JaWoodle and The Fun Pimps, and the Price of Selling Out

Most evenings, JaWoodle is playing somewhere in my house.

Sometimes it is a new episode. Most times, it is an older 7 Days to Die playthrough I haven’t seen yet because I only recently discovered this Muppet on YouTube—and I have a lot of catching up to do. Josh yells, panics, makes a decision no reasonable person would make, and somehow survives—or dies in a way that was painfully obvious to everyone except him.

Meanwhile, I finish the last of my work emails or settle in to work on my own business. His videos have become part of the rhythm of my day: work, more work, and an Australian Muppet screaming at zombies in the background.

He makes me laugh. He makes me groan. And he regularly makes me wonder how one person can be so brilliant at designing a horde base and such an absolute disaster everywhere else.

More importantly, he makes me want to play.

JaWoodle Park alone has shown me more ways to build horde bases than I would ever have discovered by myself. His playthroughs have taken me through Points of Interest I might otherwise have passed without a second glance. I have learned where to look, what to avoid, and how spectacularly wrong everything can go when you get a little too confident.

Josh has never been an employee of The Fun Pimps. He is not part of their marketing department. Yet he has spent years doing something their marketing department could never do: making 7 Days to Die feel like a place people want to return to.

When the Videos Disappeared

Then, on July 20, Josh posted a statement.

Several of his recent videos had been removed following copyright claims made by The Fun Pimps. He disagreed with the basis of the claims and was pursuing the processes available to him. Once he had received further legal advice, he intended to give his audience a factual account of what happened.

That careful, restrained statement made me furious.

There are still facts we do not know. There are claims circulating about an unintended early build, unfinished features, and requests to remove footage, but Josh has not yet told the full story. Neither The Fun Pimps nor Behaviour Interactive has provided a public explanation that answers the important questions. Until they do, rumor must remain rumor.

What is not rumor is that The Fun Pimps made copyright claims against one of the creators who helped keep their game visible, exciting, and profitable.

It is difficult to imagine a more shortsighted response.

Whatever disagreement occurred behind closed doors, there were other options. TFP could have explained that the footage contained unfinished material. They could have asked Josh to add a disclaimer. They could have handled the dispute privately or ended his access to future preview builds. Instead, they chose a process capable of removing his work, taking away his revenue, and putting his channel at risk.

Meet Big Daddy B

And all of this happened only months after The Fun Pimps sold themselves to Behaviour Interactive—the Canadian gaming company I have begun calling “Big Daddy B.”

To be clear, we do not yet know whether Behaviour ordered, encouraged, or even approved these claims. TFP’s name is on them, and TFP must own that decision unless evidence shows otherwise. But Behaviour owns TFP now. When a company buys another company, it does not get to claim the valuable intellectual property and then pretend it has nothing to do with the ugliness performed under its corporate roof.

The March 2026 announcement repeatedly described the acquisition as a “partnership,” which is a much warmer and friendlier word than purchase. But Behaviour did not merely offer TFP a helping hand. It acquired the company.

According to TFP co-founder Richard Huenink, the studio knew it needed a partner capable of supporting its ambitions, and Behaviour was that partner. That wording suggests TFP went looking for outside backing, although it does not prove which company initiated the first conversation. Either way, The Fun Pimps were not kidnapped by a corporate giant. They chose this arrangement.

The announcement promised more resources, faster development, and no change in creative leadership. It praised the passionate community that helped turn 7 Days to Die into a game with more than 20 million sales. Behaviour said the acquisition would help “reward” that community.

Four months later, videos belonging to one of that community’s most recognizable creators have been removed at TFP’s request.

That is one hell of a reward.

The Promises Are Always the Same

Unfortunately, this story is not unusual. It is part of a much larger pattern: a smaller company creates something people love, builds a loyal community around it, and eventually sells itself to a company with deeper pockets. The buyer promises resources, stability, and continued independence.

First come the promised efficiencies. What follows is often far less appealing: layoffs, canceled projects, closures, restrictions, and legal departments. Then everyone acts surprised when the thing people loved begins losing the very qualities that made it worth buying.

Behaviour Has Been Here Before

Behaviour Interactive does not have to look outside its own history for an example.

In 2022, Behaviour acquired Midwinter Entertainment, a small game studio working on what would eventually become Project T, a cooperative shooter set in the Dead by Daylight universe. Two years later, Behaviour cancelled the game and closed Midwinter.

The official explanation was as polished as these explanations always are. Behaviour had conducted a “diligent risk assessment” and found the results unsatisfactory from commercial and product perspectives. The decision, the company assured everyone, did not reflect the talent of the Midwinter team.

Of course it didn’t.

Apparently, neither the talent of the people losing their jobs nor the years they spent creating something—and trusting the company that acquired them—has anything to do with it. It is simply a regrettable business decision made after careful consideration: corporate language carefully chosen to erase the human beings living with the consequences.

None of this means Behaviour intends to close The Fun Pimps. 7 Days to Die has sold more than 20 million copies, giving TFP far more protection than an unfinished spinoff could offer. But Behaviour’s history does mean that players are entitled to be skeptical when told an acquisition will provide nothing but additional resources, faster development, and continued independence.

We have heard those promises before.

The Pattern Is Bigger Than One Studio

Bandcamp heard them when Epic Games bought the artist-friendly music platform in 2022. For years, Bandcamp had provided independent musicians with something increasingly rare: a way to sell their work directly to listeners without surrendering nearly everything to an enormous streaming company. Epic promised that Bandcamp would continue operating independently.

Eighteen months later, Epic sold it to music-licensing company Songtradr. Roughly half of Bandcamp’s staff lost their jobs, including its entire union bargaining committee and large portions of the editorial, engineering, and customer-support teams.

The marketplace survived. The address still worked. The logo remained. But many of the people responsible for making Bandcamp feel human were gone.

Rooster Teeth endured an even longer corporate journey. What began as a small group of friends making Red vs. Blue passed through a succession of owners until it became part of Warner Bros. Discovery. In 2024, after 21 years of shows, podcasts, conventions, and community building, Warner Bros. Discovery shut it down.

A year later, co-founder Burnie Burns acquired the Rooster Teeth brand and some of its remaining assets. The brand had traveled through the machinery of corporate entertainment only to be rescued by one of the people who helped create it.

Then there is Humble Bundle, another company whose identity was rooted in independent creators and community goodwill. Media conglomerate Ziff Davis acquired it in 2017. In 2024, all 36 employees of its indie-publishing division, Humble Games, were laid off.

The company called it a restructuring.

Former employees called it a closure.

The independent developers relying on Humble Games were left trying to determine who—if anyone—was still supporting their launches, updates, and console releases. Once again, the corporate entity survived on paper while the actual people who gave it knowledge, relationships, and purpose disappeared.

What They Are Really Buying

This is the trick of modern corporate consolidation. The buyer is not purchasing only a name, a product, or a collection of intellectual property. It is purchasing years of trust it did not earn.

It is buying the loyalty of musicians who believed in Bandcamp, viewers who grew up with Rooster Teeth, developers who trusted Humble Games, and players who stayed with 7 Days to Die through more than a decade of changing alphas, broken promises, brilliant ideas, and spectacular nonsense.

The community is included in the valuation—but not in the negotiations.

Companies hand the games players love to new corporate parents without giving those players any say in the decision. Creators can only hope the relationships they built will still matter after the sale, while employees watch the culture they created become another asset in somebody else’s portfolio.

The contract is signed, the announcement is filled with words such as partnership, opportunity, and growth, and the rest of us are expected to transfer our loyalty along with the property.

But loyalty does not work that way.

Ma Bell and the Monopolies That Grow Back

We have been here before.

In 1984, the United States broke up AT&T—the telephone monopoly known as Ma Bell—into seven regional companies. The goal was to create competition, and for a time, it worked. Consumers gained more choices in long-distance service, new competitors entered the market, and long-distance rates fell.

Then the pieces began putting themselves back together.

The “Baby Bells” merged, acquired one another, and grew into new telecommunications giants. Southwestern Bell became SBC, bought several of its former siblings, and eventually purchased AT&T itself—then took its name. Bell Atlantic absorbed other companies and became Verizon.

We broke up Ma Bell, waited a few decades, and allowed much of it to rebuild itself.

Today, the same hunger for consolidation reaches far beyond telephone service. Disney acquired most of 21st Century Fox. Warner Bros. merged with Discovery after AT&T decided it no longer wanted the media empire it had assembled. Gaming conglomerates bought independent studios by the handful, only to close them, cancel their projects, and lay off thousands when expected investments failed to materialize.

When the Little Guy Pays the Price

Corporations present acquisitions as paths toward growth, promising greater efficiency while insisting they understand exactly what made their latest purchase special. Perhaps some do. Money and additional staff can save a struggling business or help a small studio accomplish things it could never manage alone. Selling is not automatically a betrayal, and remaining independent is not always possible.

But when fewer companies own more of what we watch, play, read, and listen to, they gain enormous power over the people who create those things—and over the smaller businesses trying to survive beside them. When one company controls the property, the platform, the marketing, and the lawyers, the “little guy” may technically have rights while lacking the money required to defend them.

Back to Josh

That brings me back to Josh.

We still do not know everything that happened between JaWoodle and The Fun Pimps. Josh has said he is receiving legal advice and intends to provide a factual account when he can. He is doing exactly what he should do, even if those of us watching from the sidelines would dearly love to start throwing flaming pitchforks.

But TFP’s name is on the copyright claims. Several of Josh’s videos have been removed. Those facts alone are enough to ask why a company that benefited from his work for years chose a response capable of harming his channel and livelihood.

Most nights, I will still sit down to finish my emails or work on my business with JaWoodle playing nearby. Maybe it will be Randomizer. Maybe it will be an old episode of JaWoodle Park. I will laugh, groan at the inevitable muppetry, and probably find myself wanting to play 7 Days to Die.

But that desire came from Josh—not from a corporate press release.

TFP may own 7 Days to Die. Behaviour may own TFP. But neither company owns the community that grew around the game, and neither owns the loyalty creators such as Josh earned one video, one ridiculous challenge, and one spectacularly questionable decision at a time.

I came to JaWoodle because of 7 Days to Die. I stayed because of Josh.

Wherever his channel goes from here, I’ll be there.