The Introduction
Hi everyone, it is now with great sadness that I have to address the issue of "The Table Top Engineer's I've Been Banned" video full on with this news article. It is unfortunate that the article will be damaging for myself, but boost the video, but after e-mails of threats, hatred, and abuse, and reading the majority of comments made on his video, I now need a point of reference to send people, to read the other-side of this fiasco; especially when it has resulted in me being threatened. One thing I had never reckoned on when starting out, was being put in this position, and needing to explain myself and defend myself over the things I create, and it certainly wasn't something I would have ever signed up for. The treatment I have received over this video has been quite appalling, despicable, and distressing, and something I hope is never repeated.
In A Nutshell
In a nutshell, this article is about a YouTube creator and businessman, who steals intellectual property by making a product for D100 Space so heavily based and copied on one offered by me the publisher, makes a video in which he advertises his version of the product, includes chapter links and links to where it can be bought from his store, charges more for his version than the publisher's version, posts a video link on the game's founding Facebook group (D100 Dungeon), gets banned, contacts me, I offer to reverse the ban and promote his videos of my games on his behalf, but for now he won't be able to self promote on the D100 Dungeon/space FB groups, he declines and wants to post whatever he likes, and then makes a video of how he has been wronged and is being punished.
Planning To Destroy MK GAMES?
Apparently for some people following Jim's video, I am worthy of all the disgraceful comments and some even felt it necessary to email me direct to tell me what a despicable person I am to ban someone, or decided to contact me to make direct threats towards me. Below (The Letter That Never Was) was going to be my reply to another email I was about to send, but I decided to relent and publish my side of things instead. Please read through what I have to say before making any judgement, but if you still feel I am or have been unreasonable, then please don't buy my games, don't support me, I really don't mind, but don't try and destroy me, and spread hate towards me or my games. There are many other players and supporters who either don't care, can see both sides, or just want to play games and have fun. I know that's why I do this.
The Letter That Never Was
There are always two sides to everything. I made a statement regarding Jim's video and what occurred regarding the ban which you may have seen, if not, then it is below. It was first posted on the D100 Dungeon Facebook group, and then updated and posted in response to a post on the BaseDnD Memes and TTRPG Shenanigans (Fantasy BASED in Reality) Facebook group. Someone who saw it, has since posted it as a comment on Jim's video, and I decided to add the edited section to that comment, nothing more.
I would also like to clarify a few parts in Jim's video in case they have been misinterpreted. The product Jim was asked to return was not from us. Jim was talking about another problem he had from another publisher. The other issue that Jim brought up regarding “Bring more than you take” This was part of a Facebook rule which actually reads: no promotions or spam, give more to this group than you take, self-promotion, spam and irrelevant links aren’t allowed . I added the rule to the email I sent to Jim via copy and paste and did not once make this a focal of any communications with him. In a second reply; I made it clear the section "give more to this group than you take" was in no way a reference to him. So other than a tactic to discredit there was no reason for him to pursue this line in his video.
I would also like to add, to my knowledge James Floyd Kelly is a businessman, and an entrepreneur, and has several profiteering outlets: YouTube, a shop on Etsy, books on amazon etc. Non of which I have a problem with. However, in the video, he portrays his efforts are for the love of the gaming community, for you guys who want to play and learn the games and to help publishers. However, helping is not making a video to attract so much hate, bullying, and threats over a game. This behavior does nothing more than boost minutes watched and his channels ratings. I have therefore remained silent and to date have only responded to direct communication made to me, as there is only one winner in all this and that is Jim, the person who chose to make an version and copy of a game's official accessory product, promote it by advertising it via a video and sharing that video on the official game's Facebook group, and then sell it online in his company's shop. Then make a video to complain over being banned, that I feel was to directly damage the very company he was ripping off.
You will see in the statement below, I offered to reverse the ban, and give the videos he makes for my games a spot on the MK GAMES news page, which would share links on his behalf via multiple social media platforms; he declined the offer to be unbanned, because he didn't want to follow the group's Facebook rules of self promotions. Our reasoning to promote videos in this way, is to give us time to preview the videos before they are shared to our official social media sites; just in case anything like what has just happened happens.
I am not a huge money making enterprise, and MK GAMES is not creating vast wealth. It turns over a modest living wage for one, that if I am honest to myself, is paying vastly less than minimum wage, based on all the time I plough into my games. The D100 Space tracker that Jim so eloquently made point of its faults (in the video where he advertised his replacement) has sold just 119 units to date. Just one businessman making just one of my products, is damaging enough to MK GAMES. However, if this one example leads to other businessmen, businesswomen, entrepreneurs, or companies joining in and making the products I make and design, well then that is the end of MK GAMES. The action taken was not just in reflection to Jim, but if nothing was done, it could promote a welcoming environment for others to feel like they can join in and make and replace all of my products. This would mean it would be impossible for me to continue. MK Games is not a Games Workshop, or Hasbro. Third-Party products that replace and compete with my product line does damage me. Just one is enough to encourage a spiral of like-minded entrepreneurs into thinking its okay because Jim does it.
Also, like Jim, I too don't feel I am deserving of the treatment I have received. I have been abused, attacked, disrespected, threatened, and painted as the bad guy in all this. I have suffered countless accusation of wrongdoing, so many vile comments, so much hatred and trouble, so much attention seeking and tantrums, so much disrespect and bullying over someone doing the wrong thing and being banned by a Facebook group. It is the stuff of playgrounds.
I now feel like I have done everything I could to diffuse the outrage that Jim felt and his hurt feelings over being banned. I won't apologies over it, I admitted it was a tad hasty to ban him and that we could have handled it better with a warning and explanation. However, in my opinion Jim is no fool, he's been around, in life and in business, he would know to make something with someone else's intellectual property and sell it in his store without a license agreement, or a quick chat and approval would create a problem; let alone go and advertise it in their backyard. As a comparison: no one needs to be a genius to understand if you go in a Starbucks, and sell Costa coffee, they will not be okay with this. In addition they won't give you free reign to post anything you like on the their Facebook group either.
All said, it was still saddening and distressful to see Jim's video, and I had hoped to be able to patch things up and work with him in the future, but he can’t dictate how we work together. It has to be a mutual understanding. Now with the time that has passed and the hatred he has created for me; plus the fact the video is still up there, that ship has now sailed.
I will leave you with this: It's funny, because one of the rules on the Tabletop Engineers Facebook group reads "No hate speech or bullying: Make sure everyone feels safe. Bullying of any kind isn't allowed, and degrading comments about things like race, religion, culture, sexual orientation, gender or identity will not be tolerated." Jim's video however, has brought about both HATE and BULLYING.
The Original Statement Including My Edit
I didn’t really want to get involved in all the fallout of the issue created by the videos that Jim posted and his reaction video. It has all been blown completely out of proportion. I think Jim is a sound guy and I love his videos, I told him so in the two messages I sent to him over the ban. I even offered him a spot on the news page on the mkgames website to promote his videos of our games and a reverse on the ban. Unfortunately he chose not to accept the offers if it meant he had to follow the 5 d100 dungeon Facebook group rules. We are such a small publisher in the world of gaming, we welcome help from creators to make our games stand out in the gaming world and Jim was and could still be a huge help to do this. However, we can’t be caught in a situation where we allow one creator to break group rules, but not another, if we do, it opens up issues of discrimination and reasons as to why they can do it but we can’t. The d100 Facebook rules were created to help set a level playing field, for everyone in the group and we can’t give anyone special treatment over anyone else. This would be wrong on so many levels. Jim never reached out to us to promote the videos, we would have jump at the chance to feature them and aided the promotion with news features over multiple social media sites; members of the group for sometime will know we do this for so many creators as we are so grateful for them to be featuring our products. However, Jim began making random posts with direct links to video content that for all we knew could be selling our intellectual property, contain inappropriate, or detrimental material that would not be acceptable. We started monitoring Jim’s videos as best we could, with the time we had and concluded Jim’s videos are good and decided he isn’t going to do anything untoward. However, we got reports from some members that Jim was breaking the group rules, this was just prior to the last video he posted, where he was advertising a product he makes and was selling on Etsy; a tracker board for d100 space. This then became a major issue for us, as we now have a product for sale that is in direct competition with one of our products that had not been approved, and no contact to ask about intellectual property, or even just a quick chat to see if it was okay and again this video post was reported. I made the decision to ban. In retrospect, perhaps this was hasty, perhaps as Jim suggested, I should have made contact first and discussed it. It could have saved me writing this lengthy statement. However, a lesson is now learnt. Jim didn’t give us that courtesy and decided it was appropriate to advertise and sell his product through the official games Facebook group. I was allowed two emails and replys to Jim to patch things up, before being told to not bother replying back. He made it clear he wanted to have full control of the posts he made, but didn’t want to be constrained by the groups rules. On these terms we just couldn’t accept his conditions. We can’t give out special privileges like this. It may work in other groups, but it’s simply double standard and not fair to the other groups members. My offer still stands to Jim, despite his actions, the video he made was unprofessional on so many levels. He is always welcome back in the group, providing he follows the rules like the rest of us do and I am still willing to promote his videos via the news page on the mk games website and multiple socials media platforms, including FB. The decision is now up to him.
Edit: I would also like to mention that in Jim’s video, he made a huge point about: give more than you take. I discussed this in my email response with Jim. In the email, I copied and pasted the rule from the FB group that had been reported to me as a broken rule and I made this clear and assured Jim that the “give more than you take” part was in no way a reflection on Jim. The FB rule actually reads: “No promotions or spam, give more to this group than you take, self-promotion, spam and irrelevant links aren’t allowed.” The self-promotion part was the issue - selling a product on Etsy using the official game’s FB group as advertising. The rules are generalised, as are most FB group’s rules, and in most cases only parts may apply.
Comments