D&D 5E D&D Beyond Cancels Competition

D&D Beyond has been running an art contest which asked creators to enter D&D-themed portrait frame. DDB got to use any or all of the entries, while the winner and some runners up received some digital content as a prize.

There was a backlash -- and DDB has cancelled the contest.

Thank you to all of our community for sharing your comments and concerns regarding our anniversary Frame Design Contest.

While we wanted to celebrate fan art as a part of our upcoming anniversary, it's clear that our community disagrees with the way we approached it. We've heard your feedback, and will be pulling the contest.

We will also strive to do better as we continue to look for ways to showcase the passion and creativity of our fellow D&D players and fans in the future. Our team will be taking this as a learning moment, and as encouragement to further educate ourselves in this pursuit.

Your feedback is absolutely instrumental to us, and we are always happy to listen and grow in response to our community's needs and concerns. Thank you all again for giving us the opportunity to review this event, and take the appropriate action.

The company went on to say:

Members of our community raised concerns about the contest’s impact on artists and designers, and the implications of running a contest to create art where only some entrants would receive a prize, and that the prize was exclusively digital material on D&D Beyond. Issues were similarly raised with regards to the contest terms and conditions. Though the entrants would all retain ownership of their design to use in any way they saw fit, including selling, printing, or reproducing, it also granted D&D Beyond rights to use submitted designs in the future. We have listened to these concerns, and in response closed the competition. We’ll be looking at ways we can better uplift our community, while also doing fun community events, in the future.

Competitions where the company in question acquires rights to all entries are generally frowned upon (unless you're WotC).

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

In this case, the prizes were nowhere worth the time and labour required of an entry.

The amount of labor required to create a ring for a DDB portrait isn't worth more than $400 (the top prize)?

I work with professional artists and the winning entry was going to put in much less time than is required to get paid $400 otherwise.

 

[Backcountry164]

I think it's different when it comes to art, especially digital art.

If you are in a pie baking contest, and your pie doesn't win, that's it. Sure you don't get your pie back, but you can keep painting that pie yourself.

In this kind of contest, if you don't win, the company gets to keep using your digital art for free. That would be like them selling copies of that pie you baked, and you get none of the profit.

This is especially impactful because many of the people who produce digital art are independently employed and trying to make a living off of it. So when a company created this kind of contest, they are essentially poaching art instead of actually hiring artists. It also means they won't have to hire artists to produce all the free art they just got.

It's icky.

Which is why there was feedback, and why DDB canceled the contest.

If I go into a restaurant and see something "icky" on the menu I simply don't order that item. I don't demand that it be removed from the menu because I'm upset that someone else is going to get to eat something that I don't want. That's why there was "feedback", because some people are blind to their own selfishness. Some people believe that if an opportunity doesn't fit their needs or wants then no one else should be offered that opportunity either...

 

[BookTenTiger]

If I go into a restaurant and see something "icky" on the menu I simply don't order that item. I don't demand that it be removed from the menu because I'm upset that someone else is going to get to eat something that I don't want. That's why there was "feedback", because some people are blind to their own selfishness. Some people believe that if an opportunity doesn't fit their needs or wants then no one else should be offered that opportunity either...

How do you know that's what happened? I would be very interested in reading the words of the people who got DDB to pull this contest because of their blind selfishness.

Or I could rely on many, many articles (like the ones I linked to earlier) about why these kinds.of contests are unethical.

If I go to a restaurant and on the menu it says "we don't pay our chefs" I'm not going to eat there, AND I'm going to find a way to support those chefs.

 

[Maxperson]

It is the same, other than a matter of scale.

Scale matters. The difference between a firecracker and a bomb is the scale of the explosion. One is not the equivalent of the other, even if they are the same except for scale.

You are suggesting that any negative feedback is complaining (and thus has a negative connotation and opinion connected to it.) Thus the person giving the feedback is in the wrong and maintaining the status quo is the positive. My joke just extends your suggestion to its ultimate level.

No. The definition of complaint is a statement that the situation is unsatisfactory or unacceptable. That applies to all negative feedback. Some complaints are valid and others are not.

Your fallacies were absurd and didn't refute my statement that negative feedback is in fact a complaint.

 

[ReshiIRE]

It’s also a bunch of nonsense, however often it’s repeated by armchair lawyers on the internet. There are easy, commonly used, ethical workarounds.

This is something you know more about, but also, wouldn't it be important to ensure artists do have the ability to ensure that their art was not taken without their control by these companies and that, if they are suspicious that it has, that they have some mechanism to fire back? Making these parts of competition rules not only nonsense, but also pretty repugnant?

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

There's nothing wrong with a contest. But contests for digital art have a history of being harmful to the broader community of professional digital artists.

The people asking artists or photographers or writers or videographers to do something for "exposure" are appalling people. I've had people try to get me -- someone who has paid their bills with creative work my entire adult life -- to do stuff for "exposure" and it's incredibly insulting. It tilts the professional field toward people with money and the ability to work without getting paid, effectively shutting out everyone else.

But that's not what was going on here. There is no way to run a contest with any kind of creative work that doesn't involve these sorts of legal protections.

If you come up to a random publisher at a comic convention and whip out your art without warning, many of them will turn and walk away immediately. Many writers refuse to even hear about your story ideas, because they don't want even the possibility of getting sued years from now.

Now, DDB should have come up with a better way to publicize their character frames -- which are, honestly, pretty underwhelming as an upgrade to their site.

But the harm inflicted by this contest is minimal. There is not a big market for ring-shaped character portrait frames that DDB is vacuuming up here and they explicitly said the artists still have the rights to use their submitted works, so even if there was such a market, it wouldn't infringe on it, since DDB isn't going to be making the non-winners available. (A lot of entries in any contest are crap and there's no value in DDB having dozens or hundreds of mediocre frames as options on their website.)

 

[Backcountry164]

This is literally what happened. Artists in the community chose to not enter the contest, and then also explained to DDB why they weren't entering. DDB listened and pulled the contest.

So no one entered?? SOME artists complained fervently thus ruining it for those who actually did want to participate. Grossly misrepresenting what happened doesn't help to make your point, quite the opposite..

 

[Morrus]

If I go into a restaurant and see something "icky" on the menu I simply don't order that item.

If you’re a hungry person struggling for their next meal, and that’s all you can afford, you might. It’s easy to lecture struggling people on how to act when you’re not faced with that same dilemma.

 

[BookTenTiger]

But if a company's liability insurance insists they use this sort of language or not run the contest, the answer is usually going to be the contest won't happen. (Arguing with insurance companies is a losing strategy, for those lucky enough not to have to deal with them.)

And then they'll have to actually hire and pay some artists or designers.

That's a win in my book.

 

[Morrus]

Are there? I haven't seen any examples and would be happy to amplify them, including making sure other folks considering contests see them and consider them.

But if a company's liability insurance insists they use this sort of language or not run the contest, the answer is usually going to be the contest won't happen. (Arguing with insurance companies is a losing strategy, for those lucky enough not to have to deal with them.)

Then don’t run the contest. Or change insurer. Exploiting people is never the correct decision.