WB make the Shadow Of War Memorial DLC Free For Everyone

[Master Disaster]

Yep, after the whole thing turned into a huge mess for them and the internet called them out on it they've finally done what they should have done from day one and made the thing free instead saying they will donate the money to his family.

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A Middle-earth: Shadow of War [official site] DLC character created to memorialise and fundraise for a deceased member of the development team will now be given free to all players, Warner Bros. have decided after it raised a stink. Styled after executive producer Michael Forgey, who passed away in 2016, the Forthog Orcslayer is a friendly NPC who was initially sold to benefit Forgey’s family. But a communication mistake suggested WB would only donate money from purchases in the US, keeping money from elsewhere for themselves (WB later clarified that wasn’t the case). After the memorial became a mess, WB will make the Forthog Orcslayer free and themselves donate money direct to the family.

 

The Forthog Orcslayer was sold for £3.99, with most of it going to Forgey’s family (and the rest to cover development costs, WB said). He’s a friendly orc NPC who could appear when players needed help, cutting down enemies for a bit with his guitar-shaped axe (Forgey played in bands, see).

To be fair WB did later clarify that they won't be making anything from the sales at all but by then the internet had done it's thing

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But the DLC’s Steam page specified that WB would only donate money within the USA, minus six excluded certain states. Asked whether this meant purchases from elsewhere wouldn’t count towards donations to Forgey’s family, the game’s official Twitter responded “You are right about that, but you can also help by spreading the word.” While WB later tried to make clear that they wouldn’t profit from Forthog sales, the incorrect message had already spread and caused a stink.

 

Last night, Warner Bros. announced that they will make the Forthog Slayer free for all players, refund purchases, and make an unspecified donation “directly to the Forgey family.”

 

They also said that the weirdness behind the awful miscommunication was down to avoiding potentially breaking marketing laws:

Quote from WB

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“Although we decided to donate all profits to the family, we only planned to actively promote this donation in the U.S. (excluding certain states based on their charitable promotion laws). We hoped this approach would raise as much money as possible for the Forgey family in compliance with the law. Our decision not to promote the donation outside the U.S. (even though we intended to donate the money) caused many to question where funds from other territories were going. Answering that direct question itself could have triggered compliance obligations or put us in violation of cause marketing laws in some of the 241 territories in which the content was available.

 

“Additionally, a factually incorrect tweet from our team exacerbated the confusion by stating that international funds would not be going to the family. For absolute clarity; our intention was always to give all profits from the DLC, worldwide to the Forgey family.”

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2017/09/27/middle-earth-shadow-of-war-forthog-slayer-memorial-dlc

 

So I guess they listened to TB & Jim Sterling and did what they needed to save at least some dignity from the situation. They basically lied and said what they needed to say to save face.

[Matu20]

Greedy fucks learned a good lesson.

[AHaskin14]

Not sure why it turned into a mess, I liked the original layout assuming everything they said was true, in that they would not profit

[79wjd]

I actually think this is ridiculous. I see no issue with them only donating part of the sale of the DLC and using whatever cut they keep to cover development costs and sales expenses. The only complaint I had was that it appeared to be limited to just US sales, which apparently wasn't actually the case -- whether or not that's true will never be known, but I would be willing to believe it would have been donated and the original tweet was incorrect -- why would they choose to promote the DLC as a donation in the US (which they didn't have to do at all -- they didn't have to make the DLC in homage of Fogey) and then not elsewhere. I find it hard to believe it would have increased sales any meaningful amount, so i doubt that would be a motive.

[goodtofufriday]

What the heck man. This is one of the few time I side with the publisher/developer. They said all funds go to the family.

 

This just ruins it for the future. This could have been a great way to do funding for those in need.

[shermantanker]

good on them

[AdmiralMeowmix]

They were going to donate the thousands of dollars the DLC would have made to the family but unfortunately people can't resist hating on everything they can without taking the basic decency to look into WHY it was like that. Laws prohibitted them and they didn't want to deal with the hundreds of papers of paperwork they would have to deal with because so many places have specific laws on donations and sales relating to DLC and video games.

 

That approach would have made the DLC available in as many regions as it possibly could be, but TB (who honestly has been a douche to many publishers recently even small ones) didn't like the fact they had to be vague. I thought he of all people would understand the laws surrounding it but nope he hitched a ride on the hate train with everyone else.

 

Now all the Family gets is probably 1/6th of the original profit from those who decide to donate directly and a random sum from WB of which will most likely be WAY lower than what they would have made otherwise. People just cried about WB not realizing Monolith were the ones doing it, and probably fought to even get the DLC out in the first place. Monolith has been nothing but truthful and doing their best to deliver with their games and people couldn't look past the fact WB is their publisher and ignored everything Monolith tried to say.

 

 

[Jito463]

6 hours ago, goodtofufriday said:

What the heck man. This is one of the few time I side with the publisher/developer. They said all funds go to the family.

 

This just ruins it for the future. This could have been a great way to do funding for those in need.

To be fair, they said a lot of things, some of which heavily implied that they were keeping the profits from sales outside 44 of the 50 states.

 

A for effort, F for implementation.  They really didn't think this through very well.

 

*EDIT*
In my opinion, they shouldn't have made such a big deal about the donation aspect.  If they had trivialized it, this whole incident wouldn't have become the fiasco that it did.

Edited September 27, 2017 by Jito463
Additional thoughts

[Trik'Stari]

Feels like they could have done this from the get go, considering how much money they already have.

[MoonSpot]

So the family loses a loved one, devs lose a colleague and now they get kicked when they're down and no money goes to the family because of people childishly complaining...

How is this turn good in any way?

[chilicheeseburger]

They could have just gone with a donation model here. No reason for complaints while still raising money for the family.

[AdmiralMeowmix]

2 hours ago, MoonSpot said:

So the family loses a loved one, devs lose a colleague and now they get kicked when they're down and no money goes to the family because of people childishly complaining...

How is this turn good in any way?

 

1 hour ago, chilicheeseburger said:

They could have just gone with a donation model here. No reason for complaints while still raising money for the family.

WB and Monolith WILL be donating to the family personally and people can donate to their youcaring. It will most likely not even be half of what they would have made originally but at least it will reach them sooner.