes pretty viciously. The term "boolicker" has been floated recently (not in this thread). I personally am not surprised or even especially dismayed that the corporate officers of companies that trade on their IP usually listen to their corporate lawyers who tell them to aggressively defend that IP. This is a set of systemic problems driven by the money and power in place that doesn't want to allow people to exercise their fair use rights - and these systemic problems have existed for at least decades. I do not like Games Workshop, they burned me pretty bad with my tomb kings, I used to post a lot in the GW death threads, and I am feeling disheartened again by another set of fans of their products trying to navigate the nature of the beast, as countless fans of other corporate products must do - that corporations almost always act aggressively to defend the source of their revenues from threats real and perceived, as advised by their very highly paid counsel. I feel a lot of sympathy, for people who are upset at this latest example of corporate overreach. If GW is throwing a tantrum and taking its ball home, it is only doing what thousands of other biggish companies do daily to the people who aren't satisfied with "fandom" consisting solely of purchasing their products and then using them in the approved manner. At some point characterizing this as tantruming seems like ascribing human emotion to what is really more like the emotionless, semi-robotic reflexive action of Fun Police Golem, the scrap of parchment in its empty skull having been written by a committee of lawyers. There's no tantrum here, and the golem's job is to firmly grip the ball, which you may approach and gaze upon, between the hours of 10 and 5, four days per week excepting bank holidays. Yes, you may take a picture of the ball: that will be sixteen dollars. Terrible Opinions posted:Really the argument just started because moths couldn't resist calling them parasites. The argument has been running in various GW threads for weeks, and moths didn't start it and mostly isn't even a participant. Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 06:13 on Aug 31, 2021 |
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Aug 31, 2021 06:09
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I only participated because moths called ppl who (allegedly) dip into a teeny tiny bit of GW's profit margin "parasitic" and thought that was gently caress'd
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Aug 31, 2021 06:31
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Is there a better word for building a business model entirely on IP you don't own? Maybe "squatters" would have been less inflammatory, but it is (was) a parasitic relationship in the sense that it's unable to exist without the host entity.
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Aug 31, 2021 07:00
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moths posted:Is there a better word for building a business model entirely on IP you don't own? Fantrepreneur!
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Aug 31, 2021 07:15
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moths posted:Maybe "squatters" would have been less inflammatory I don't know if this is a regional thing but "squatters" is absolutely a derogatory term where I'm from
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Aug 31, 2021 07:22
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moths posted:Is there a better word for building a business model entirely on IP you don't own? Maybe "squatters" would have been less inflammatory, but it is (was) a parasitic relationship in the sense that it's unable to exist without the host entity.
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Aug 31, 2021 07:37
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MadScientistWorking posted:Didn't they shut down multiple knockoff companies recently or was that just random fans panicking about something that was wrong? They go after knockoffs (companies that jack Hasbro's sculpts and engineering) but they don't go after people making original toys with novel engineering illegally using Hasbro's character designs. It's a pretty bizarre situation because you end up with mobile game developers and comics artists using "third party" toys with paper town-style visual details as references in officially licensed art. DoctorWhat fucked around with this message at 07:45 on Aug 31, 2021 |
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Aug 31, 2021 07:41
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neaden posted:Didn't Astartes get basically bought out by GW? It is up for free on GWs site now. It's not really a cautionary tale. Something that I noticed is a lot of people on youtube who were fans of the original Astartes videos are unhappy with the GW official version because the original one-man designer used a lot of sound effects and music clips from various non-licensed sources which, of course, GW couldn't use themselves in an official work, so now there are bootleg versions of the original still floating around because you can't officially get that version anymore. e; to be clear it's kind of a weird situation in that by and large people are happy the guy got to become an Ascended Fan out of this off the back of his extremely solid work, but there's also disappointment in that the process of becoming official actually did have an effect on the work beyond the usual ephemeral "he sold out so now it sucks" arguments one might make. I don't really have an urge to shake a pitchfork at GW over this but I do think it's something to consider that even the best case outcome of something like this, the company embracing the fanwork, can result in it being changed in ways that are impossible to roll back. Kai Tave fucked around with this message at 08:15 on Aug 31, 2021 |
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Aug 31, 2021 08:09
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moths posted:Is there a better word for building a business model entirely on IP you don't own? Maybe "squatters" would have been less inflammatory, but it is (was) a parasitic relationship in the sense that it's unable to exist without the host entity. I would say it's at least symbiotic. TTS Warhammer and Critical Role give the IP they rely on the kind of advertising penetration that a marketing division would kill for.
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Aug 31, 2021 08:18
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the only conclusion i've drawn about monetized fan projects (or even non-monetized ones) is that clearly you should do it completely underground. stop trying to operate within the confines of a law that is absurd and hostile to you anyways and just embrace being bootleggers
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Aug 31, 2021 09:27
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Arivia posted:They brought the OGL back for 5e after not using it for 4e, so they can’t be TOO mad. Nearly everything in the 5e SRD is the 5e versions of stuff that was already in the 3e SRD, with a few exceptions (mainly warlocks and dragonborn). The SRD has only one subclass for each class, only one background, only one feat, etc. They're fine with people using the OGL to create new derivative works (most of which you didn't need the OGL to legally create and sell in the first place) but they're not going to allow a Pathfinder situation to come up where a third party can repackage and resell the entirety of the game.
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Aug 31, 2021 12:31
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moths posted:Is there a better word for building a business model entirely on IP you don't own? Maybe "squatters" would have been less inflammatory, but it is (was) a parasitic relationship in the sense that it's unable to exist without the host entity. I think your argument here is at the least incomplete. Lots of people have business models based on IP they don’t own. They include actors and many musicians such as in an orchestra. Are a theatre troupe that performs Shakespeare parasitic? They’re at…somewhat lesser risk of being enjoined from their use of the work, but I think that “ownership of the underlying IP” isn’t the bright-line determinant of the legitimacy of a pursuit that you seem to be arguing for. It isn’t necessarily a parasitic relationship because one requires the other. It could also be symbiotic, and indeed GW depends on its fans and their expressions of support and participation for at least some of its success.
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Aug 31, 2021 13:04
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squatters is a term used almost exclusively in derogatory manner by people who are definitionally parasites society would be better without, landlords.
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Aug 31, 2021 13:57
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Subjunctive posted:I think your argument here is at the least incomplete. I'm not making an argument, does it look like I am? I wonder if people are confusing legal and business discussion for ethical judgment. A Shakespeare troupe is explicitly using public domain works - in the way a troupe staging an unlicensed "Robocop in the Park" wouldn't be. In that case, the Robocop troupe would be parasitic. They're leaning on the Robocop franchise for its premade audience - fans would check it out because it's not some weird original play. I think it would be awesome to watch, but it's still wholly dependent on art they don't have a legal right to perform. Acknowledging a thing's complications isn't a moral judgment. At least two people have posted that they got surly over my word choice, and I would argue that's a direct result of how branding works today. Anything percieved as negative about a thing online prompts its supporters to react like you're badmouthing a close friend. Hell look at the chat thread title.
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Aug 31, 2021 14:29
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