For someone who does not know what is ExtraQuest, it is 'somebody' who is making homebrew material a selling it through platforms like Etsy and other similar ones using the name "ExtraQuest" in his products. Despite if you like or not his work (I don't), I have nothing to complain about that, but honestly I have not followed his practices too much until now, and it looks like ExtraQuest has created problems to the community other times before.
However, this person has been recently trying to sell part of the translation to English of the Japanese version of classic HeroQuest, a fanmade work which was done and shared years ago in this very forum, a translation and editing project that I led in collaboration with other legendary Inn members. The resulting files of this fanmade project were always shared by free on this forum for everyone interested, but always clearly indicating that they were only shared for private use and selling them was not allowed in any case.
Well, ExtraQuest posted the first advert selling this work on Etsy around 27th of February and promoted it at least through facebook (many people saw it then). When I saw his adverts I tried to contact him privately via facebook adverting him that he was not authorized to sell such work. Since he did not answered my messages, some fans and myself opened several complaints in Etsy website and I also tried to contact him via other third parties asking for its inmediate removal. The result of all this was that as far as I know ExtraQuest finally declined and removed the article from Etsy. Nothing more happened after this, so attending to a fair and proportional play, no further actions were taken from my side against ExtraQuest. Everyone can make a mistake, sometime, I think, this is basically hobby after all (at least for me).
But after this, approximately one month later, like if nothing had happened, around 18th of March, ExtraQuest posted again the same advert in another second hand website, which I will not mention here to not give him more publicity. This time, myself and a group of fans again opened complaints in the new website asking for the advert removal, which was finally removed in the platform.
However, one day after that, the 19th of March, ExtraQuest posted again the same advert in the same website. Advert which was again removed after the action of myself and a group of fans.
Well, at such very moment, of course I had enough proofs to understand that this person was not respecting myself, nor the fans community, nor the good and fair obvious practices. Everything looked that he was going to post it and try to sell it many more times if I we don't do anything else, so I finally thought convinient to inform the community about his attitude and why I think nobody should buy anything from ExtraQuest.
Then, I wrote the following manifest and posted it everywhere I thought should be posted to inform as many people as possible:
- A manifest about ExtraQuest:
Dear all. Due to the latest unfortunate events, I am forced to tell you the following: PLEASE DO NOT BUY ANYTHING FROM EXTRAQUEST.
ExtraQuest has been recently selling stuff previously made and shared by free by other fans without any authorisation to do it nor crediting the work done by others. In this case I am talking about the translation I did of the Japanese version of HeroQuest board game which ExtraQuest was selling on Etsy. Days before writing this manifest, he was warned and he removed the advert, but after this, the advert appeared again in another website of second hand products, which was again removed yesterday after several complaints from other fans. However today the advert is again in the the same website created with a new user profile. Moreover, ExtraQuest owner has not apologized in any one of those cases, which in my opinion makes his attitude even more miserable.
These shameless actions are totally unrespectful with the fans of HeroQuest and with the hobby. Moreover, ExtraQuest is using the HQ logo on his adverts, which is also something unauthorized by the logo owners.
People who steal or copy work from others without permission to sell those creations MUST KNOW that they are creating lots of problems to the Fans Community. I know many people afraid of sharing their creations thanks to those who are only thinking on their pockets. I would like to see a rich and healthy Community so please, be true Heroes and not buy any kind of this material, it is the best way to fight against this plague, otherwise every fan will be losing a big part of the hobby.
Thank you so much for reading and considering my words. I am sure all of us will take benefit of it.
HispaZargon.-
I can say the huge majority of people on Facebook groups supported the manifest, however surprisingly there were two who didn't (I guess with hidden interests to do it) and started to defend what ExtraQuest was doing, like if I was not telling the truth or like if the work being sold by ExtraQuest was something created by him... well, it is true that ExtraQuest changed a bit the art cover and the intro of the book, but I encourage you to interprete it by yourselves if this is a copied work or not, here you have a screenshot of the advert:
Exactly the same text, the same editing, the same type of font... as the files I posted in the forum.
Thanks to our forum-mates moderators of the Facebook group, fortunatelly this person is not there anymore, but if you find any link about this or other products you suspect have been stolen from other fans, I encourage you to don't hesitate to inmediatelly open a complaint in the corresponding website which it is being sold and privately advert me or other fans which could also complaint it or take whatever actions are needed to stop him. We should all together stop these undesired practices, we all will win with it I think.
Thank you much, Heroes!
