Tag Archives: boycott

Czech Games Responds to the Harry Potter Codenames Controversy!

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Czech Games is the home of Codenames, one of the most recognizable board game brands on the market today. It has been licensed dozens of times to include different pop culture properties, and it is the lifeblood of a smaller board game publisher.

And they just crashed into a wave of pro-LGBTQIA+ sentiment after announcing their new release.

Codenames: Back to Hogwarts.

Now, you may wonder what the big deal is. After all, this isn’t even the first Harry Potter-themed Codenames game. One was released years ago.

Well, in case you’re unfamiliar, in the intervening years between the release of that game and the release of this new one, J.K. Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter books, has revealed herself to be an anti-trans zealot.

She has been on a campaign for years against the trans community (and LGBTQIA+ people, and virtually anyone else who stands up to her bigotry), and publicly celebrated laws in England that curtail the rights of trans individuals.

Moreover, she has promised that she will continue to use the money she earns from licensing Harry Potter to harm people.

Czech Games experienced a deluge of negative comments and feedback (as well as calls to boycott the company’s products), and has spent the last week or so promising to reassess.

To be honest, most in the board game community expected nothing to come from this. LOTS of companies still cut licensing deals with Harry Potter, like LEGO, and especially with the new TV show coming, there’s going to be more of this.

So I was pleasantly surprised when the company released the following statement:

We are all devastated that the project we were so excited to share with you caused harm instead of joy. We have been working to bring you the best possible games for years, and just like our other titles, we worked diligently to bring you this latest title, too.

In our excitement about creating a game within a universe many of us still treasure, we failed to see how that universe no longer brings joy to others. Over time, the harmful views of the story’s creator have escalated into harmful actions. We apologize unreservedly for not doing more to consider that possibility, and for subsequently announcing the game without taking preemptive actions to mitigate the pain it would cause.

Many of you have expressed your understandable anger, pain, and disappointment through a variety of platforms. Frankly, we were not prepared for the volume of the response. As a result, multiple accounts and comments were blocked or muted that should not have been. We would never want anyone experiencing the pain this situation has caused to then feel like they are being silenced. So for that, too, we want to sincerely apologize.

Like the world we live in, CGE is made up of individuals with various backgrounds, gender identities, sexual orientations, and belief systems. None of us would ever want to take actions that would hurt or restrict the rights of another human being. We commit to remaining supportive of an inclusive and welcoming community of gamers. We believe in the rights of all people to have their own identity, and we reject hate and bigotry in all their forms. Trans rights are human rights.

With the above in mind, and after many heartfelt and vital discussions both internally and with members of the affected community, we have decided to donate 100% of the profit from this game to appropriate charitable organizations. We will ensure that an amount equal to or greater than the fee paid to license this product will go directly to organizations that provide support for the trans community.

We evaluate profits and make charitable-giving decisions each December, and we will continue using this annual process to direct the game’s profits. We will listen to recommendations from the community to help guide our choices of organizations that provide support for the trans community. Our goal is to select those that offer direct, practical help to people in need — for example, services similar to the emergency hotline that was recently discontinued.

At CGE, we are committed to making decisions that come from the heart in everything we do. We opened discussions with members of the affected communities and we came together as a whole company to find a way forward that was a genuine reflection of our values and desire to do the right thing. We are sorry for the time it took us to communicate our path forward, but we hope you see that we did so with the care and consideration that you all deserve.

I think it’s the best we could have hoped for. An acknowledgment of the harm caused, a promise to do better, and a tangible response that the audience will be able to track.

Boycotts work, speaking up works, and I’m so proud of the board game community for making noise and pushing back, leading to a turnaround like this.

There is no ethical consumption of Harry Potter material, given J.K. Rowling’s intentions. If she makes a single dime from you, it will go towards hurting others. That’s simply the facts as presented.

And it’s entirely possible that there would be huge costs and even legal consequences if Czech Games didn’t fulfill the agreement they made over the HP license.

So this feels like the most positive outcome going forward. Czech Games isn’t a huge company like LEGO. If you don’t buy HP LEGOs, or stop buying LEGOs entirely out of protest, the company probably won’t notice. (You should STILL speak up, of course.)

But Czech Games will. Most board game companies are small, and profit margins are often razor-thin. A PR disaster like this could easily end a board game company.

I don’t look forward to all the HP nonsense we’re going to hear as the show looms closer, but I’m grateful that the board game community stood up, and Czech Games listened.

Here’s hoping we see more of that in the future.

Happy gaming, everyone.

Puzzle Plagiarism, Part 3: Parker Out

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After months of nothing, things are suddenly moving forward with the Universal Uclick/USA Today puzzle plagiarism scandal.

A quick recap: Programmer Saul Pwanson and constructor Ben Tausig uncovered a pattern of unlikely repeated entries in the USA Today and Universal crosswords, both of which are edited by Timothy Parker.

Eventually, more than 65 puzzles were determined to feature “suspicious instances of repetition” with previously published puzzles in the New York Times and other outlets, with hundreds more showing some level of repetition.

Parker “agreed to temporarily step back from any editorial role for both USA Today and Universal Crosswords” in March.

Last week, there was finally a new development, as Universal Uclick stated that they’d confirmed “some” of the allegations against Parker, and he’d be taking a three-month leave of absence.

That underwhelming semi-admission of Parker’s guilt led to calls for a boycott of USA Today and Universal Uclick, and many other game companies and puzzle constructors have followed suit.

So where are we now?

Well, as reported by Oliver Roeder of FiveThirtyEight, Christopher Mele of the New York Times, and Deb Amlen of Wordplay, Timothy Parker is out as editor of the USA Today crossword.

According to Gannett, who publishes USA Today:

No puzzles that appear in Gannett/USA TODAY NETWORK publications are being edited by Timothy Parker nor will they be edited by Timothy Parker in the future.

This still leaves some important details up in the air. For one thing, Parker is still employed by Universal Uclick, even if USA Today and Gannett won’t be using any puzzles he’s touched.

We also don’t know who will be taking his place providing puzzles for USA Today and other Gannett publications.

According to Oliver Roeder:

Fred Piscop, who has been interim editor, told me that his position was temporary unless he was officially informed otherwise, and that there was nothing else he could tell me at this point. A call to Universal Uclick was not returned.

Clearly things are far from settled for Parker, Universal Uclick, and USA Today.

Regarding the #gridgate boycott, one of the outspoken organizers had this to say:

As far as we can tell, USA Today and its parent company Gannett just vowed not to use puzzles edited by Timothy Parker ever again. That bold statement — sure, months late, but welcome nonetheless — was all we were looking for. If they stick to their word, we’ll stop our boycott. We can’t claim credit for the result, but we can say that our friends shining a flashlight on the wrongdoing did help get USA Today to speak out publicly and settle the score.

We’re maintaining the boycott of Universal Uclick, though. They’re continuing to employ someone they’ve admitted is a plagiarist—someone who apparently plagiarized our friends’ work. And just because USA Today isn’t buying Parker’s puzzles doesn’t mean no one else will. We can’t even be sure if the person editing the puzzles isn’t Parker, because he’s made a habit of hiding behind pseudonyms. So we’ll keep this boycott going until we’re sure they’ve got a plan for puzzles that aren’t edited by someone they think is a plagiarist.

Uclick, the ball’s in your court.

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