20-Oct-2020, 1:39 AM
Will start by staying I can only speak for myself and am not attempting to speak on behalf of anyone else in the community. However, I do also think based on conversations I've had with others that much of what I'm going to say is echoed by others in the community. If others wish to chime in, the floor is of course still open to do so.
My general reaction to your post here and your response to this whole situation is mainly one of confusion. I think the reason the word shill has come up in the first place is because it is difficult for me to understand why you are so upset about this, seemingly even more so than Niffler themselves, without having any obvious vested interest in Niffler. Like it is one thing to disagree with the community's popular opinion about Niffler as is your prerogative, but it's a whole other thing to write a satirical article poking fun at the community's frustration, leave the community discord server, and post this thread as if this is still as hot an issue as it was on the day Niffler made their own discord. Like yes it still comes up on the odd occasion in the discord, but it's not even something that comes up daily since it happened. In short, I think you are making this out to be a much bigger deal than it actually is.
These are two very pointed hypothetical scenarios that fail to adequately capture the significant history the community has with Niffler and Allack in particular. I am obviously relatively new to the community so I am not even going to touch on second hand accounts of what occurred prior to you or I being around. But even reflecting exclusively on what has happened while being part of this community, I have observed for myself that Allack is not very good at PR and that the only source we have for the true nature of Niffler's relationship with Bridgestone is what has come from Allack himself.
Now let me be very clear:
- I am not suggesting Bridgestone isn't difficult to negotiate with or otherwise inept in knowing the value of the IP it owns
- I am not suggesting that Allack doesn't feel like he is doing his best with the hand he was dealt (though IMO the jury is out on how much of this was his own doing...)
- I am not suggesting this is all a conspiracy where Niffler is making up a boogieman in Bridgestone simply as a means to cut ties with this community - this is clearly ridiculous, do you honestly think that is what everyone in the community actually believes?
What I do think is the truth lies somewhere in the middle. It is certainly feasible to believe that even with the presence of Bridgestone that Niffler could have made better choices over the years. Perhaps Niffler cut themselves a bad deal from the get-go that someone more experienced in these types of negotiations could have done better. Or perhaps Allack's interpretation of what Bridgestone requires of Niffler in its licensing terms is not in line with what Bridgestone actually expects. Or perhaps within the terms of their license they could be using their resources better to provide maintenance support for its existing Steam products (i.e. putting some resources into fixing the clunky CC2 interface and extensive list of bugs) that could actually help earn the company some revenue from CC2. Or perhaps they could be better at listening to the community about what they want to see next.
If your point is that we as a community should simply be taking Allack's word at its face value that he/Niffler has done every single thing right all these years and still ended up broke, I would respectfully disagree on the grounds that he has not exactly built a strong enough rapport with the community for that level of trust to exist. Quite the opposite - every interaction I've seen of his with our community has generally been talking down to people with suggestions like they are too stupid to understand the complexities of how the gaming industry works. Even though Niffler doesn't really have much to show for the amount of time and money they have dumped into their games. Perhaps if Allack approached the community with a different tone and aim over the years, some better middle ground could have been reached. Because I do believe that even if the Bridgestone licensing terms are as oppressive as purported that a number of our community members would have still been willing to donate their time and skills just to see CC2 become a more polished product.
(Aside: The above is all ignoring my personal suspicion that Niffler is primarily a mismanaged, management-heavy company that failed to make product development its primary focus i.e. hiring good, quality coders and making sure they had a solid product prior to Steam launch. The constant mentioning that the company loses money to me suggests they either aren't cut out for running a gaming company, or they accepted egregious licensing terms from the beginning from which they had no hope in hell of ever making a return on their investment even if they were game industry savants. To me, these are the two hypothetical situations you should have presented, and if the second is true I personally think they should cut their losses and stop shovelling money into a venture that is doomed to fail. I have no concrete proof either way given how tight-lipped they are of the details and much of this is my own personal conjecture based on my experience in the tech industry and the Niffler site not appearing to list any actual coders as staff - besides Chuck, who I believe didn't work on CC3D and seems to have a day job in addition to Niffler)
I know somebody mentioned Chip's Portal at some point, but I don't think that was ever really a major talking point throughout this?
That aside, tying back to something you said on discord:
I take issue to the fact that here and in the "meme article" you wrote on the wiki you suggest that BB.club community will be fine because they are the top results for several Google searches. Let's not forget that less than 2 years ago BB.club was a parked domain and that since its inception as a full blown fansite it has been struggling to compete with well-established sites in the search engine rankings. The fact that BB.club comes up at all in Google is the result of deliberate time and effort put into the site by not just myself but many of our community members. It is hard to be a new site on the internet, and without some lucky breaks like some of the long standing Chips sites going dark around the time of the site launch and Fandom at bay for now, the project may never have gotten off the ground the way it has to date.
As I mentioned on Discord, there is still work to be done in getting the BB.club site out there. Sure, it comes up when you search some specific terms prefixed with Chip's Challenge, but for the key search term "Chip's Challenge" with the biggest potential to draw in new users, we are not even on the front page. Niffler is in a unique position to be able to poach some or all of that traffic from the get-go if they have any kind of marketing savvy.
Sure, we're not going to instantly die overnight and some traffic will still get through to both our site and discord. I never claimed Niffler was actively killing the CCBBC as those are your words alone, but in my role as the Discord server owner I do have what I feel to be a valid concern about the long term effect of a competing discord server. A stagnant community without sustained growth will eventually fade and dwindle if there is a more popular, official server available. Though based on what I've been hearing about how this server is being run, perhaps this will not be as much of a worry as initially thought. Ultimately I just think it is a true shame Niffler chose to go the route of a competing discord which has the potential to split the already small Chip's community rather than make any attempt to work together to grow the larger community as a whole.
As discussed above at length, I think maybe the key distinction here is we have different perspectives on what is considered "outside their control". Also in line with what I said earlier, I think the words 'disgusted' and 'demonizing' in this context are hyperbole and that this was a Discord-based disagreement that didn't really need to become anything more than it was in the moment. Though I will say I think it was ill-advised and counter-productive of those who chose to go to the Niffler discord just to start trouble and deliberately try to get banned - I never endorsed that for the Fandom situation, I didn't endorse it for this situation and I will certainly discouraging anyone else from doing things like that in the future.
This post got away from me in length. At the end of the day, I hold no personal ill-will toward you, Allack or Chuck. And if you ever feel like joining our Discord community again, you are certainly welcome back. I hope to see you again soon.
(16-Oct-2020, 11:14 PM)ncrecc Wrote: I just wanted to make sure anyone new who joins the community is aware of this wonderful bit of history in the CCBBC.
(16-Oct-2020, 11:14 PM)ncrecc Wrote: Nonetheless, please leave any comparisons to me being a Niffler shill in the replies below. Thanks.
My general reaction to your post here and your response to this whole situation is mainly one of confusion. I think the reason the word shill has come up in the first place is because it is difficult for me to understand why you are so upset about this, seemingly even more so than Niffler themselves, without having any obvious vested interest in Niffler. Like it is one thing to disagree with the community's popular opinion about Niffler as is your prerogative, but it's a whole other thing to write a satirical article poking fun at the community's frustration, leave the community discord server, and post this thread as if this is still as hot an issue as it was on the day Niffler made their own discord. Like yes it still comes up on the odd occasion in the discord, but it's not even something that comes up daily since it happened. In short, I think you are making this out to be a much bigger deal than it actually is.
(16-Oct-2020, 11:14 PM)ncrecc Wrote: Which of these scenarios makes more sense?: links to clones and servers related to clones being deleted from Niffler-owned spaces is part of a legal agreement they were strongarmed into by the company that delayed CC2's release for 15 years, as Allack said several times, and they just wanted a Discord server they're actually allowed to link to; OR everything related to Bridgestone is is all just an elaborate whimsical show Niffler is putting on to cut ties with the community they know is supplying CC with near-all of its resources and publicity (and which Chuck has actually held in good regard - hence the dat2c2g program being hosted here) while they're already on the verge of bankruptcy.
These are two very pointed hypothetical scenarios that fail to adequately capture the significant history the community has with Niffler and Allack in particular. I am obviously relatively new to the community so I am not even going to touch on second hand accounts of what occurred prior to you or I being around. But even reflecting exclusively on what has happened while being part of this community, I have observed for myself that Allack is not very good at PR and that the only source we have for the true nature of Niffler's relationship with Bridgestone is what has come from Allack himself.
Now let me be very clear:
- I am not suggesting Bridgestone isn't difficult to negotiate with or otherwise inept in knowing the value of the IP it owns
- I am not suggesting that Allack doesn't feel like he is doing his best with the hand he was dealt (though IMO the jury is out on how much of this was his own doing...)
- I am not suggesting this is all a conspiracy where Niffler is making up a boogieman in Bridgestone simply as a means to cut ties with this community - this is clearly ridiculous, do you honestly think that is what everyone in the community actually believes?
What I do think is the truth lies somewhere in the middle. It is certainly feasible to believe that even with the presence of Bridgestone that Niffler could have made better choices over the years. Perhaps Niffler cut themselves a bad deal from the get-go that someone more experienced in these types of negotiations could have done better. Or perhaps Allack's interpretation of what Bridgestone requires of Niffler in its licensing terms is not in line with what Bridgestone actually expects. Or perhaps within the terms of their license they could be using their resources better to provide maintenance support for its existing Steam products (i.e. putting some resources into fixing the clunky CC2 interface and extensive list of bugs) that could actually help earn the company some revenue from CC2. Or perhaps they could be better at listening to the community about what they want to see next.
(16-Oct-2020, 11:14 PM)ncrecc Wrote: Allack having used obnoxious metaphors to describe the situation isn't an excuse for this behavior.
If your point is that we as a community should simply be taking Allack's word at its face value that he/Niffler has done every single thing right all these years and still ended up broke, I would respectfully disagree on the grounds that he has not exactly built a strong enough rapport with the community for that level of trust to exist. Quite the opposite - every interaction I've seen of his with our community has generally been talking down to people with suggestions like they are too stupid to understand the complexities of how the gaming industry works. Even though Niffler doesn't really have much to show for the amount of time and money they have dumped into their games. Perhaps if Allack approached the community with a different tone and aim over the years, some better middle ground could have been reached. Because I do believe that even if the Bridgestone licensing terms are as oppressive as purported that a number of our community members would have still been willing to donate their time and skills just to see CC2 become a more polished product.
(Aside: The above is all ignoring my personal suspicion that Niffler is primarily a mismanaged, management-heavy company that failed to make product development its primary focus i.e. hiring good, quality coders and making sure they had a solid product prior to Steam launch. The constant mentioning that the company loses money to me suggests they either aren't cut out for running a gaming company, or they accepted egregious licensing terms from the beginning from which they had no hope in hell of ever making a return on their investment even if they were game industry savants. To me, these are the two hypothetical situations you should have presented, and if the second is true I personally think they should cut their losses and stop shovelling money into a venture that is doomed to fail. I have no concrete proof either way given how tight-lipped they are of the details and much of this is my own personal conjecture based on my experience in the tech industry and the Niffler site not appearing to list any actual coders as staff - besides Chuck, who I believe didn't work on CC3D and seems to have a day job in addition to Niffler)
(16-Oct-2020, 11:14 PM)ncrecc Wrote: Comparing the Chip's Portal shutdown to this is like comparing a massive inferno to a dumpster fire - in this case nothing was ever irreversibly lost except weblinks posted in Bridgestone-controlled spaces (and things have been "lost" for a while - TW links were being taken off the Steam discussion boards since over a year ago).
I know somebody mentioned Chip's Portal at some point, but I don't think that was ever really a major talking point throughout this?
That aside, tying back to something you said on discord:
Quote:1:09 PM] ncrecc: since the niffler server opened there's been pretty much constant doublethink going on here between "niffler is actively killing the ccbbc community and we must do what we can to survive" and recognizing that niffler can practically do nothing and most chips resources on the internet point to ccbbc
I take issue to the fact that here and in the "meme article" you wrote on the wiki you suggest that BB.club community will be fine because they are the top results for several Google searches. Let's not forget that less than 2 years ago BB.club was a parked domain and that since its inception as a full blown fansite it has been struggling to compete with well-established sites in the search engine rankings. The fact that BB.club comes up at all in Google is the result of deliberate time and effort put into the site by not just myself but many of our community members. It is hard to be a new site on the internet, and without some lucky breaks like some of the long standing Chips sites going dark around the time of the site launch and Fandom at bay for now, the project may never have gotten off the ground the way it has to date.
As I mentioned on Discord, there is still work to be done in getting the BB.club site out there. Sure, it comes up when you search some specific terms prefixed with Chip's Challenge, but for the key search term "Chip's Challenge" with the biggest potential to draw in new users, we are not even on the front page. Niffler is in a unique position to be able to poach some or all of that traffic from the get-go if they have any kind of marketing savvy.
Sure, we're not going to instantly die overnight and some traffic will still get through to both our site and discord. I never claimed Niffler was actively killing the CCBBC as those are your words alone, but in my role as the Discord server owner I do have what I feel to be a valid concern about the long term effect of a competing discord server. A stagnant community without sustained growth will eventually fade and dwindle if there is a more popular, official server available. Though based on what I've been hearing about how this server is being run, perhaps this will not be as much of a worry as initially thought. Ultimately I just think it is a true shame Niffler chose to go the route of a competing discord which has the potential to split the already small Chip's community rather than make any attempt to work together to grow the larger community as a whole.
(16-Oct-2020, 11:14 PM)ncrecc Wrote: I'm just disgusted that we've resorted to demonizing them due to things outside of their control.
As discussed above at length, I think maybe the key distinction here is we have different perspectives on what is considered "outside their control". Also in line with what I said earlier, I think the words 'disgusted' and 'demonizing' in this context are hyperbole and that this was a Discord-based disagreement that didn't really need to become anything more than it was in the moment. Though I will say I think it was ill-advised and counter-productive of those who chose to go to the Niffler discord just to start trouble and deliberately try to get banned - I never endorsed that for the Fandom situation, I didn't endorse it for this situation and I will certainly discouraging anyone else from doing things like that in the future.
This post got away from me in length. At the end of the day, I hold no personal ill-will toward you, Allack or Chuck. And if you ever feel like joining our Discord community again, you are certainly welcome back. I hope to see you again soon.
