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.

 

[Gradine]

Just because there's no completely ethical consumption in this corporate capitalist world doesn't mean I have to tolerate everybody's crappy behavior.

Yeah, it's this, mostly.

We all have our own unique morals and ethics, and thus we all have to decide where our lines are. WotC is a bad business with bad business practices. I think we can all agree with the facts on that. I think @DEFCON 1 is correct that this latest thing doesn't seem at all likely to move the needle for anybody that's still on board (which, to be clear, is still a lot of people). Some people drew the lines at the Pinkertons. Or the OGL. Or the Hadozee. Or the Book of Cylinders. Or Chult. Or the Vistani. Or the Mearls/Zak S nonsense. Or Chult, again. Ad infinitum.

It's all a matter of scales and balances. How much each "bad action" weighs on anyone's own scale is going to be a deeply personal thing. And on the other end of the scale is... well, that's the thing, isn't it? For everyone it will be different. Maybe there's a weight for "How necessary is this thing to my life?". Maybe it's "How necessary is this thing to my enjoyment of life?" Maybe it's just "How much do I really think this thing?" And then there's the weights labelled "There is no ethical consumption under capitalism." and "How much is my individual consumer choice worth, in the grand scheme of things?"

Sometimes the answer is clear, like "oh hey, a good chunk of the money I would spend on this book is being spent directly to make life for worse for transgender people." Sometimes the line is fuzzier, like going to see the movie of the book made hundreds of people, many of them quite awesome. And sometimes the line is purposefully obfuscatory, like those commercials that make you feel shame for leaving a light switch on being sponsored by some of the largest polluting companies in the world.

The truth is, the only way for consumer action to actually have an effect on anything at all is through a boycott, and boycotts are largely ineffective unless they are at least semi-organized and widespread. Otherwise all we're really doing is just pointing fingers at each other over drops in a bucket while the real bad actors are diving into their giant pits of gold coins, ala Scrooge McDuck.


tl;dr: Everyone has to make their own consumer choices based on their own personal morals and ethics, and unless you are ready to help organize a full-blown boycott your shaming over it does less than nothing.

 

[Dire Bare]

WotC is a bad business with bad business practices. I think we can all agree with the facts on that.

Well, if by "bad" you mean the company acts with a decent degree of incompetence . . . yeah!

But I'm pretty happy with the D&D design team, their choices, and the products they release, which I think are overall pretty awesome and hold a high degree of quality.

If the D&D books weren't as good as they are, I probably wouldn't stopped patronizing WotC due to their missteps combined with indifference to their products.

 

[Faolyn]

And that's a perfectly acceptable way of choosing to live your life. I choose to live my life differently. I choose to not divide the things I use in my life between those that are acceptable to come from crappy companies because they are "necessities", and things that are not acceptable to come from crappy companies because they aren't. I don't care. It is a distinguishing factor that is so tenuous in its moral judgement in my opinion that I find it not worth the time to spend nitpicking their placement. If I'm going to make the moral decision to not purchase from unethical companies... then I will go all-in on it. Otherwise... a half-measure to me seems utterly pointless.

So because someone can't do everything, then they should do nothing. Gotcha.

 

[Dire Bare]

So because someone can't do everything, then they should do nothing. Gotcha.

Sigh. Again with the judgement on folks who draw their lines differently than you choose to.

Also, not what he said.

 

[Umbran]

So I continue being a WotC customer, for now at least.

So, have you noted that I said nothing about not being a customer?

I'm just not really in for minimizing a series of unforced errors that they should be learning from as "mistakes".

 

[Faolyn]

Sigh. Again with the judgement on folks who draw their lines differently than you choose to.

Also, not what he said.

"Half measure seems pointless."

 

[DEFCON 1]

So because someone can't do everything, then they should do nothing. Gotcha.

No, not someone... ME. I choose to not give a crap about what any company does beyond what they produce that I wish to purchase. If I see something I wish to buy, I will buy it. If I do not wish to buy it, I won't. If you prefer to spend your time checking out the bona fides of every company you wish to engage with prior to buying stuff... more power to you.

 

[Clint_L]

edit: nevermind

 

[Clint_L]

Well, yes, it kind of is.

WotC has had several incidents in recent memory in which they have failed to look particularly well-meaning. There is a point in which their failure to take that to heart stops looking like a "mistake" and more like a willful choice in spite of the harm to their reputation.

Being an inconsiderate wretch once may be a mistake. After three or four times, it is less a mistake, and more a personality trait.

Is this incident one such case? If you own an IP, and someone uses it against your rules, which are very public, wouldn't you want to hit pause long enough to check it out? That's all WotC or their surrogates did in this case, and they did it very quickly before giving their blessing. At what point do we take "yes" for an answer?

This is not the OGL, where WotC was floating a unilateral and unexpected change to a fundamental business practice. The only change in policy here was that they gave this person permission to use their IP.

Taking a pause to look at the situation just seems like the responsible thing to do. This was a fast moving event, and, again, WotC quickly decided to say "Yeah - bless." What's the upset?

 

[Umbran]

Is this incident one such case? If you own an IP, and someone uses it against your rules, which are very public, wouldn't you want to hit pause long enough to check it out? That's all WotC or their surrogates did in this case, and they did it very quickly before giving their blessing. At what point do we take "yes" for an answer?

Well, yes, this incident is one such case.

Nobody is saying that they didn't use the process in a technically correct manner. But leading with the DMCA notice is media-pathic. To the public, it is kind of like the power company leading with turning off your electricity with the sheriff in tow, and then asking to speak with you about a minor billing irregularity.

If WotC wants to repair it's PR problems, they should be leading with a polite request to speak, lawyer to lawyer, before sending in C&Ds.