Cards Against Humanity has made more than $12 million

I'm an American Express cardholder and spend several hundred thousand dollars a year. If you're a small business, startup, someone I like, whatever, I go out of my way to pay you money with Dwolla or a debit card because of the fees. I'll even overnight a check if its a significant amount and I trust you.

But great for customers. I use my Amex on everything, and often won't shop where I know it won't be accepted. I just love the company.

Out of the us visa used to win that title. Not sure now.

This also makes me wonder what kind of deal Costco have... Since i doubt they bend to those things easily.

Wikimedia employs a lot of people, I personally do not donate because I believe they employ way too many. Also pretty much all costs are already covered by corporate sponsors like Google.

The cost of a single salary is the equivalent of dozens of servers in many situations.

Holy misunderstood Accountancy Batman !

I thought you were quoting the accounts of Cards Against Humanity - 1mm usd on Internet hosting seemed a bit much.

Disney's copyright lobbying suggests that your bitterness is completely appropriate. Ever wonder why the Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998 was nicknamed the "Mickey Mouse Protection Act"?

The thousand blank white cards version is pretty obvious from my description, although I should add that you can do this for question cards, and you can specify that players have to play more than one card.

As for the advanced judging concept, it is exactly the same as the original, right up until the judge makes a decision:

1. Judge plays the question card. They can do this however they like

2. players pick and play a card in secret from their hand, placing it face-down

3. Judge shuffles the pile a little, to make sure they don't know who played what

4. Judge views the cards

Original Apples to apples rules strict reading:

5. Judge reveals all the cards played

6. Judge announces that one is the winner

7. player who played it gets the question card as a point

Theatrical version:

The judge, in any order they like, describes why some cards are discarded, and others stay in the running:

A: ' "My first car" and "football" are weak compared to "cheese" and "the French revolution" '

B: 'I hated "My First car", so it's not that one!'

C: 'Hah, you canny bastard who played this, I can never resist "cheese" ' [1]

C: ' ewwwwww, not that kind of "cheese" pulls disgusted face ' other players laugh. One groans. Another doesn't get it

The game is about words, descriptions, and events. To just say the word on the card seems... so out of character? (Plus, the original box art featured a greek/roman character, so pretend you're a philosopher if you like, or a mad emperor :P)

[1] The actual classic amongst my friends is any that are physics related, due to being post-grads

I had this mostly written up, so I'm going to say pretty much what my sibling said in a different way :)

It's not about the ruleset so much as the players' attitudes.

There's a way to play Apples to Apples that's as a card game. You deal the cards, flip a topic, everyone puts up, the judge reveals the cards and picks a winner. It's pretty boring unless the cards themselves are hilariously lewd, hence CAH. (And I've played rounds of CAH this way that were just as boring.)

There's another way to play it, more like a role-playing game with the cards as a prop. The judging is a discursive experience played with the whole group. When the cards are revealed, due attention must be given to each one. "Fuzzy like teenagers. Fuzzy like... The Clinton administration? Fuzzy like herding cats, okay. Fuzzy like... Dinosaurs." Once all the cards are on the table, the judging begins. Unlike in the card game version, the cards which aren't relevant must be dealt with explicitly, and audience participation is encouraged.

"Dinosaurs just aren't fuzzy."

"What about pterodactyls?"

"Yeah, birds are technically dinosaurs."

"Okay, but birds aren't fuzzy, they're fluffy."

"Maybe it's fuzzy on the inside. Like dinosaurs have nice personalities."

If I'm hawking my own card, that's minus points. Or is that not my card, and I'm trying to sandbag it with praise? Complex interpersonal dynamics meet linguistics as every judge's turn becomes a little game to itself. And just wait until cards start to turn up that tie into previous rounds...

It requires the players be engaged and committed to playing with each other, rather than with the cards, but it's hopefully obvious how that's fun in a way that has little or nothing to do with the content of the cards themselves. So nothing against CAH or other forks, but people who think CAH is fun where A2A isn't probably don't understand what makes the concept fun in the first place.

I would imagine Apple would take it down quite quickly given how they shy away from even the most subtle of controversies.

Not to mention it is illegal or near illegal in a lot of locations (e.g. UK).

Is it really bad taste if the questionable combinations (and their assessment) are purely at the hands of players?

Put some time limits or let anyone judge, it keeps getting stuck on “Waiting For Others”.

Thanks!

We're "profitable". We're really happy with how the new site turned out. Having enough to keep the lights on an pay some friends to help out with the writing after only a month is a huge accomplishment.

I'm pretty curious about MoD too! We'll see what happens.

We don't make board games, we're just wildly passionate about them. Paul & Quinns started Shut Up & Sit Down so they could have fun reviewing and writing about board games. They just had a hard time figuring out how to make it sustainable.

I've been playing with technology surrounding gaming for the last three years or so(and gaming since I was little) so it was natural for us all to team up and build something together.

yeah, it's a pretty hilarious game. Especially when combined with copious amounts of beer and the right kind of friends. I think this actually shows that there may be a big market for non-politically correct games and "stuff" that big burdened corporations won't touch, but the market would be more than willing to gobble up.

"Pixelated bukkake?!? Sooooooooo random XD"

Comparing this game to Apples to Apples isn't really fair because the genius isn't in the formula (which is really basic) but in the content.

Ok, substitute to "South Park jokes". Same deal.

If you weren't aware, Family Guy is a fairly popular low-brow humor cartoon TV show. It's in the same category as The Simpsons or South Park.

I've played with white women (and one Hispanic woman) who also enjoyed it. I've never seen anyone not enjoy the game.

Most of the people I've played with are Jews, and the presence of cards like "Auschwitz" and "Nazis" isn't a problem. The game is only really unplayable for people who take themselves too seriously.

I love the game in small doses, but it's very obvious there wasn't much diversification in the team that made it. Not because it would have curbed the offensiveness, but because after two or three hours of playing [as happens in larger groups], and even with hundreds of cards and endless combinations, the formula of offensive card (either based on history, internet humor or shaming) + offensive card just isn't funny anymore and people become bored. They'd have benefited from including different folks so that the jokes were different and meant different things to different people. Part of the fun/unexpected educational aspect is learning what the cards are referring to if you don't know (forcing people to learn about things outside of their worldview in an effort to make them funnier is a great incentive).

As it stands, if you're not a gamer, aware of internet culture or you don't find tragedies hilarious, you may have a hard time finding enjoyment from it.

I (Hispanic) recently played with a group of Hispanic, black, old, young, and white people and it was hilarious/fun.

> Cards Against Humanity is fun because it lets you come out and say truly horrible things. Apples to Apples is fun because it lets you imply truly horrible things in really creative ways.

To each their own, but this is precisely why I hate Cards Against Humanity. It ruins the joke by being too blunt and predictable.

Perhaps this is out of the norm, but winning isn't relevant in the groups with which I have played the game. Laughing and having a good time until we are humored out is usually the point (we don't even keep score).

Our proposal was to replicate the CaH experience online without any commercial nature (no ads, fully free and open sourced) with the possibility of making it commercial at a later date together.

Their response basically dismissed us out of hand and included warnings regarding violating their copyright or using their name. I've never received such a reply to a very friendly partnership proposal.

FWIW, this is from their FAQ on their website, showing a little of their respect for anyone who wants to partner with them:

Do I have your permission to make some crappy Cards Against Humanity thing like an app?

Cards Against Humanity is available under a BY-NC-SA 2.0 Creative Commons license. That means you can use our content to make whatever, but you have to give us credit, you can’t profit from the use of our content (this means ad revenue is not allowed), and you have to share whatever you make in the same way we share it (this means you can’t submit our content to any app store). We own the name “Cards Against Humanity,” so you have to call your crappy thing something else.

As I said elsewhere, our idea was not commercial and no money would have been involved.

Some people do take any rejection, even fully polite and sincere rejection, as rude because rejection is not fun to receive.

It was rude in the sense that it included legal threats regarding copyright and they refused to entertain any sort of correspondence in the future. It was by far the most rude partnership request reply I have ever received.

Yes, my expectations were perhaps out of line. It didn't stop me from ceasing using their game and, after showing the reply to friends, their voluntary stop of play as well. We simply couldn't enjoy it anymore :(

Our product was not commercial in nature. Simply a way of helping to spread awareness of CaH as fans.

Fair comment except that cards against humanity is pretty much just riding the coattails of an already huge hit itself.

A lot of successful business partnerships can be described by "riding the coattails of a hit". If they're being straightforward and proposing a partnership, as opposed to (say) simply copying it, I don't see the problem.

You're right. I think the Midwest has a few advantages, which are (a) excellent universities and (b) low costs of living.

+1 for Minneapolis. I pay pretty close attention to the start up scene here and things are starting to move. The Minne* Organization (http://minnestar.org/) does some nice events.

Don't forget about Denver! Lots of interesting stuff going on here. Between Tech Stars and Galvanize, things are really amazing around here.

I added Minneapolis. I agree. It's a good choice.

Austin has traditionally been home to "lifestyle" firms. But there are increasingly firms which have VC funding (from Austin Ventures, etc)

VC-funded != VC-istan. There's a lot of overlap, obviously, but (a) plenty of VCs aren't assholes, and (b) there are good reasons to take VC.

VC-istan is a certain social hierarchy and its surrounding ecosystem. It's a certain game that is played where engineering, design, culture, and even human decency take a backseat to marketing and rent-seeking and ridiculous careerism (like technical pivots that make no engineering sense but support some flavor-of-the-month CTO protege's career goals).

I don't hate every VC-funded company, obviously. Who knows, in ten years I could be running one. I hate the VC darlings with unethical management and, for that, I only find the VCs to be indirectly responsible by being bad judges of character. (Then again, considering some of the companies I worked for, I don't think I'm a great judge of character either.)