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).

 

[Morrus]

Nope. I would just set my dream aside and find way to make enough money to pay for my meal.
Either way, I'm still not going to demand that no one else have an option that I don't find suitable...

What, as a hungry person (which I bet you are not!), when presented with a poor food choice or no food choice, you’d (when I say ‘you’, of course I mean somebody else who you’re telling how to live) and choose no food and go home and rethink your life in the hope of one day being able to afford better food.

You wouldn’t eat the food?

 

[Maxperson]

BS.

A predator that shows you its teeth and fangs before it shreds and eats you is still veruy much a predator. It's just more obvious about it.

A predator that shows you its teeth and fangs isn't going to get you to hop into its mouth. Nobody in the competition was chasing these people down and forcing them to enter.

The value of the contest, to the winners, largely lies in the later ability to put that win in their artistic CV.

And it's value. Since they keep ownership, it goes into their CV.

 

[Backcountry164]

I feel like there is a perception that Dndbeyond was somehow "bullied" into cancelling this contest.

Dndbeyond has every right to hold whatever contest they want, whether people find it ethical or not.

People have every right to raise concerns or give feedback to Dndbeyond about their contests.

Dndbeyond has every right to make a decision about whether to act on that feedback or not.

If anyone has any evidence of bullying, I would gladly view it. I just ask that folks don't invent negative behavior without citing some sources.

Call it whatever you want. Once the negative PR outweighs any positive they are going to cancel it. And since they had very, very, very little to gain it obviously wasn't going to take much to end it...

 

[ReshiIRE]

So, in the 1990s, I spent a fair amount of time, as a sideline, submitting short fiction to the then-thriving short fiction market in magazines. (It's mostly dried up as part of the changes to the larger media ecosystem.)

Every magazine picked one of several types of rights they would acquire, if they chose to use your work. The best, from the standpoint of the writer, were non-exclusive one-time publication rights. If they used your work, it could come out any time, but they'd only use it once. But that was exceptionally rare, because The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, for instance, didn't want to open up a copy of Marion Zimmer Bradley's Fantasy Magazine and see the same story they were running next month appear in this month's issue.

So most publishers would ask for exclusive rights. Sometimes they were one-time rights, sometimes they were for a given period of years, some times they were for multiple years with reprints or ancillary publications.

The answer, for me at least, was not to submit my works to folks whose rights agreements I wasn't comfortable with. At the time, there were enough outlets that writers had those sorts of choices and the outlets that had the worst rights presumably felt pressure to change things, because they wouldn't even see a lot of the good stuff that was published elsewhere.

The answer for artists isn't to eliminate outlets in which their works might be seen. It's to create more outlets. That's where everyone's energy should be going. Make the folks you see as predatory irrelevant and create market pressure for them to do better.

Interesting perspective and good experience. I admit, I am not an artist myself, so I don't have first hand experience in this area.

However, I would make the point that competition between good and bad outfits does not necessarily always result in the good outfit winning, nor does it necessarily solve the problem. Especially in this case, a company like D&D Beyond is a big fish in a pond that isn't necessarily super competitive due to their relative 'official' recognition. So, it may not be enough to simply ignore or try to make them irrelevant. It may be necessary to challenge them as well.

Market pressure (the 'invisible hand of the market') has not worked in many different areas. It is possible it won't work here.

I do think current economic relaties make issues like this more fraught. Not to go too deep into politics, but I think relevant here is the fact our economies and systems are set up to force people to work in whatever the 'market' deems viable or useful - which often times isn't necessarily actually useful to people or contributes much to society. And if you don't want to do that, you often have to end up quite insecure in life or working in fields that are often devalued and exploited, or to live in want and povety, which is pretty naughty word for all around.

Systems like universal basic income and such may better solve this problem, by allowing artists to take on their job or trade that may not work out or may be fraught with potential exploitation and abuse without havign the risk of becoming homeless or living in abjact poverty. And without that risk, the risk of exploitation reduces.

 

[Lanefan]

Had they not suggested they would possibly use the designs in the future (with no indication that they would compensate the artist if they did), then perhaps the blowback would not have been as bad. They could have said that D&D Beyond retains the right to the art but it would not be used without due compensation if it was. I dunno if that would have changed things, but at least it would have looked a bit more amenable to people I suspect.

This (bolded) IMO would be just fine.

Another, and perhaps even better, option would be something like "Unless specific permission to retain and use submitted art has been granted to D&D Beyond by the submittor, D&D Beyond will not retain copies of non-winning submitted art in either digital or hard-copy form and claims no right to use or redistribution."

(there's better ways of wording that, I'm sure, but you get the drift)

 

[Dragonsbane]

If you don't like it.... don't enter! Goodness, the complaints these days...so pro artists don't enter, it's good for the newer guys...

Maybe give everyone a participation award and they will be happy?

 

[Sacrosanct]

Just because it's common doesn't make it right, and if the backlash now makes it less common in the future, all is good.

I agree 100%. I don't want that to get lost, because people tend to put others into either/or camps on divided issues, and while I've said I don't think this is a predatory contest, I also think that it's not right to use someone's art (or reserve the right to) without compensation.

 

[Mirtek]

so pro artists don't enter, it's good for the newer guys...

Even the newer guys should probably not enter. Just those who are not artists and never want to be artists and just think the chance of the price is worth creating a one-time entry

 

[Mistwell]

I don't see a problem. If you don't like the terms and conditions, don't enter. But WoTC has already set the precedent for giving into the mob mentality of the net/twitter, so who's really surprised that they caved and then apologised for trying to give away some free stuff. Just think about that for a second; WoTC APOLOGIZED for trying to give away some free stuff.

Come on man, they were not giving away free stuff. That's not in any way the purpose of a contest like this.

WOTC engaged in a MARKETING VENTURE. Marketing costs them a great deal. They gain a meaningful amount of marketing eyes on their products from this venture. In addition they get some artwork which meets a quality standard they set for use in their future products.

In exchange they offered material which costs them a fraction of their usual cost for marketing eyes of this quantity or quality on their products, and also a fraction of the cost for artwork which meets their quality standards for use in their products.

NOTHING about this involved "free stuff."

This is a concept I am sure you've appreciated in the past. When invited to, for example, a time share lecture with a "free meal" involved I am sure you understood there was nothing free about the meal

 

[Backcountry164]

What, as a hungry person (which I bet you are not!), when presented with a poor food choice or no food choice, you’d (when I say ‘you’, of course I mean somebody else who you’re telling how to live) and choose no food and go home and rethink your life in the hope of one day being able to afford better food.

You wouldn’t eat the food?

I wouldn't put myself into that situation to begin with. That's not silly, that's being realistic and honest with myself.
You see, I've actually done this. This has been my life. I had to set aside the thing that I wanted to do, and was really good at, because it wasn't paying my bills. I would go weeks and months without a decent commission so I took other jobs. I made ends meet because I didn't want to settle for "poor food choices". Eventually I was able to come back to what I love and now I make a good living. I'm not special in any way, if I can do it anyone can. I'm not telling anyone how to live, I'm literally sharing my own experience!!

I'd also note that "poor or no food choice" has NOTHING to do with refusing something just because I find it "icky". Your strawman here is big enough to haul out into the Black Rock desert...