As this is a rather one-sided story, I'm inclined to disagree based on my experience with them.

Me and a buddy of mine are really big CAH fans, and we had been playing on a set of cards that he printed and cut at that point. We had also been meaning to start a project together, so to test the waters, we started working on a digital version of CAH that would be open sourced and could be freely enjoyed by everyone.

I made the wise decision to reach out and get their blessing before we really began working on it, and one of the founders replied in short order, essentially telling us that we couldn't go ahead with our project because they wanted to control what was released. It's been a while since the correspondence happened, so please excuse my memory, but it was something to that effect.

However, they were very courteous and concise the entire time, and were not even close to being rude. So I find your account a bit hard to believe.

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.

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

Unless you're playing Rejection Therapy: http://rejectiontherapy.com

I'm shocked--shocked!--that the guys behind Cards Against Humanity responded rudely to your attempt to piggyback off their idea.

Here's an idea: go build your own brand!

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

I did not say anything about money, but the fact that you read that into my comment speaks volumes.

Come up with your own idea instead of trying to ride the coattails of something that is already a huge hit. I'm sure they have plenty of ideas and projects to work on without having to give you a cut of it.

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

Yeah, that comment was unintentionally hilarious...

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.

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

As far as I know, the guys don't have a top-down structure, so they're unable to make calls like that individually - and besides, they're hustlers. They made CaH in-house, bootstrapped, and entirely by-hand. It's not narcissistic to want to do things yourself, but it is possible to erroneously think that "anyone can do it". I've sensed a bit of that from the founders, but honestly - it's motivational for me to hear that, and while I would hope not to be dismissive or inflated if I had similar success, I also certainly think we need more people saying, "Why the hell not just do it yourself? Why raise money? Build it tomorrow!"

Also, you were expecting something other than vulgarity from the founders of a game like that? They have a brand to uphold, after all. I don't think it's necessary to be rude, but that's precisely in line with their entire "brand voice".

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 :(

I'm curious what they said to you or how they were rude.

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.

This does not sound rude at all to me. I don't understand the position that someone should be accepting of you wanting to "partner" with them by default.

I don't know if your problem is with the content or the tone. If it's the content, they've pretty much just restated "BY-NC-SA". If it's the tone... these are the people who made Cards Against Humanity. Honestly, what did you expect?

PS: If anyone offered to help me "build my brand" on a CC project, I'd tell them to sod off too. No offense.

Well, I guess that explains why Pretend You're Xyzzy is called what it is...

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.

Most likely they have zero interest in any kind of "partnership", and you're far from the first one to ask. Think of how many similar requests they've had to field..

That's unfortunate. I have the opposite anecdote - they've been extremely kind and responsive every time I've been in touch.

I might take your post at face value, but I know the Cards guys are currently working on releasing a CBS-property branded expansion pack. If CBS' guys can can do it, I have to question your pitch. It sounds like you're on the other end of trope where the "idea guy" goes to programmer with lame idea; maybe the idea was even good but something else in the message that proved it would never work.

It's a real shame too. It will go out of style in a year or two and, gasp, maybe these people will have to get real jobs or start a real company! Assholes.

With a grudge like that, who's the one full of themselves now? They didn't follow the standard business song and dance. So what? Who cares? I'd might even say "good on them" if I knew the full situation.

start a real company

Yeah! Their product isn't ruthless data harvesting. What are they, babies?