WotC WotC (Mistakenly) Issues DMCA Takedown Against Baldur's Gate-themed Stardew Valley Mod

Wizards of the Coast recently issued a DMCA takedown notice against Baldur's Village, a popular fan-created Stardew Valley mod which was based on Baldur's Gate 3.

Created by a modding team called Nexus Mods, the mod featured BG3 characters such as Astarion and Shadowheart, 20+ NPCs, and various locations and events. The mod, which has had over 4,000 downloads, took over a year to make, according to the team, and garnered praise from Swen Vincke, the CEO of Larion, the company which made Baldur's Gate 3, who also posted about the situation on Twitter:

“Free quality fan mods highlighting your characters in other game genres are proof your work resonates and a unique form of word of mouth. Imho they shouldn’t be treated like commercial ventures that infringe on your property. Protecting your IP can be tricky, but I do hope this gets settled. There are good ways of dealing with this.”

The mod went into "moderation review" on March 29th. However, it seems this was a 'mistake'--WotC has since issued a statement:

"The Baldur's Village DMCA takedown was issued mistakenly—we are sorry about that. We are in the process of fixing that now so fans and the Stardew community can continue to enjoy this great mod!"

So, the mod is back again! To use it you need the have the Stardew Modding API, the Content Patcher, and the Portraiture mod.

This isn't the first time WotC has 'erroneously' issued takedown notices against fans. In August 2024, the company took action against various YouTubers who were previewing the then-upcoming 2024 D&D Player's Handbook. A few days later, after some public outcry, WotC reversed its decision.

 

[DEFCON 1]

The problem is they keep making dumb mistakes, and they only seem to fix them if there's sufficient backlash. It's not a good look for them, and each time they make a mistake like this, they end up losing a few more customers. And that means that in order to make the shareholders happy, they'll end up cutting production values further, raise prices, pay their employees less, and so on.

We'll see if things actually go the way you are imagining they will. My guess is they will not. This and other small PR things will not drive away enough customers to warrant cutting production value, raise prices and pay their employees less.

After all... they produced 4E, which drove away many more previous customers than any of these PR situations, and even that didn't reduce production value or raise prices on future products. And as far as paying their employees less... WotC has had no issue letting employees go in good times, let alone bad, so that has nothing to do with it.

 

[Steampunkette]

The problem is that it wasn't a mistake.

The DMCA is being used in an entirely appropriate manner in this situation. It's a clear infringement of WotC's material in the form of characters and their likenesses being used by another person for promotion and engagement. This is what the DMCA is -for-.

WotC has lawyers and legal teams and automation and whatever else you wanna call it, all trained and told to look for infringing material to put out a DMCA or Cease and Desist or whatever other actions are appropriate to the situation.

And those systems engaged to do -exactly- what they were designed to do. The Stardew Valley mod very clearly, and obviously, infringes on their IP and Copyright. So they sent the DMCA in the precise way the system was meant to do so. They hadn't previously given the mod a green thumb and told the system "Don't issue a DMCA on -this- one, we give it special permission to exist".

They were told "Shoot the red disks and not the green disks" and a red disk went up and they shot it, like they always do. They didn't accidentally shoot a green disk. This is a red disk, y'all.

There was no mistake. This is what the system is -designed- to do. They're calling it a mistake after the fact in order to avoid criticism.

 

[Sorcerers Apprentice]

Why should I care?

WotC made a mistake, suffered immediate backlash, and then corrected for their mistake.

Stardew players and BG fans get their mod after all and life moves on.

On the list of corporate screw-ups, this is way down on the list of things I care about.

Why don't I care? I just turn on the news each night, and things like this seem so small and unaffecting.

What is the last WotC screwup you did care about?

 

[Cergorach]

The problem is they keep making dumb mistakes...

Should we keep a tally of how many dumb mistakes you make per day? Get a ton of people together, they tend to make more dumb mistakes, not less... You only notice the ones making it out of the office and some news starved reporter picks it up...

 

[Faolyn]

We'll see if things actually go the way you are imagining they will. My guess is they will not.

<shrug> I was seriously disappointed by the production values in Spelljammer, which happened to be the last book I bought from them. Noticeably thinner paper, a larger font size and larger artwork and putting it in three hardcover books to disguise its thinness, plus a lack of a lot of material from the original Spelljammer books (such as factions and religions) and basically nothing to take its place. So that's cutting corners on production values. That alone was enough to make me very leery of buying future products from them, and definitely not when combined with all of WotC's other problems.

(And that's without the hadozee thing, which I do believe was an honest mistake, albeit one that probably should have been caught by someone.)

Maybe all the subsequent books were wonderful; I don't know. Maybe I would have been seriously disappointed with Planescape's production if I'd bought it. Or maybe I would have loved it. But "fool me once," as they say. (And I never had any intentions of buying 5.24 in the first place because it was a half-edition.)

We keep hearing about Chris Cox or whoever it is who makes these decisions talking about AI. "We meant only for video games, no AI, we swear! But... AI for other things? No? No! What if we only use our own material that we own. Yes? No?" And so on and so forth. So even if they totally, 100% mean no AI now, how much longer will that continue? How much longer until they give in to the shareholders? And AI means fewer employees and lower wages. Can I actually trust WotC on this? Because they have a history of stupid mistakes, the answer is no.

Thing is, I'm not even upset about this particular issue--I mean the mod take-down. The modder used someone else's IP, so I'm not surprised.

This and other small PR things will not drive away enough customers to warrant cutting production value, raise prices and pay their employees less.

After all... they produced 4E, which drove away many more previous customers than any of these PR situations, and even that didn't reduce production value or raise prices on future products. And as far as paying their employees less... WotC has had no issue letting employees go in good times, let alone bad, so that has nothing to do with it.

Yeah, that's not a thing to claim is in their favor.

 

[Faolyn]

Should we keep a tally of how many dumb mistakes you make per day?

Sure, as long as you also spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on the things I produce. Are you going to do that?

Coz if you were spending hundreds or thousands of dollars on my products, and you found out I also did incredibly dumb things that negatively affected others, it would be completely logical and understandable for you to stop buying my products no matter how good they were.

 

[Dire Bare]

The problem is that it wasn't a mistake.

The DMCA is being used in an entirely appropriate manner in this situation. It's a clear infringement of WotC's material in the form of characters and their likenesses being used by another person for promotion and engagement. This is what the DMCA is -for-.

WotC has lawyers and legal teams and automation and whatever else you wanna call it, all trained and told to look for infringing material to put out a DMCA or Cease and Desist or whatever other actions are appropriate to the situation.

And those systems engaged to do -exactly- what they were designed to do. The Stardew Valley mod very clearly, and obviously, infringes on their IP and Copyright. So they sent the DMCA in the precise way the system was meant to do so. They hadn't previously given the mod a green thumb and told the system "Don't issue a DMCA on -this- one, we give it special permission to exist".

They were told "Shoot the red disks and not the green disks" and a red disk went up and they shot it, like they always do. They didn't accidentally shoot a green disk. This is a red disk, y'all.

There was no mistake. This is what the system is -designed- to do. They're calling it a mistake after the fact in order to avoid criticism.

A mistake can result from intentional action. And you can have the legal authority to do something, but it can still be a bad idea.

IANAL, but it is my understanding that the initial DMCA takedown from WotC on this BG3 mod was completely legally legit. And yet . . . still a mistake. It's not clear if it was a mistake from the beginning, or if WotC decided it was a mistake after the fact, but it was a mistake. Why else "fix" it?

Why is it a mistake? Because it makes WotC look like the corporate bully and doesn't really serve their interests. It's a PR mistake. So, they walked it back in the hopes of smoothing over that bad PR.

 

[Dire Bare]

Sure, as long as you also spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on the things I produce. Are you going to do that?

Coz if you were spending hundreds or thousands of dollars on my products, and you found out I also did incredibly dumb things that negatively affected others, it would be completely logical and understandable for you to stop buying my products no matter how good they were.

I'll give you similar leeway that I give WotC. Likely more, actually.

I'm assuming you aren't perfect and that you do indeed make mistakes from time to time. Maybe even mistakes that impact others in some way. If it seems to me that your public-facing mistakes aren't coming from a place of selfishness or malice, and if you acknowledge your mistakes and try to correct them as possible . . . I see no reason why I shouldn't continue to purchase products from you, if I'm enjoying them.

WotC, of course, isn't a person but rather an ever-changing roster of individuals within the company. The mistakes WotC makes today are not made by the same people as the mistakes of yesterday. But still, companies tend to develop corporate personas or reputations . . . there are definitely companies I avoid and companies that frustrate me but I still patronize them . . . my ire or irritation with WotC has not yet risen to the level requiring a personal boycott yet. Although the OGL mess certainly tested me!

Where is it appropriate to draw the line and say "no more"? That is a complicated thing and we all will draw that line in different places, likely not even consistently between different companies. That's life.

 

[Cergorach]

Sure, as long as you also spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on the things I produce. Are you going to do that?

Do you produce anything worthwhile I would spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on? I haven't spend that much on WotC products 'recently', I've spent most of it on licensed products, like Wizkids miniatures, Lego lego, computer games and Foundry modules. I own physically the three core books 2014 (PHB 2x) and a couple of D&D boardgames/expansions. In the last decade I've only spent around $250 with WotC directly, many times that with their licensees. Before that... I own pretty much everything D&D 3e/4e, their minis lines (metal and plastic, D&D and Star Wars), most of their Star Wars line, etc.

I buy what I like, I don't care what the company behind that does or what the people who work there do. And what I like changes, so I might eventually buy everything 5e, I might not.

 

[kayakingpoodle]

If wizbro cared about their reputation from a PR standpoint these things wouldn't happen with the increasing frequency they do. It's like they are trying at this point. It has definitely been a steady increase over the last few years.

The way they "handle" these issues over on DDB just compound the problems. It is getting difficult to convince myself to reccomend or spend money on D&D 1st party products.
The level of incompetence this is starting to require is approaching an unbelievable level for it to be the mistakes many claim. It more like they just don't care.