…according to White Wolf.
White Wolf, via their “Ohmygosh-aren’t-we-cutting-edge-indie-street-cred” imprint Arthaus, is releasing Pimp: The Backhanding a “humorous” card game all about the illegal sex trade, degredation and abuse of women, and racial stereotypes. They pass this shit off with a mealy-mouthed disclaimer about how this is just all in fun and that WW takes the REAL issues very seriously–look, we’ve even got a link to Amnesty International!
…and, of course, they’ve got the lovely tag-line: “If You Like Being Politically Correct & Never Laughing, Don’t Buy This Game.”
I’ll type this slowly for you, WW:
F…… U…… C…… K …… Y …… O …… U.
Not funny. Not even a little bit.
This has appeared on a few friend’s LJs already, but I’m putting in my two cents because I know that I’ve got a few readers here.
As I said in the comments on a friend’s journal, I have always found something in at least one White Wolf product per year, which reminds me that they are, at their core, a bunch of crackers from Georgia. Everything that I despised about living in Atlanta in one over-hyped package.
Bluntly, I’m ashamed to have ever done work for them.
LATER THAT DAY EDIT: Writing WW’s public relations folks does no good–Conrad Hubbard is notoriously a class-A fucktard, as can be seen in his jaw-dropping reply emails which have been posted here: (Click the link).
If you want to fill the mailbox of someone who actually has decision-making authority, contact Steve Wieck, one of the owners. His email is stevew@white-wolf.com
Yes, that’s his real email.
No, I don’t give a shit that I just publicized it.
You’re not the only person I know with less-than-warm feelings about White Wolf…
grrrrr. If you’re uptight and humorless, I’m a femi-nazi.
That sort of humor is *never* alright and the sort of stuff I’ve tried to fight all my life.
But please don’t also go the other way and condemn all things ‘southern’ because of a some red-necked assholes with their own marketing. I’ve gotten to know some Southern folk better lately (Bruce being one of them, although from Louisiana rather than Georgia) and have to remind that there’s another stereotype there that needs fighting too, regardless of those who work really hard to reinforce it.
Anything I can do to assist in put a pin in their happy little bigotted balloon, though, I’ll be happy to!
…oh don’t get me wrong—I’m not condemning ALL things ‘southern’. I very specifically called out “crackers FROM Georgia” for a reason. I’m aware that not all folks there are….but my time in Atlanta introduced me to a depressingly large number that were, which is one of the reasons why I left there after 2 years.
It’s the same thing as when I bitch about “Goombas from Jersey.” A very specific class.
Hrm. Now I’m almost glad I decided against moving to Atlanta…
Yep, I’m unfortunately acquainted with both (my Dad hails from Atlantic City!) so you have my sympathies.
*sigh* And they seem to be the sort that breeds the most readily.
This just in: over on a certain gaming forum, a certain Mr. Achilli assured all and sundry that the game is “absurdly farcical”.
So I guess everything’s OK now, right?
(Other than the utter obnoxiousness of the ad copy, the fact that there’s a load of difference between mocking something vicariously and assuming the role of a pimp, ad nauseam.)
I have been specifically avoiding reading game fora, for I know myself too well. Hell, it’s been hard enough to read some of the comments on‘s LJ entry about this without going fucking nuclear.
There are just so many iterations of the “lighten up, and besides, lots of games are about unpleasant things like killing orcs, etc.” argument you can hear before you hoist the black flag and start cutting throats.
Yeah, I’ve seen some of that. But even on the T-place, I’ve been surprised at the number of folks who’ve said, “Yeah, OK, it’s just a game, but the ad copy is just beyond the pale.”
I look in on Elissa’s comments every once in a while just because I can see the hornets starting to swarm. The entertainment value is worth it.
You know, even with what I choose to portray annually in my life, this is unequivocably moronic, tasteless and utterly offensive.
But then, I don’t think GTA is a good idea either.
Never have owned or played a White Wolf product. Always thought Vampire and the like only existed to promote the worst in gaming behavior and social interaction.
Won’t ever bother to in the future either.
D.
Game designers?
Does anyone know who designed the game? My cursory glance at its page didn’t find anything.
Not my cup of tea…
For whatever it’s worth, here’s my two cents.
The only game line I follow from White Wolf is Exalted because I like the depth and design of the setting. Generally speaking, the World of Darkness and I parted company a long time ago, and the recent reboot of the WoD does not interest me at all.
Would I play “Pimp: The Backhanding”? No. Do I think that they should not print it? No. Invariably they’ll have a market for it, particularly among the “Grand Theft Auto” audience that is they’re bread and butter. White Wolf is like the kid who never went to college and is still getting a rise out of dick and fart jokes and hanging around with high schoolers trying to sell them weed. There have been other tasteless gaming products before. This is not new. At least the art in XXXenophile was Foglio and the photos in Lunch Money and Beer Money made it funny.
I don’t think they should be hindered from making it because it really says a lot about who they are as a company and where they’re heading. It’s a tasteless parody.
Mike Tinney says his peace about criticisms of the game here.
Re: Not my cup of tea…
Tinney is more of a fucking whore than the ones illustrated in the game.
Re: Not my cup of tea…
Has anyone tried to throw the ‘omg you made a game about PIRATES and they killed and raped people omg’ line at you yet?
Re: Not my cup of tea…
Yup, I’d have to agree with you on that one.
i am never buying another white wolf product again.
Re: Not my cup of tea…
Nope–most of the asshats that I’ve been arguing with aren’t well-informed enough to know what I’ve worked on.
Good thing, too. A line like that would be enough to send me up a tower with a rifle. :)
Oh…and I saw from one of your LJ comments pages that you are acquainted with! Small world!
Re: Not my cup of tea…
Acquainted? She’s making my fiancee’s wedding dress, and she turns up as a goddess in the first volume of the Drow War trilogy I’m writing. Yes, we’re acquainted. :)
Re: Not my cup of tea…
That’s great! I’ve known her for….god…14 years (!!!) now. Since college.
She’s one of my fiancee’s best friends.
I am a southerner and I know exactly what you mean about Atlanta. I know you were not slamming the south, but just the acceptance of their staus quo. I went there on business. I was taken aside actually told that people don’t talk to the cab drivers here (they were black), because I talked to the cab guy. I horrified them every time I talked to someone who was not my race and station. What was worse was that many of the black people that I talked to acted uncomfortable that I was talking to them too. They acted like they wished I would stop. I felt creeped out and couldn’t wait to leave. Though many people say that Houston is not the south. It made me believe it.
I emailed Amnisty International and turned them in.
Re: Not my cup of tea…
Read the link. I will paraphrase for the easily enraged:
1) It wasn’t me, I just drove the gettaway car! Honest!
2) Hitting people in the crotch is funny. All adults like people being hit in the crotch with things. Don’t you watch the Simpsons? Homer Simpson likes to watch people being hit in the crotch. We just think that these people need a game of their own.
3) Hey baby, just relax and enjoy it, you know you want it. Don’t let your pretty little head get upset. Hey we can even call our people the same thing Disney does so you know we don’t mean it. I mean everyone else is doing it.
4) Hey baby I have bills to pay. Pony up bitch, but I still love you.
5) Okay, so you don’t want to look at it, it comes in brown wrappers and we are selling it under trench coats on street corners. No one has to know.
6) You think you are being marginalized, think about all the poor white virgin boys, who still live with their parents, and jerk off to Aryan Nation recruitment tapes. Don’t they deserve a game too? I mean it is not like “Fatal” saw real print or anything. BTW, my other girlfriend is one of those freako feminatzis like you and she just laid back and enjoyed it. I would let her be on top but well…if she did that I couldn’t put my beer on her forhead and stuff. I think I am going to start calling that gay guy in accounts payable HO too, so we can spread the love.
Re: Not my cup of tea…
I would just like to take this opportunity to publicly state my undying love for you. :-D
Fucking hell you people are lame. First of all, you can’t take a joke. If that wasn’t bad enough, you think that everyone else in the world should have no sense of humor either.
White Wolf won’t give a flying fuck about your shitball opinion, because it doesn’t matter. You can complain to the break of dawn, or whatever, and they’ll still release this game. They’ll probably sell more because you fucks were fucking stupid enough to bitch about it ad nausium in all your fucking livejournals.
Your opinion DOESN’T MATTER. It won’t stop a company releasing a game that you’re too uptight to appreciate. Sure, don’t buy anything from White Wolf again, I’m sure they’ll give a shit when they’re pulling in wads of big fat pimping cash from the new game they have out.
You know what, fucks like you bitching about this have made me put down the cash to purchase a whole fucking box of these cards. On stage I’m going to pull out these cards, and tell everyone to buy it. I bet that I have more of an impact on their sales than any of you homeless wanabee fucks will ever have, because you’re total losers.
Shut up, fags.
Oh, look. It’s one of Moo Cows asshat squad.
Go away, Sparky, the grownups are talking.
Oh, look. It’s one of skarka’s sanctimonious prick squad.
Go away, bretz, those of us with backbone are talking.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again.
Yawn.
Re: Not my cup of tea…
Although it looks like FATAL is available as a PDF through their website.
Again, not my kinda thing.
Crazy Elf?!? One of Moo’s “squad”?
No. No. And hell no.
Just an FYI, the reason so many of “Moo’s Squad” are showing up is because we all, including Elissa, belong to a message board and we all friended each other. So that means we also read what each others friends are writing.
I don’t want Moo getting credit for being the ringmaster…
Re: Not my cup of tea…
Yeah, but that is not supposed to be an “industry leader”
Amen.
Fair enough. I went by his LJ info, and saw he had Moo Cow on his friends list. If it’s a false assumption, my bad.
Boy, you are doing what we call in Texas, “Taken’ a knife to a gunfight”
See what you fail to understand is their cash cow audience, Vampire players, do care about this shit. There are a lot of women Vampire players.
We will let you know when they publish Aryan: the Hating so you can buy that too. Then you can combine them and kill the negros.
And btw…proud to be a fag mother fucker!
Re: Not my cup of tea…
I’m with you. Hopefully it will remain in obscurity.
Hey, you pick on him and you pick on me motherfucker, and I am the one you gotta worry about. So go jerk off somewhere else sparky, before I rip your fucking head off and menstral bleed down your former throat.
Re: Not my cup of tea…
Well, this is a two edge sword, we are giving them free publicity, but I can’t just let this stand.
See there’s this thing that happens, when females actually have a sense of humor. Maybe you wouldn’t understand this, but many I associate with do. Actually, when telling jokes, I’ve actually seen some females *gasp* laugh.
No really.
So if you don’t like it, fuck off. CCGs open up a far larger cash cow than stupid fucking Vampire: The Complaining. Shut up, you goth girl piece of shit wannabe.
So everyone who has me on their friends list is part of my “asshat” squad? Fascinating argument.
Of course, because you know where we all live. (Yea! Spelled right this time.)
MmMm… menstrual blood. Quite good with candied ginger, especially when the menstrual is chunky.
Go piss in someone else’s pool, Junior. K? Thanks.
Quick question, Junior: If our opinions DON’T MATTER (as you so L33t-ly capitalized it), then why are you and your fellow twats so up in arms about it as to come frothing into our journals, flinging poop and gibbering like the little assmonkeys you are?
Seems to me you’re all getting awful worked up about something that DOESN’T MATTER…..
Junior? Obviously you have no fucking idea who I am. Actually, you just have no idea, period.
The mistake you’re making is in assuming that I give a shit WHO you are. You came to MY journal, remember?
…and you’re not welcome back. Any further posts by you will be deleted and reported to Livejournal.com as harrassment. I’ve gotten other people bounced before….and I wouldn’t break a sweat doing it here.
Re: Not my cup of tea…
ARGH. We “knee-jerkers” are doing WW’s imaginative contributors a disservice by no longer wanting to buy WW products. No. WW is doing its contributors a disservice by making their names even peripherally associated with this SHIT.
I will haul out my Keeper and make you do clot shots. Fucker.
My girflriend is not goth, you sockfucking mouthbreather.
Of course, because you’ve never gone frothing into someone else’s journal. That’s certainly never happened. Nope.
Oh wait, it has.
Honestly, if this game had even had genuine whores as consultants, it might have had some merit. But it’s a lame attempt at a joke made by people who have no fucking experience of what they’re trying to satirise – which is why they’re saying they are sending up the ‘media stereotype’ and not the real sex industry.
It’s middle class white boys’ rap, is what it is. It’s crackers from Georgia trying to be Chris Rock. It’s Vanilla fucking Ice all over again.
Do we get decoder rings and have a secret handshake?