So, this is something that a lot of people have been asking about over the past few months, and apparently a lot of people have gotten the wrong idea and apparently there's been a lot of rumours flying around, so I figured I should set the record straight.
Strap yourselves in guys, it’s going to be a long and bumpy ride. (Note that I'm only including the parts of the story that I think are relevant, so if you want the whole story, feel free to check out the links so you can see everyone's POV and not just mine.)
(Also, disclaimer: This is in no way an attempt to cause animosity between the two sites, or harassment of the site or any individual. Like mizal so aptly put it, “The idea is to look, but don't touch. Treat their threads respectfully, like an exhibit at a zoo.”)
So, it all started back in January on a thread called “Censorship in Interactive Fiction” https://forum.choiceofgames.com/t/censorship-in-interactive-fiction/47760/86
On this thread, I gave my two cents and basically said that I think it's fine if readers avoid topics that they find triggering, but they shouldn't try to dictate what the author writes. The thread eventually got locked, but the discussion continued in a thread called “Dark Themes, Controversy and Why Meaning Matters” https://forum.choiceofgames.com/t/dark-themes-controversy-and-why-meaning-matters/47861
Here, I said the following:
To this comment, Jason Hill, the founder of CoG, responded with this:
The discussion went on from there:
At this point, I muted the topic so that I wouldn’t get any more notifications if people replied to my posts. Would’ve been nice if it all ended there, but unfortunately, it didn’t. At this point, Jason split the topic and created a new thread called “Being Better Internet/Forum Citizens” (https://forum.choiceofgames.com/t/being-better-internet-forum-citizens/47971/11) In which my first post was the starting point. He then followed up with this:
Since the topic was split, I started getting notifications again, and after reading the thread, I responded with:
Now, at this point I had been getting some support from some of the members of CoG. Here are some of the private messages I received (names have been blurred out incase they want to stay anonymous.)
Also, Moxie, another member of CoG, made a new thread in the CYS forums called “To Hell with COG” (http://chooseyourstory.com/forums/the-lounge/message/24816). This is what she said:
Eventually, both Mizal and Bucky also said that they would no longer be buying any games… Now, a LOT of stuff was said on the CoG threads, and on the CYS threads, and I generally tried to persuade people that Jason wasn’t as bad as he was coming across, that CoG was a good company to write for, and to convince people not to boycott the site/company... That said, I did it with my usual inappropriate CYS humour (as I have warned many people on CoG, we’re all a bunch of immature edge-lords over here.) It ended with me saying the following:
... To be fair, saying that Jason "sounds like a twat" probably wasn't the smartest thing to say, considering I was still writing for Hosted Games at that point, but honestly, I figured it was a pretty tame insult (especially by CYS standards) and I didn't think anything would come of it... ... ... Judging by what followed, I don't think Jason was impressed.
So, shortly after all this happened, I sent CoG a couple of emails. One asking questions about what was and wasn't acceptable content for a Hosted Game, and another regarding a game called "Gladiator: Road to the Colosseum", which I approached because at least part of that game appeared to be plagiarising the original Price of Freedom: Innocence Lost, which was written back in 2014. Here’s the link for details: https://forum.choiceofgames.com/t/gladiator-road-to-the-colosseum/26462/785
I just want to make it especially clear to everybody that I do not (and have never) had any problem with the author. As soon as I contacted him about it, he agreed to edit all the scenes that I thought were too similar. As the game is now, I’m sure that everyone who plays it will agree that his game doesn’t bare that much of a resemblance to Price of Freedom anymore (with the exception of them being the same genre). It’s a really good game from what I’ve seen so far, and I really hope it does well.
With all that out of the way, I didn’t get a response to my emails after a few days, so I sent this message to Mary.
Mary then added Jason and RETowers to the conversation and responded. This is the conversation that followed:
I’ll be honest, I found the instant dismissal of my concerns really surprising, especially considering the fact that I spent hours trying to convince people that Choice of Games was a professional company. I mean, I understand that the job is stressful and all, but… Still.
Either way, that conversation wasn't really the problem. The problem is what happened next.
Almost immediately after this conversation, I found that my WIP thread for The Price of Freedom: Innocence Lost had been locked for copyright reasons, and that the game had been removed from the Hosted Games publishing queue.
Road to the Colosseum was not locked or removed from the publishing queue. (I certainly didn’t want it to be, just pointing out the fact that when two issues of copyright were brought up to staff, one game was locked and removed from the publishing queue, and the other wasn’t.)
I also received these three emails, all at the same time. (Blurring out email addresses for obvious reasons. Also, blurring some words for spoilers):
I've got to say I find it a bit ironic that he told me, "the accusation of plagiarism is a serious business" for expressing genuine and reasonable concerns, right after locking my thread and declaring my own game unpublishable because I plagiarized... Well... Myself? (Just want to clarify that I did explain about the original game to another member of staff, and showed her the rules of the Spring Thing competition, and she said that the game was expanded enough that there shouldn't be a problem... But Jason said that didn't apply to the CYS terms and conditions.)
At this point, after thinking it over a lot, I decided that it wasn't in my best interests to write for the Hosted Games label anymore since, firstly, Jason had told me that it was unlikely they would be willing to publish the sequels and, more importantly, I got the impression that Jason had a personal grudge against me and was going to make things difficult for me if I continued writing for HG. So, instead I decided to publish the expanded game here on CYS... I finished the game, published it and everything was good. I was quite happy to leave the whole unfortunate mess behind me and not talk about it anymore... But then came the icing on the cake. ^_^
Since a lot of my fan-base is over on CoG, and since the original thread about Price of Freedom is still locked, I decided to make a new thread on CYS, just to let people know that the game was finished and give them the link to it. The thread contained the following trigger warning:
Warning: Before you guys read on, I want to let you all know that this game may not be suitable for younger players. It contains extreme violence, strong language and distressing themes, including; Slavery, Child Abuse, Physical and Emotional Abuse, Sexual Abuse, Racism and Sexism. Please do not play if any of these subjects might distress you.
Literally within seconds, the threads was deleted. I asked one of the mods about it, and they said that the thread was deleted by Jason. Since I didn't see anything that could've possibly been wrong with the thread, I messaged Jason about it and this is how the conversation went:
... So yeah, that pretty much brings my story to an end. Definitely made the right call in deciding not to write for CoG anymore, since apparently, having a trigger warning is a good enough reason to delete someone's thread and refuse to let them promote their games on the forums.
Either way, everything worked out fine for me. I'm very happy being back on CYS. Still planning on using CoG, since I've got quite a few friends and fans over there. Will probably keep updating the Lawless Ones thread (assuming that one doesn't also get locked or deleted.) But all in all... It's been a very interesting little adventure. Will keep you all updated if anything else happens. 
