Yesterday I left a pretty mysterious blog entry. This was because I was busy working on yet another promotional blog for Lion & Dragon, when suddenly I realized that the entire RPGNow L&D page was GONE.

This when literally a few short hours earlier everything was fine.


So what happened?

Well, it seems that OBS basically screwed us over.

The whole thing was, they claim, some kind of an 'error'. They sold us some bullshit of how 'the system' mistook some prototype page for the real page we'd been using all month, and that now it couldn't be switched back and the old page was lost.
At first they gave us a new page with no pdf option, without our copper status. After some gentle shouting and threats on my part, they restored the copper button.

But now the URL is completely different.  Now Lion & Dragon is found here:

EDIT: The next day, to try to make sure that L&D stays dead after it looked like I was getting it back up, they CHANGED THE URL AGAIN.
This is the current URL for L&D as of the last time I wrote here. But see the post linked to in the previous sentence for more updates. Because I wouldn't put it past RPGNow changing it again, especially if in spite of all their sabotage it keeps getting breaking into the top-15 or top-10.

This means that every single one of the HUNDREDS of links I had posted in the past month to the former Lion & Dragon rpgnow product listing will just lead people to a "file not found" section.




This to me was very intentional SABOTAGE. I think the ultimate goal was to get us off the Bestseller list.  As of the moment we were blocked, we had been on the TOP 10 of the Bestseller list from the moment L&D had first launched.
This makes a HUGE difference, because everyone who goes on the RPGnow main page will see it prominently. This is part of why we hit copper status so quickly.

I'm pretty sure that someone over on OBS, still angered about how I opposed censorship measures there (that no doubt some people there were lobbying for) decided to 'punish' me for it, by taking the product out. They had to make it look like an 'accident' because there is NOTHING in L&D that is objectionable to justify them trying to ban it. So whoever did this knew I would come back eventually, but set it up so that I would come back in a totally different URL, and their plan was that then I'd have to start from a zero-sales count (meaning that later they'd be able to pretend in internet arguments that L&D 'wasn't successful') and would lose the momentum to stay on the top 10.


Incredibly, we've already gotten back on the RPGNow sales list by virtue of sales alone, but we're somewhere around 28th place, which is essentially useless.
Before they dropped us from the list we were 20 spots higher and I'm pretty sure that was what was irking some ultra-leftist RPGNow employee.  So they fucked us.

Watch out, it could happen to you too.




What can you do to help?

Well, I'm not telling anyone to boycott OBS. They're not going to try this again. It would make it all too obvious. They restored my copper bestseller status (though now that we know they can fiddle with the numbers who's to say that they won't be secretly keeping me from reaching Silver or higher, or for that matter that games that have reached to high positions like that got a "little help" for being ideologically correct??).   There would be no real point, in any case, from me leaving OBS. That's what whoever did this WANTS.  They wanted me off the bestseller list.

So I say, if you want to help, get me back on.

If you haven't bought Lion & Dragon yet, and were planning to, please do so! Do so at RPGnow if it's possible for you (note: I'm not asking you to do so if it's not, or if it's highly inconvenience, but if it's all the same to you, buy it there).

And if you have already bought L&D (and aren't too inclined to just order a 2nd copy)?? Then what you can do is to share this blog entry, or just the link to L&D's new address on RPGnow, and tell people what happened and help me to make up for one entire month of promotion they RUINED.  Share it on all your social media. And especially if you see anywhere that has a link to L&D's old page, put a correction there, so people know the product still exists and they can buy it.


Thank you to any of you who help. I really appreciate it. And the people who wanted me gone won't appreciate it, and you should revel in that.


As for me, you'll have to excuse me, because I'm going to probably be spending the next several days scouring all my history of posts to replace every single link. Because if these assholes thought I'd quit, they obviously don't know me very well.  They've just gone and made me angry, and lusting for revenge.

RPGPundit

Currently Smoking: Lorenzetti Solitario Volcano + Blue Boar

That's pretty petty and sleazy.

On a brighter note, my copy of L&D arrived yesterday in the mail and I thumbed through it; it looks beautiful and I like the choices of typeset and artwork and paper stock that were used. Can't wait until I have time to focus on actually reading it.

Wow that sucks..  

I was thinking of getting the PDF at some stage and it's pretty cheap too.
That and I've been looking for an OSR Medieval fantasy supplement lately.
If this sort of subject comes up in online discussions I take part in, I'll post a link as well.

Hoping you'll sort out these issues..

I purchased the pdf when I usually don't go for them to help out. I also wrote a review on rpgnow

As much as I like you Pundit and wish that OBS didn't have a virtual monopoly on the tabletop RPG market, I really don't think that it's an intentional slight on you nor Lion & Dragon.  I check DriveThruRPG every other day or so, and I noticed a few titles the past month or so either go missing or duplicated.  A few game books advertised as new that clearly weren't, like Blood & Bone.  When I looked into it, I discovered that the products were duplicated, with the originals containing all of the comments and reviews and the new ones with no comments nor reviews but otherwise identical.  If I had to guess, I'd suspect some sort of database corruption going on at OBS, which is worrisome, especially as I noted that it is a virtual monopoly.

Quote from: Dumarest;1017626That's pretty petty and sleazy.

Or more likely, they just fucked up. It happens. OBS like the rest of the industry is made up of enthusiastic amateurs. The 1337 skillzorz aren't quite there.

On the one hand, people are capable of doing almost anything for spite.

On the other hand, as Chirine likes to say, "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by human stupidity."

That's pretty crazy. Good luck. I bet it'll get back up there.

Quote from: Dumarest;1017626That's pretty petty and sleazy.

On a brighter note, my copy of L&D arrived yesterday in the mail and I thumbed through it; it looks beautiful and I like the choices of typeset and artwork and paper stock that were used. Can't wait until I have time to focus on actually reading it.

Thanks!

Quote from: danskmacabre;1017629Wow that sucks..  

I was thinking of getting the PDF at some stage and it's pretty cheap too.
That and I've been looking for an OSR Medieval fantasy supplement lately.
If this sort of subject comes up in online discussions I take part in, I'll post a link as well.

Hoping you'll sort out these issues..

Thanks. Let me know, if you pick it up, what you thought of it.

Quote from: Ulairi;1017631I purchased the pdf when I usually don't go for them to help out. I also wrote a review on rpgnow

I saw that. That's very much appreciated!  These kinds of reviews and ratings on the page where one bought the product help a lot.

Quote from: Celestial;1017646As much as I like you Pundit and wish that OBS didn't have a virtual monopoly on the tabletop RPG market, I really don't think that it's an intentional slight on you nor Lion & Dragon.  I check DriveThruRPG every other day or so, and I noticed a few titles the past month or so either go missing or duplicated.  A few game books advertised as new that clearly weren't, like Blood & Bone.  When I looked into it, I discovered that the products were duplicated, with the originals containing all of the comments and reviews and the new ones with no comments nor reviews but otherwise identical.  If I had to guess, I'd suspect some sort of database corruption going on at OBS, which is worrisome, especially as I noted that it is a virtual monopoly.

That may be so.
Note: I'm NOT calling for a boycott of OBS. I'm not even claiming it was the people in charge of OBS who did this.

But I am saying that in the very best case scenario if we imagine that this really was just some kind of error, they showed gross incompetence in their failure to correct it and wiping me out of the bestseller list, and giving me a new URL that effectively ruins a full month worth of advertising and publicity where I was sharing a URL that now leads NOWHERE.

Instead of calling for their heads though, I'm calling for people to show them just how popular Lion & Dragon is, by going to RPGNow and BUYING stuff there. Make it clear to them, because in the end of the day I think they're mainly a business (and previously let themselves be swayed by the SJW crowd because they feared for their business), that there's way more of US than there are of the SJW crowd, and that unlike the SJW crowd we Actually Buy Stuff so we're the pony to bet on.
Hopefully that will stop them from making this same "error" again.

If I had the funds, I'd get L&D.  But I can't right now, so the updated URL is a godsend that I can replace the old one on my wishlist.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;1017663If I had the funds, I'd get L&D.  But I can't right now, so the updated URL is a godsend that I can replace the old one on my wishlist.

That's good too. Also, share the url on your social media, that would help a lot!

As an IT geek, my first assumption regarding these things is always incompetence. But even if that's the case, their mistake still cost you revenue, and demonstrated it's possible for any publisher to permanently lose their #URL.

However, given no other publisher has ever reported this problem, and the fact your new product URL (226021) is the number right before your old one (226022), I don't think it unreasonable to suspect deliberate sabotage.

BTW, there's a thread on #BigPurple about your game which may be worth a look where the original #URL was shared on 2018-01-01. Coincidence? Also considering some of the posters in that thread, I'm not altogether sure they're aware that you're the one who wrote it.