WotC DMCAs ‘Stardew Valley’ BG3 Mod, Despite Larian’s Endorsement
from the baldur's-gatekeeper dept
There are obviously a wide range of philosophies companies have when it comes to both intellectual property and modding communities that tend to spring up around successful video games. Some are jealous protectors of all things IP, which is generally a giant mistake that limits the reach, the fun, and the engagement these companies should be having with their biggest fans. The other is one that is more lenient or even celebratory of the harmless use of these fan-works. But rarely do we see the dichotomy at work in one specific instance.
But rarely doesn’t mean never. You can see both philosophies at play in the case of a mod made for the hit game Stardew Valley, still kicking nearly a decade after release. The mod in question is called Baldur’s Village and consists of a new town to play in, along with the inclusion of a bunch of characters from another hit game, Baldur’s Gate 3.
Created by NexusMods user BV and uploaded on March 8, Baldur’s Village added over 20 characters from the 2023 GOTY winner to the farming sim, along with new locations, shops, special items, dynamic story events, and other content. “So much love went into this—amazing work!” Larian CEO and BG3 director Swen Vincke wrote at the time.
But the fan mashup of two beloved games is no longer available to download on Nexus. “This mod is under moderation review,” reads a disclaimer added to the page on March 29. According to a spokesperson for the mod database, Wizards of the Coast was responsible for sending a DMCA takedown notice against the fan content for infringing on its ownership of Dungeons & Dragons, which Baldur’s Gate 3 is based on.
It’s a bit stunning to see this play out with such diametrically opposed responses. Larian Studios, the folks that actually poured their efforts into making an absolute masterpiece of a game, saw the mod that made use of that work and loved it. This isn’t entirely surprising, given that Larian has a habit of doing new and interesting things generally. That a higher up like Vincke even chimed in personally to express his admiration is genuinely unsurprising.
Sadly, it is equally unsurprising that Wizards of the Coast simply sent the lawyers at the mod. WotC has been slowly descending into IP troll-dom in recent years. Whether the takedown ends up getting rescinded now that this is all going public is an open question, but it should be obvious that nothing in this free mod represents any kind of threat to WotC.
And it is natural to wonder, given Vincke’s comments on the matter, if this sort of philisophical difference didn’t play a role in Larian deciding to get out of the Baldur’s Gate franchise moving forward.
Apparently someone at Hasbro or Wizards thinks a fan mashup of BG3 and one of the most popular games of all time in a non-competing genre might get in the way of whatever it’s doing with the franchise. Vincke wasn’t impressed with the move. “Free quality fan mods highlighting your characters in other game genres are proof your work resonates and a unique form of word of mouth,” he wrote on Monday. “Imho they shouldn’t be treated like commercial ventures that infringe on your property.”
One of these two is the good guy in this story and the other is the big bad. If you’re having trouble figuring out which is which, you may have an evil alignment problem.
Comments on “WotC DMCAs ‘Stardew Valley’ BG3 Mod, Despite Larian’s Endorsement”
Just because copyright enforcement is lawful, doesn’t mean it isn’t also evil.
Those are different alignment axes.
Re:
Legality isn’t a substitute for morality or ethics. What is legal isn’t necessarily moral or ethical and what is moral or ethical isn’t necessarily legal.
The Nuremberg Race Laws are a good example. Apartheid and segregation/Jim Crow laws are good examples.
Laws are just rules that have been agreed upon by people in power. That almost guarantees that they’re at least compromised on how effective and ethical they could be and beyond they are commonly the product of corruption, profiteering, and power-mongering.
When Mad Magazine published “The Empire Strikes Out”, they received a C&D letter from Lucasfilm’s lawyers demanding that the issue be recalled and all copies destroyed.
Publisher William Gaines responded with a copy of a letter he’d received from George Lucas, saying the Mad parody was the highest honor he’d ever received, calling artist Mort Drucker and writer Dick DeBartolo “the Leonardo da Vinci and George Bernard Shaw of satire,” and asking if he could buy the original art. Gaines attached a note that just said “George liked it.” They received no further communication from the lawyers.
Re:
This isn’t a fair comparison since Mad Magazine is protected under parody law.
I’ve mentioned this before, but the only way to avoid a takedown is to not use any content made by other people. It doesn’t matter if a director or creator loves the new work, the company’s lawyers will still file a takedown notice.
Re: Re:
And also because Star Wars was creator-owned and George Lucas was the lawyers’ boss, whereas Larian is an outside contractor that did a work-for-hire job and has no control over Hasbro’s legal department.
But it’s a good story.
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Trivia time! The ONLY person who MAD ever bent the knee to and didn’t mock more than once?
J. Edgar Hoover.
Or as MAD called him, J. Edgar Electrolux.
DMCA Claim Withdrawn as Mistake
…more than a week ago.
https://www.ign.com/articles/update-wizards-of-the-coast-apologizes-for-mistaken-dmca-on-fans-baldurs-gate-3-stardew-valley-mod
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/wizards-of-the-coast-scores-pr-masterstroke-bullies-bg3-stardew-mod-that-had-swen-vinckes-personal-approval-off-the-internet-with-a-dmca/
Professional journalism here! Get yer moralizing professional journalism!
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Reported on over a week ago. Oof, that’s embarrassing.
WOTC rolls nat 1s on Int, Wis & Cha check.
(alt. title)
I have a question.
Was this decision to send a takedown notice discussed by WotC personnel and agreed upon by consensus?
Or did some lawyer on staff decide they needed to be seen doing something ‘productive’ to justify their fat paycheck?
Sounds like the Zentarim are running the place now. These are lawful evil moves
I think some of this over the top enforcement comes from previous case law where if you don’t defend your Trademark vigorously enough it can end up in the public domain and you lose control of the Trademark… ala Band-Aid, Aspirin and such. Some companies rather than trying to find a happy medium just go scorched earth because they feel if they let even one piece slip though they lose all control.
Ninja
It’s incomprehensible to me how companies go from the nice guy in the room into the complete asshole as they grow, with some notable exceptions. At some point they have to deliver profits at all costs and the lawyer department takes over and makes the company hostile towards whatever touches their copyrights, because money.
Re:
That’s because companies aren’t people. When we talk about Wizards of the Coast today, we’re not talking about the company Peter Akison started in his garage, any more than Marvel is the publisher Martin Goodman ran in the 1940s or Atari is the company that Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney founded in the 1970s. They’re the companies that bought the name (and assorted other trademarks and copyrights) of those old companies.
Or in this case, the company that bought the Wizards of the Coast IP after Wizards of the Coast bought the TSR IP.
Lawful Evil is the default corporate alignment.
It’s absolutely insane to me that the company that holds the DnD IP, a brand with a long history of homebrewing and creating with their tools, have been sucked so far into the corporate hellscape that they are being so outright hostile to their biggest and most-creative fans.
Then again, this is the same company that dropped the ball on their Sigil VTT and tried to pull the rug out from under the tabletop creator community by revoking the OGL, so I should probably be used to this by now. Still, it sucks.
Thankfully Paizo and the like are still carrying the torch. But this hobby deserves a better market leader.
Yes, and WotC, a company already known for especially terrible decisions regarding ‘IP protection’, rescinding the DMCA request totally goes back in time and stops it from happening in the first place. And as Geigner also said, I’m sure ‘now that this is all going public’ didn’t affect things either.