A Hop, Skip, and a Jobst

Hi, I specifically joined your Patreon BECAUSE you made that video. (I watched a reupload.) I've followed the Jobst/Completionist situation from the start, at first with skepticism and then with horror as it developed. I've lost sleep over it -- because I saw what was happening was wrong, and it seemed like no one else did. A lot of what you said in this video were conclusions I'd already come to based on my own cursory research, and by god it felt good not just to hear someone else say them, but to hear them from a lawyer. First video of yours I've seen, by the way. So, look, thanks for that, wish you hadn't taken the video down but I presume you have your reasons.

Skatche

You worked with the evidence SomeOrdinaryGamer and Karl presented. Karls defense of "I didn't present all my evidence" is pretty bad IMO and seeing people praise him and jump to his defense disappoints me immensely. The backlash in your community post comments compelled me to back the patreon. While I believe Jirard might be guilty, I'm not a fan of mob justice. Might be guilty is not the same as IS Guilty as we (in the US) live in a system of Innocent until Proven Otherwise. If they have a real case to make, they could've made it in the multiple videos they've made on the matter. If you can handle the mudslinging then feel free to post such content again. I appreciate your thoughts on the matter, and I hope this in some twisted way reminds Karl that he has a responsibility as a creator with clearly a lot of fans when making such lofty allegations.

Ursula Senpai

The big thing I think about the reaction is that the well is pretty much already poisoned. You could give the best legal argument ever but not only are they convinced that Jirard is guilty, they WANT Jirard to be guilty. They WANT him to go to jail. It's a really weird hatred. After all, Jirard and his family could have not formed the OHF, and they could have run Indieland as a for-profit event, making hundreds of thousands of dollars over years. In a different world, Jirard could have spend $600k on a yacht this year and no on would have cared. So at the very worse, what Jirard's negligance did was a 'less good' action than what he was going for. He's in a very odd situation where he's getting publically thrown to the jackals for escorting 5 grannies across the street when he was perfectly capable of escorting 7.... but he would have been fine if he escorted no grannies. Finally, I present to you this possibility. Jirard left the running of OHF to his family, and then found out that the money was just sitting in an account, was outraged, and knew that if this was found out, it would have destroyed his career. Jirard's family, however, who were more actively running OHF, were going with strategy of: Trying to gather a large enough amount to generate interest and donate the interest. Jirard, who also doesn't understand the law and just does his youtube channel where he plays games and talks about them, gets into fights with his family and pleads with them to just donate the money, he doesn't understand the strategy and rightfully knows that if word of this gets out he will be thrown to the wolves. So when Karl and Muta confront him in a call, he panicks and makes a bunch of uninformed statements and pleads with them not to go forward with this. All of that is not only plausible, I'd say it's likely, which means that Jirard and his family are in the clear.

I became a patron after seeing your community post on YouTube. I always appreciate your nuanced takes on topics such as why Nintendo is protective over its IPs and I really enjoyed this video as it gave me a whole new perspective to consider when it comes to the completionist drama. I also appreciate your commitment to the value of “innocent until proven guilty” . I saw your whole exchange on Reddit and I believe that you were very professional despite being unnecessarily attacked. That being said while it would be cool to see more videos like this one, I understand if you feel uncomfortable doing so. I respect your choice either way

Hey Moony! Long-time viewer, first-time patron here. I really appreciated your video on the topic, and would appreciate you doing more of this kind of thing. As a layman (not a lawyer) I was quite convinced by Karl's videos, and I'm really glad you shed some light on the situation with your expertise. I've also read through your conversation with Karl and the other comments on the subreddit. You took a lot of rude and unfair flack, even for points I thought were well made. For example, the section of your video on definitions was really well put, and as a layman I found it really helpful. Karl seems really backed into a corner on that point and unwilling to give it up - "a very paranoid bear" seems like an apt description. That being said, I think there were parts of the video that could have been better, and I think some of the pushback is valid. For example, when addressing the topic of WHY the money hadn't been moved, you speculated it was for an endowment. I appreciate the importance of endowments and would have been fine with that as a justification - if Jirard or Open Hand had ever mentioned it. Jirard and Open Hand provided three (different) explanations for why the money had not been moved, between the initial email exchange with Karl, the Discord call, and Jirard's response video. None of those explanations mentioned an endowment. There's interpreting people's statements charitably, which I agree with, and then there's pure speculation. I think your comments about the endowment fall into the latter category. That also affects your section on Karl and Muta taking away future money from dementia research - that's only true IF the plan was to do an endowment fund. Then there's the fact that a lot of people's anger over the whole controversy is more moral than legal - they're not mad that Jirard and Open Hand potentially broke the law per say, they're mad that they were mislead about what was being done with their money. I think including a bit at the end of your video stating that you're not MORALLY comfortable with the way Jirard handled the money (you said as much in reddit comments) would have gone a long way towards preventing the negative reaction you got. As is, a lot of people feel like you're letting Jirard off the hook, since you (mostly) exonerated him legally and didn't really touch on morality. I'd really appreciate a response from you after you listen to the Discord call, even if it's just "the Discord call didn't change my opinion." I understand not wanting to make a YouTube video, but even a Patreon post or YouTube community post would be appreciated. Most importantly, though - Happy New Year! I hope you have a great 2024.

Enraric

I was a bit annoyed when I first watched it, but I understand that you were being objective in your video. While it wasn't an attack on any party directly, I can definitely see why people got offended or felt the need to defend the parties that brought it to light. Would be best to leave a pinned comment if it hasn't happened already.

Blace