There is no actual evidence of Jeremy directing people to harass anyone from what I have seen, people are using the old, well you know what he meant, which is insane.
"Hey guys, thanks for joing in with me, it was a blast! I even got banned, let's do it again some time! Also, this person over here is a sex predator who is literally destroying the game! You didn't forget about her right? Anywho, it was great that you guys helped me troll people!"
Sure, insane.
Jeremy styles himself as some one who is willing to stand up against a percieved political agenda of wizards of the coast, its official forums, affliates like Channel Fireball and a lot of creators and high level players.
He styles himself a persecuted ass because he was slighted two years ago, and rather than accept that people don't want anything to do with an ass and change his ways, he decided it was the rest of the world that is at fault. If you are an ********, and nobody wants to hang around you, it's because your an ******** and not because you are being persecuted.
And I have not seen any evidence against his point, I can not think of one time in recent memory that Wizards of the Coast, SCG/Channel Fireball, or pros behaved in away that would be contrary to that point.
Its not even an accusation its the truth, Wizards of the Coast is political entity, its seeks to quash conservative voices, and it banned Jeremy for political reasons.
Show me one unequivocal case of this happening where the person didn't engage in general assery. I want you to find me one person, somewhere, who was banned because they simply voiced their political beliefs.
Jeremy's problem is that he didn't simply voice his political beliefs. He attacked others, by name, for disagreeing him, insulted people on multiple occasions (And yes, calling people Cucks, ****s, thots, etc. is insulting them), and was a general ass. He is being banned because he is an unrepetent ass who shows no intention of not continuing to insult people. Wizards has a pretty damn clear policy on this matter.
It wasn't political, and it's really not hard to understand. Jeremy was publicly objectively mean to a bunch of people, made WotC's brand/playerbase look bad, and caused a PR *****storm, so they banned him.
If that was true there would be a lot of lifetime bans.
As far as PR nightmare, how exactly, this never made it to any legitimate news source.
Jeremies accusation is that this is leftist wanting to push their agenda and silence critics, give me an example that proves him wrong.
Even if that were true, that is WotC's perogative to push said agenda. Arguing they have no right to do so is the exact same sort of quasi-authoritarianism you yoursel argue is happening.
That said, he acted like an ass. He is entitled to his opinions. He is entitled to be critical. He is entitled to voice said opinions. These are not problems. What is a problem is how he chose to do it. He has a history of encourages his userbase to target people for harassment. He lauded them when he got banned from communities or blocked by individuals because of their brigading. He went on a rant insulting Christine specifically. That is the damn problem. You are allowed your opinion. You are not allowed to insult people for the lulz, nor are you allowed to direct your fanbase at them for harassment.
THere are two ways you can go about Wizard's liberal stances if you disagree with them: You can act like an adult, and talk it out like an adult, and voice your displeasure with it like an adult, and nothing will happen to you. Or you can be Jeremy, insult and deride people constantly, encourage your followers to harass people contstantly, and then things happen to you. The choice is yours, and don't come crying to me if you choose to go Jeremy's route. I don't give a damn if you get your toys taken away because you spit on the other children. Go screw off. You brought it on yourself, act like a damn adult for once in your life.
Rudy is often very critical of WotC's direction. He is animated about it. He is occasionally critical of the fan base of the game. He doesn't hide it. Nobody, at all, has an issue with Rudy. Why? Because he's not an ass about it.
John Stuart Mill argued that the chief threat to free speech in democracies was not the state, but the “social tyranny” of one’s fellow citizens. And yet today, the civil libertarians who style themselves as Mill’s inheritors have for the most part failed to refute, or even address, the arguments about free speech and equality that their opponents are making.
Wizards of the Coast, as an enterprise, is under no obligation to associate with any for whatever reason. Hell, this has always been the case. The "social mob" has always decided what is a correct form of acceptable speech in any society, of any group, of any ideaology, everywhere. Up to, and including, Jeremy's group which ridicules, derides, and embraces these same tactics to silence political dissidents and opponents.
The seeming paradox of supporting one's freedom of speech while arguing for consequences of speech is not, in truth, any form of paradox at all. It is a crutch argued by those who lack any form of nuanced understanding of the world, and often a deliberate oversimplification of how society works.
You are allowed to speak your beliefs. Wizards is not banning Jeremy for the content of his opinions, at all. Such a notion is childishly simplistic, and a misrepresentation and mischaracterization of the events. They are banning him for how he chooses to exercise said speech. You can voice your opinions, and you can do so in an animated manner. The second you decide to target an individual and engage in harassing behavior, however, you have crossed a line. He crossed that line many times by making Christine the focus of his troll mobs. He chooses to abuse the rights afforded to him, because he can. That is his choice. Nobody is going to stop him from doing that. The rest of world does not look kindly on this, and the rest of the world is free to disassociate themselves from him.
Further, forcing WotC, as a free entity, to associate with Jeremy is the entire antithesis of Freedom of Speech. They are allowed their opinions as well, and they are allowed to associate with whom they want, when they want. To even attempt to argue otherwise is to give up the entire game of supporting Free Speech in favor of the very authoritarianism you claim to be against.
The fact of the damn matter is he decided to weaponize his followers, who sent death threats and rape threats to Christine. He, on many instances before and after this event, called her effectively a prostitute and sexual predator, and afterwards doubled down by calling her a **** and thot. Insulting people, believe it or not, is against the CoC. Act like a damn adult, or you are gone. If he wanted to voice concern about sexualization and cosplay, he could have easily done so without insulting or harassing Christine. He decided a different route. It's that damn simple.
There are social consequences for saying and doing stupid, insulting things to people. His freedom of speech is not being infringed, either in actuality or in spirit. He is having his privileges taken away for his actions. You are not entitled to privileges, and WotC should not be forced to give him said privileges against their will. To argue otherwise is to at best be a child throwing a tantrum, and at worst be willfully obtuse and argue for the infringement of other's rights for your own privileges.
Gravely incorrect. False accusations must be swiftly cut down, or they encourage more grandstanding and accusations. Apologize for what?
First, let's be clear: there are no false accusations here. I can pick a random video from basically any of his accounts and see him insulting or otherwise belittling others. The degree might be up for debate, but nobody can say with a straight face that Jeremy does not habitually call-out and otherwise mock basically everyone. Saying they are false accusations is downright deceptive.
Second, obviously he should have apologized when he realized what a *****-storm he'd caused, i.e. when he learned that Christine had singled him out as the primary cause of her leaving. Regardless of his personal feelings about the degree of his "memeing", as he likes to call it, he should have recognized that his actions offended her in some unintended (at least, I pray it was unintended but I seriously doubt it) way and reached out to sincerely apologize to her. To ask her what, exactly, was the problem. To ask what he could do to fix it, if possible. To, generally speaking, act like an adult. Instead he acted like a petulant child, threw a temper-tantrum, and now continues to refuse to acknowledge any blame on his part while casting himself as the victim of a witch hunt. Some of us might recognize that as the exact opposite of the thing he should have done.
I certainly don't condone the harassment he's received (almost entirely as a result of his own actions, I might point out), but I have to admit the amount of irony at work here is just absolutely delicious to me. I just hope the irony isn't lost of Jeremy, and that he grows as a person because of this ordeal, but judging from his earlier reactions I'd say that's not terribly likely.
Wait his crime is being offensive now?
In the real world of being an adult there are repercussions for being intentionally offensive amd harassing people. Calling it a crime is misleading and missing the point. If he wants to spit on the other kids at school, he gets detention and recess taken away. He also has no right to bemoan other people calling him out for it.
That said, he can, shockingly I know, ne two things at the same tike. And, shockingly, people can criticize him for one thing witjout it being changing the goal posts. It is called "depth" amd "nuance".
If I recall, MaRo a year-or-two ago was experimenting with ABU dual lands that were legendary and snow on his blogatog. Trying to circumvent the RL with cards that were just unique enough to be printed.
He has been pretty vocal that both Snow duals amd Legendary Duals break the apirit of the Reserved list, evem if they technically do not break the list itaelf.
The good thing about legal, contractual obligations is that you only have to follow the letter.
While somewhat true, the context he spome ofnit in is that they have no intention of breaking even the apirit of the RL by printing technically different cards.
Equally, the concept that Wizards has some legal obligation to abide by the RL due to promisary estoppal laws amd some form of contractural obligation is spurious, at best.
The honest reason why they have no intention of breaking the RL any time soon is because Legacy is bad for lomg term business. Legacy players are one and done customers. If they encpurage to many people to join the format, they will nuke their customer base. Which is good for nobody long term.
The honest to god truth is that they would stand to gain far less than they lose by breaking the RL, simply from market factors.
If I recall, MaRo a year-or-two ago was experimenting with ABU dual lands that were legendary and snow on his blogatog. Trying to circumvent the RL with cards that were just unique enough to be printed.
He has been pretty vocal that both Snow duals amd Legendary Duals break the apirit of the Reserved list, evem if they technically do not break the list itaelf.
For anyone interested Jeremy's going to be on a livecast tomorrow called tommyc'ssftp on youtube 3pm est. The show takes callers so I'm hoping it will be interesting.
I think he's his own worst enemy personally. I'm pretty good at seeing both sides of the story no matter if I agree with them or not, but Jeremy approaches things to try to get a reaction. It's less about his message and more about his approach.
He is actively trying to make himself a martyr to spring-board himself into being a well-known personality the likes of Sargon or whatnot. There is a reason he was practically begging people to interview him last week about this.
Not really. While I do not condone people doing the same to Jeremy, the people he has targetted in the past (including Christine) faced pretty much the same thing. Christine herself received death threats in no small part because Jeremy went on several tirades about how she is ruining the game.
Do you have evidence of these tirades? Or should I just listen and believe?
Don't be obtuse.
It is pretty damn obvious what he was doing when he rants about SJWs killing the game by involving identity politics in the game, and then uses Christine as an example in said rants. He equally rants about how she is preying on young boys with her sexuality (Which she didn't), effectively calling her a sexual predator for it; he also rants about how Wizards wastes times with cosplayers to the detriment of the *real* problems with the game, using Christine almost every damn time as a direct example. Hell, he even directly drug Christine into his anti-SJW rant about Spike being female, and how Wizards is ruining the game with it, for no damn reason as Christine didn't involve herself in the gender politics discussion at all.
On top of this, he actively encourages and praises his fan base to troll people he disagrees with, and has lauded them in the past for getting him banned or blocked by various users by joining his brigades.
What do you think the end result would be when someone specifically calls out a person by name in his rants about what the "real" problems with the game are and why the game sucks, and has praised his fanbase for being miserable trolls on his behalf in the past? Any even remotely intellectually honest person knows full well what he was doing and anticipating for an end result. I have grown wary of this nonsensical denialism.
He decided to weaponize his fan base by getting them riled up and pointing them at his personal and political rivals by whipping them into a frenzy and encouraging them to be trolls. I have zero sympathy, at all, when the same happens to him. I don't condone the behavior, but I certainly won't (and do not) feel bad for him.
He also gets the harsher treatment over others, as he is the instigator in this whole mess. Others should be dealt with, but if you start a fight then you get the larger punishment.
The response to and reaction against Jeremy has been worse than anything Jeremy himself did. That's all I have to really say about the matter.
Not really. While I do not condone people doing the same to Jeremy, the people he has targetted in the past (including Christine) faced pretty much the same thing. Christine herself received death threats in no small part because Jeremy went on several tirades about how she is ruining the game.
I really have no sympathy for the man, at all. You reap what you sow. He pulled crap like this on other people, and now he complains its happening to him. I do not have a single tear worth shedding for him amd his self imposed victim complex problems.
Gravely incorrect. False accusations must be swiftly cut down, or they encourage more grandstanding and accusations. Apologize for what? Offending a girl 6 months later? Now who is infantalizing women?
It was not a false accusation. At worst it was an exaggeration. He did, in fact, engage in harassing behavior. Insulting people publicly, believe it or not, is harassment particularly when you are acting as a public figure, which is was to his followers. It doesn't have to be illegal forms of harassment to be harassment. WotC CoC doesn't stipulate it has to be illegal forms of harassment for it to break their CoC. This isn't new, it isn't about being PC or on an SJW crusade; this is not rewarding grown adults who don't want to play well with others. If he doesn't want the consequences of being treated like an ass, he shouldn't act like an ass and child who spits on the other kids. If he wants all the freedom of acting like an ass, he has no right to whinge and moan when it catches up to him. Playing Magic, having a youtube Channel, a Twitter handle, etc. are all privileges. Privileges that can be revoked, unilaterally. Do you know what the fastest way to have your privileges revoked is? By being as ass. If you were a terrible child who spit on other kids in Elementary school, you had recess taken away. If you do the same when you are an adult, the repercussions are more severe because we expect more out of adults.
Believe it or not, but being an edgelord does not get rewarded when you are an adult. Being an edgelord gets you punished, hard, because nobody wants to deal with. This isn't about PC bullocks or whatnot, this has always been the case going back thousands of years. You decide to insult people, particularly publicly, and there are repurcussions. He is damn lucky we live in the PC world we do, because if he was the insulting ass he is back when I was growing up he would have had his teeth kicked in as a best case scenario. Now he mostly just has people telling him he is an ass, and may get banned from playing a card game because he is an ass. The horror. The PC world we live in is making sure all he is seriously facing is some minor repercussions. And the world not resorting to violent vengeful behavior is good thing, and the result of being PC.
If we lived in the world Jeremy wanted to live in, he would have had the tar beaten out of him years ago. We, fortunately, do not live in that world. We do not reward people for being an ass, and we never have. This is not new.
Finally, to drive home the point: Life isn't fair, nobody owes you anything, nobody deserves anything, you are the reputation you cultivate, suck it up and grow up. If you want to rebel against the "system" of acting like a damn adult, you will be treated like a damn child. Jeremy has for the better part of two years decided that he cares more about acting like an ass and "telling it like it is", insulting people in the process. That's fine, but you have no right to assume that people won't call you out on this crap, and you have absolutely no right to assume there will be no repercussions for this.
Well the man, Jeremy, is now hiding behind memes in his latest video because he hasn't been immediately banned by Wizards. The memes are about the equivalent of his twitter and facebook posts, very spiteful. I pulled up a quick example and honestly it shows me Jeremy's true colors when faced with "witch hunting" as he likes to call it.
Example: https://i.imgur.com/HuTkjdS.png
Warning: The above example is not suitable for all audiences, viewer discretion is advised.
Career suicide at its finest.
I mean, if he didn't do anything ban-worthy before, he certainly has now. He has gone into full-on insult rage harassment rage mode, throwing insults at people like candy and breaking all sorts of lovely rules. It's also great to see some of the people who did support him starting to realize that Jeremy might just be an ass who actually isn't being persecuted for his beliefs, and instead is just an ass who deserves a lot of the criticism he gets. Some of them even have come to realize he is actually committed actionable offenses now, which pretty much destroys his credibility.
Hey I get it, its like opening up a restaurant really.
But I know Blizzard released data even when it wasnt good data.
I cant find anything from Wizards of the coast in the same vein, like you said they can assured track how many stories are buying from them and I dont think it would that impossible for them to have an estimate about how many people buy their product.
And maybe Im just not finding it, but if its not out there, why wouldnt they release it?
Funny you say that because blizzard stopped releasing WoW sub numbers to the public when they got around 5m because of the negative impact on the stock. Blizzard is VERY conscious about what info it releases.
Are you sure because I remember when their numbers started to go down they still released information, did they really stop at some point?
I stopped paying attention eventually so that could be true.
But yeah I would suspect a company would release numbers if they were good, so if they arent releasing numbers it probably means they are bad but thats really speculation.
It really has nothing to do with that. Like I said, even seemingly meaningless stats such as player population can be an important tool for competitors. The larger you are, the more your competitors pay attention to every monute detail they can. There is nothibg much to be gained by giving aqay free market research to competitors, amd a whole lot more to be lost.
I thought there was an article about how profits were up, or was that more of Hasbro losing money elsewhere?
But if the player base is contracting that much it means they are becoming more reliant on a core of high spenders, reminds me of Warhammer, not the healthiest place for a company to be.
Whatever issues are the cause in loss of players I doubt any change will happen untill Hasbro sees profits dipping.
Like I said, it is in no small part due to a large increase in Game Stores opening. My LGS had FNMS reaching 70 or so people about four years ago on average. Now we have about 40 or so show up. Are people quitting? Well, no, not at all. About 8-12 people go to the newer store that opened that caters specifically to casual, non-competitive crowds, about 15-20 people go to the new store in the sister city, in no small part due to proximity. We also have another shop that didn't run tournaments at all start running FNMs this year, with about 8-12 people showing up there.
All told, I'd say that the area FNM attendence has gone *up* by about 20-30% over the past four years or so, even though attendance at the specific LGS I attend has gone down significantly. A lot of people are opening stores lately, from what I've seen, and that stretches the fanbase significantly. Still, this is part of why WotC profits go up, even though LGS's seem to have a drop in attendence. We are opening stores faster than we gaining new players. Now, I can't speak for New Player acquisition or retention specifically, as I havne't seen said numbers.
It's not that WotC is lying about what is going on, it's that they very possibly may not know why this seemingly paradoxical situation has arisen. Hence why their explanations seem hollow and daft; they likely don't know why sales are up even though average attendance is down. Average attendance is likely down in no small part due to adding more stores that fracture game stores community more and more, driving down average attendance even though the total number of people either hasn't really changed or has increased.
To illustrate my point, if the number of Game Stores doubles, and nothing else changes, then that means that the average attendance drops by half per store. Even if the stores grow at a 25% rate every years (Which is a perfectly reasonable, if high, growth rate), that would take over three full years of growth at that rate to reach attendance levels at the original store that matched it.
And my ancedotal evidence says game stores have been shutting down even in prosperous places like Northern VA or South Eastern PA.
Is there any sort of data on this?
Short answer is no. The long answer is that it is going to vary significantly. One could extrapolate some inference if one could figure out historical data on number of WPN stores that are currently in operation, as well as how this number has changed over time, coupled with player data and tournament attendance data. I will say that pretty much everyone in the business will tell you that you would have to be stupid to open a store, however. Even the most successful stores tend to operate on razor-thin margins, and the amount and variety you need to remain successful is mountainous. Hobby stores shut down because they are not a particularly profitable entity, even under good circumstances, and many would shut down even if player population were increasing. It's a miserable market that too many people get into because they think it will be easy and fun, and they don't understand the costs of operating a store-front and don't appreciate the amount of merchandise they have to sell.
The situation is very complicated, is what I'm getting at.
Ohh I agree, NYC is hurting because of how bad the rent is.
But your right about WPN and honestly Im kind of sure Wizards has to have a decent idea of the situation, I dont know why they wouldn't be open about it though.
I edited my previous post to provide more detail, but Rudy put out a great video series on opening a store and what it takes to open a store.
Ohh I agree, NYC is hurting because of how bad the rent is.
Most cities it's outrageous. The reason why established stores tend to stay afloat at all is in no small part because of signed leases and contracts helping them keep rent under control.
But your right about WPN and honestly Im kind of sure Wizards has to have a decent idea of the situation, I dont know why they wouldn't be open about it though.
That's a lot less nefarious than you would think. They don't want competitors to have any information, at all, that could help them. These corporations have people whose sole job it is to pore through any scrap of data and figure out how to use it. It may not seem useful, but knowing the fluctuations in WPN stores and the attendance at each would have even an amateur corporate sleuth salivating.
I thought there was an article about how profits were up, or was that more of Hasbro losing money elsewhere?
But if the player base is contracting that much it means they are becoming more reliant on a core of high spenders, reminds me of Warhammer, not the healthiest place for a company to be.
Whatever issues are the cause in loss of players I doubt any change will happen untill Hasbro sees profits dipping.
Like I said, it is in no small part due to a large increase in Game Stores opening. My LGS had FNMS reaching 70 or so people about four years ago on average. Now we have about 40 or so show up. Are people quitting? Well, no, not at all. About 8-12 people go to the newer store that opened that caters specifically to casual, non-competitive crowds, about 15-20 people go to the new store in the sister city, in no small part due to proximity. We also have another shop that didn't run tournaments at all start running FNMs this year, with about 8-12 people showing up there.
All told, I'd say that the area FNM attendence has gone *up* by about 20-30% over the past four years or so, even though attendance at the specific LGS I attend has gone down significantly. A lot of people are opening stores lately, from what I've seen, and that stretches the fanbase significantly. Still, this is part of why WotC profits go up, even though LGS's seem to have a drop in attendence. We are opening stores faster than we gaining new players. Now, I can't speak for New Player acquisition or retention specifically, as I havne't seen said numbers.
It's not that WotC is lying about what is going on, it's that they very possibly may not know why this seemingly paradoxical situation has arisen. Hence why their explanations seem hollow and daft; they likely don't know why sales are up even though average attendance is down. Average attendance is likely down in no small part due to adding more stores that fracture game stores community more and more, driving down average attendance even though the total number of people either hasn't really changed or has increased.
To illustrate my point, if the number of Game Stores doubles, and nothing else changes, then that means that the average attendance drops by half per store. Even if the stores grow at a 25% rate every years (Which is a perfectly reasonable, if high, growth rate), that would take over three full years of growth at that rate to reach attendance levels at the original store that matched it.
And my ancedotal evidence says game stores have been shutting down even in prosperous places like Northern VA or South Eastern PA.
Is there any sort of data on this?
Short answer is no. The long answer is that it is going to vary significantly. One could extrapolate some inference if one could figure out historical data on number of WPN stores that are currently in operation, as well as how this number has changed over time, coupled with player data and tournament attendance data. I will say that pretty much everyone in the business will tell you that you would have to be stupid to open a store, however. Even the most successful stores tend to operate on razor-thin margins, and the amount and variety you need to remain successful is mountainous. Hobby stores shut down because they are not a particularly profitable entity, even under good circumstances, and many would shut down even if player population were increasing. It's a miserable market that too many people get into because they think it will be easy and fun, and they don't understand the costs of operating a store-front and don't appreciate the amount of merchandise they have to sell.
Rudy from Alpha Investments did a pretty good video series on opening a store and what it takes, as well as the costs involved. It should give you a very strong idea of how these shops fail.
A reasonable location storefront is going to have a rent cost of at least $2000/month. That is pretty rock bottom, honestly. If you have a reasonable mark-up of 30%, you are going to need to do $6,600 in sales just to cover rent after you cover cost of the product that you sold. To put that in Magic perspective, that is 45 boxes of magic cards, 110 Scalding Tarns, or 440 Khans fetchlands, every month, just to cover rent. Moving onto utilities, average cost of electricity per kwh is about 15 cents. If you have a modest energy consumption of about 3500 kwh of useage (which is low for a retail store), you are talking at least $40/month in electricity useage, which is on the rock-bottom low side. That's another Booster Box per month you need to sell to cover electricity after product cost is considered.
You also likely need to make a bunch of deposits. And you need to bankroll your product so you have something to sell your customers, which likely means debt of some sort which means payments every month. You also need to keep more product on your excess product to some degree, meaning you are tying up capital in product that is going unsold, meaning you need to sell even more product just to pay your bills and keep operating from month to month. We haven't even gotten into wages for workers. Even at minimum wage, you are talking about another $1000 or so in sales you need to do in order to just stay afloat.
And the laundry list keeps going on. When all is said and done, a store would need to sell the equivalent of about 60 booster boxes in order to just stay afloat, and that's on the low end.
The situation is very complicated, is what I'm getting at.
"Hey guys, thanks for joing in with me, it was a blast! I even got banned, let's do it again some time! Also, this person over here is a sex predator who is literally destroying the game! You didn't forget about her right? Anywho, it was great that you guys helped me troll people!"
Sure, insane.
He styles himself a persecuted ass because he was slighted two years ago, and rather than accept that people don't want anything to do with an ass and change his ways, he decided it was the rest of the world that is at fault. If you are an ********, and nobody wants to hang around you, it's because your an ******** and not because you are being persecuted.
Show me one unequivocal case of this happening where the person didn't engage in general assery. I want you to find me one person, somewhere, who was banned because they simply voiced their political beliefs.
Jeremy's problem is that he didn't simply voice his political beliefs. He attacked others, by name, for disagreeing him, insulted people on multiple occasions (And yes, calling people Cucks, ****s, thots, etc. is insulting them), and was a general ass. He is being banned because he is an unrepetent ass who shows no intention of not continuing to insult people. Wizards has a pretty damn clear policy on this matter.
Even if that were true, that is WotC's perogative to push said agenda. Arguing they have no right to do so is the exact same sort of quasi-authoritarianism you yoursel argue is happening.
That said, he acted like an ass. He is entitled to his opinions. He is entitled to be critical. He is entitled to voice said opinions. These are not problems. What is a problem is how he chose to do it. He has a history of encourages his userbase to target people for harassment. He lauded them when he got banned from communities or blocked by individuals because of their brigading. He went on a rant insulting Christine specifically. That is the damn problem. You are allowed your opinion. You are not allowed to insult people for the lulz, nor are you allowed to direct your fanbase at them for harassment.
THere are two ways you can go about Wizard's liberal stances if you disagree with them: You can act like an adult, and talk it out like an adult, and voice your displeasure with it like an adult, and nothing will happen to you. Or you can be Jeremy, insult and deride people constantly, encourage your followers to harass people contstantly, and then things happen to you. The choice is yours, and don't come crying to me if you choose to go Jeremy's route. I don't give a damn if you get your toys taken away because you spit on the other children. Go screw off. You brought it on yourself, act like a damn adult for once in your life.
Rudy is often very critical of WotC's direction. He is animated about it. He is occasionally critical of the fan base of the game. He doesn't hide it. Nobody, at all, has an issue with Rudy. Why? Because he's not an ass about it.
Wizards of the Coast, as an enterprise, is under no obligation to associate with any for whatever reason. Hell, this has always been the case. The "social mob" has always decided what is a correct form of acceptable speech in any society, of any group, of any ideaology, everywhere. Up to, and including, Jeremy's group which ridicules, derides, and embraces these same tactics to silence political dissidents and opponents.
The seeming paradox of supporting one's freedom of speech while arguing for consequences of speech is not, in truth, any form of paradox at all. It is a crutch argued by those who lack any form of nuanced understanding of the world, and often a deliberate oversimplification of how society works.
You are allowed to speak your beliefs. Wizards is not banning Jeremy for the content of his opinions, at all. Such a notion is childishly simplistic, and a misrepresentation and mischaracterization of the events. They are banning him for how he chooses to exercise said speech. You can voice your opinions, and you can do so in an animated manner. The second you decide to target an individual and engage in harassing behavior, however, you have crossed a line. He crossed that line many times by making Christine the focus of his troll mobs. He chooses to abuse the rights afforded to him, because he can. That is his choice. Nobody is going to stop him from doing that. The rest of world does not look kindly on this, and the rest of the world is free to disassociate themselves from him.
Further, forcing WotC, as a free entity, to associate with Jeremy is the entire antithesis of Freedom of Speech. They are allowed their opinions as well, and they are allowed to associate with whom they want, when they want. To even attempt to argue otherwise is to give up the entire game of supporting Free Speech in favor of the very authoritarianism you claim to be against.
The fact of the damn matter is he decided to weaponize his followers, who sent death threats and rape threats to Christine. He, on many instances before and after this event, called her effectively a prostitute and sexual predator, and afterwards doubled down by calling her a **** and thot. Insulting people, believe it or not, is against the CoC. Act like a damn adult, or you are gone. If he wanted to voice concern about sexualization and cosplay, he could have easily done so without insulting or harassing Christine. He decided a different route. It's that damn simple.
There are social consequences for saying and doing stupid, insulting things to people. His freedom of speech is not being infringed, either in actuality or in spirit. He is having his privileges taken away for his actions. You are not entitled to privileges, and WotC should not be forced to give him said privileges against their will. To argue otherwise is to at best be a child throwing a tantrum, and at worst be willfully obtuse and argue for the infringement of other's rights for your own privileges.
In the real world of being an adult there are repercussions for being intentionally offensive amd harassing people. Calling it a crime is misleading and missing the point. If he wants to spit on the other kids at school, he gets detention and recess taken away. He also has no right to bemoan other people calling him out for it.
That said, he can, shockingly I know, ne two things at the same tike. And, shockingly, people can criticize him for one thing witjout it being changing the goal posts. It is called "depth" amd "nuance".
While somewhat true, the context he spome ofnit in is that they have no intention of breaking even the apirit of the RL by printing technically different cards.
Equally, the concept that Wizards has some legal obligation to abide by the RL due to promisary estoppal laws amd some form of contractural obligation is spurious, at best.
The honest reason why they have no intention of breaking the RL any time soon is because Legacy is bad for lomg term business. Legacy players are one and done customers. If they encpurage to many people to join the format, they will nuke their customer base. Which is good for nobody long term.
The honest to god truth is that they would stand to gain far less than they lose by breaking the RL, simply from market factors.
He has been pretty vocal that both Snow duals amd Legendary Duals break the apirit of the Reserved list, evem if they technically do not break the list itaelf.
He is actively trying to make himself a martyr to spring-board himself into being a well-known personality the likes of Sargon or whatnot. There is a reason he was practically begging people to interview him last week about this.
Don't be obtuse.
It is pretty damn obvious what he was doing when he rants about SJWs killing the game by involving identity politics in the game, and then uses Christine as an example in said rants. He equally rants about how she is preying on young boys with her sexuality (Which she didn't), effectively calling her a sexual predator for it; he also rants about how Wizards wastes times with cosplayers to the detriment of the *real* problems with the game, using Christine almost every damn time as a direct example. Hell, he even directly drug Christine into his anti-SJW rant about Spike being female, and how Wizards is ruining the game with it, for no damn reason as Christine didn't involve herself in the gender politics discussion at all.
On top of this, he actively encourages and praises his fan base to troll people he disagrees with, and has lauded them in the past for getting him banned or blocked by various users by joining his brigades.
What do you think the end result would be when someone specifically calls out a person by name in his rants about what the "real" problems with the game are and why the game sucks, and has praised his fanbase for being miserable trolls on his behalf in the past? Any even remotely intellectually honest person knows full well what he was doing and anticipating for an end result. I have grown wary of this nonsensical denialism.
He decided to weaponize his fan base by getting them riled up and pointing them at his personal and political rivals by whipping them into a frenzy and encouraging them to be trolls. I have zero sympathy, at all, when the same happens to him. I don't condone the behavior, but I certainly won't (and do not) feel bad for him.
He also gets the harsher treatment over others, as he is the instigator in this whole mess. Others should be dealt with, but if you start a fight then you get the larger punishment.
Not really. While I do not condone people doing the same to Jeremy, the people he has targetted in the past (including Christine) faced pretty much the same thing. Christine herself received death threats in no small part because Jeremy went on several tirades about how she is ruining the game.
I really have no sympathy for the man, at all. You reap what you sow. He pulled crap like this on other people, and now he complains its happening to him. I do not have a single tear worth shedding for him amd his self imposed victim complex problems.
It was not a false accusation. At worst it was an exaggeration. He did, in fact, engage in harassing behavior. Insulting people publicly, believe it or not, is harassment particularly when you are acting as a public figure, which is was to his followers. It doesn't have to be illegal forms of harassment to be harassment. WotC CoC doesn't stipulate it has to be illegal forms of harassment for it to break their CoC. This isn't new, it isn't about being PC or on an SJW crusade; this is not rewarding grown adults who don't want to play well with others. If he doesn't want the consequences of being treated like an ass, he shouldn't act like an ass and child who spits on the other kids. If he wants all the freedom of acting like an ass, he has no right to whinge and moan when it catches up to him. Playing Magic, having a youtube Channel, a Twitter handle, etc. are all privileges. Privileges that can be revoked, unilaterally. Do you know what the fastest way to have your privileges revoked is? By being as ass. If you were a terrible child who spit on other kids in Elementary school, you had recess taken away. If you do the same when you are an adult, the repercussions are more severe because we expect more out of adults.
Believe it or not, but being an edgelord does not get rewarded when you are an adult. Being an edgelord gets you punished, hard, because nobody wants to deal with. This isn't about PC bullocks or whatnot, this has always been the case going back thousands of years. You decide to insult people, particularly publicly, and there are repurcussions. He is damn lucky we live in the PC world we do, because if he was the insulting ass he is back when I was growing up he would have had his teeth kicked in as a best case scenario. Now he mostly just has people telling him he is an ass, and may get banned from playing a card game because he is an ass. The horror. The PC world we live in is making sure all he is seriously facing is some minor repercussions. And the world not resorting to violent vengeful behavior is good thing, and the result of being PC.
If we lived in the world Jeremy wanted to live in, he would have had the tar beaten out of him years ago. We, fortunately, do not live in that world. We do not reward people for being an ass, and we never have. This is not new.
Finally, to drive home the point: Life isn't fair, nobody owes you anything, nobody deserves anything, you are the reputation you cultivate, suck it up and grow up. If you want to rebel against the "system" of acting like a damn adult, you will be treated like a damn child. Jeremy has for the better part of two years decided that he cares more about acting like an ass and "telling it like it is", insulting people in the process. That's fine, but you have no right to assume that people won't call you out on this crap, and you have absolutely no right to assume there will be no repercussions for this.
I mean, if he didn't do anything ban-worthy before, he certainly has now. He has gone into full-on insult rage harassment rage mode, throwing insults at people like candy and breaking all sorts of lovely rules. It's also great to see some of the people who did support him starting to realize that Jeremy might just be an ass who actually isn't being persecuted for his beliefs, and instead is just an ass who deserves a lot of the criticism he gets. Some of them even have come to realize he is actually committed actionable offenses now, which pretty much destroys his credibility.
It really has nothing to do with that. Like I said, even seemingly meaningless stats such as player population can be an important tool for competitors. The larger you are, the more your competitors pay attention to every monute detail they can. There is nothibg much to be gained by giving aqay free market research to competitors, amd a whole lot more to be lost.
I edited my previous post to provide more detail, but Rudy put out a great video series on opening a store and what it takes to open a store.
Most cities it's outrageous. The reason why established stores tend to stay afloat at all is in no small part because of signed leases and contracts helping them keep rent under control.
That's a lot less nefarious than you would think. They don't want competitors to have any information, at all, that could help them. These corporations have people whose sole job it is to pore through any scrap of data and figure out how to use it. It may not seem useful, but knowing the fluctuations in WPN stores and the attendance at each would have even an amateur corporate sleuth salivating.
Short answer is no. The long answer is that it is going to vary significantly. One could extrapolate some inference if one could figure out historical data on number of WPN stores that are currently in operation, as well as how this number has changed over time, coupled with player data and tournament attendance data. I will say that pretty much everyone in the business will tell you that you would have to be stupid to open a store, however. Even the most successful stores tend to operate on razor-thin margins, and the amount and variety you need to remain successful is mountainous. Hobby stores shut down because they are not a particularly profitable entity, even under good circumstances, and many would shut down even if player population were increasing. It's a miserable market that too many people get into because they think it will be easy and fun, and they don't understand the costs of operating a store-front and don't appreciate the amount of merchandise they have to sell.
Rudy from Alpha Investments did a pretty good video series on opening a store and what it takes, as well as the costs involved. It should give you a very strong idea of how these shops fail.
A reasonable location storefront is going to have a rent cost of at least $2000/month. That is pretty rock bottom, honestly. If you have a reasonable mark-up of 30%, you are going to need to do $6,600 in sales just to cover rent after you cover cost of the product that you sold. To put that in Magic perspective, that is 45 boxes of magic cards, 110 Scalding Tarns, or 440 Khans fetchlands, every month, just to cover rent. Moving onto utilities, average cost of electricity per kwh is about 15 cents. If you have a modest energy consumption of about 3500 kwh of useage (which is low for a retail store), you are talking at least $40/month in electricity useage, which is on the rock-bottom low side. That's another Booster Box per month you need to sell to cover electricity after product cost is considered.
You also likely need to make a bunch of deposits. And you need to bankroll your product so you have something to sell your customers, which likely means debt of some sort which means payments every month. You also need to keep more product on your excess product to some degree, meaning you are tying up capital in product that is going unsold, meaning you need to sell even more product just to pay your bills and keep operating from month to month. We haven't even gotten into wages for workers. Even at minimum wage, you are talking about another $1000 or so in sales you need to do in order to just stay afloat.
And the laundry list keeps going on. When all is said and done, a store would need to sell the equivalent of about 60 booster boxes in order to just stay afloat, and that's on the low end.
The situation is very complicated, is what I'm getting at.