Third Party Character Creation iOS App Removed

The d20 Fight Club for D&D 5th Edition iOS app has been removed from the Apple App Store by its creator at the request of WotC. The creator reports that he received a Cease & Desist demand (although it's worth noting that some supposed recent C&Ds appear to have turned out to be amicable requests). This follows on from the removal of the D&D Tools website and the more recent online character generator.

The creator reports that "I received a cease and desist order from Wizards of the Coast. All D&D apps will be removed from the App Store as they weren't compliant with WotC's copyrights and trademarks. Hopefully they'll be back in some form someday. Til then, thanks for all the support."

Nobody has actually shared one of these C&Ds yet, and others have indicated that what they actually received was simply a friendly email asking that they respect WotC's trademarks, so it's not entirely clear what is happening. Hopefully somebody will share one soon!

It does look like this particular app contained text and stat blocks copied directly from the D&D books. Below is the DM version of the app (the companion to the character creation app).

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[Iosue]

Heh. Predicted it.

No response? I guess I win the argument.

 

[Shasarak]

Pardon? I know when the games were released.

So by 2009 that gives plenty of people a chance to play Diablo.

I would estimate about 34%

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

About that 5%.

While 5% of anything in the movie contracts going to Marvel may not sound like much- and IS indicative of the relative bargaining positions of the parties- if the bargained-for compensation was derived from "revenues" and not "profits", than Marvel actually did pretty well. Hollywood is full of sharks, and most deals struck with outsiders for a share of "profits" are just a legalized robbery.

Because in Hollywood accounting, most movies don't show a profit. If you want to make money in a Hollywood deal, ALWAYS make sure you get paid up front or- if by percentages- out of revenues.

Is it better for Marvel to get out of those contracts now? Most probably. But in the context of the time in which they were negotiated, they really were not only a lifeline for a struggling company, but were actually pretty well negotiated and drafted.

 

[martinlochsen]

I understand takedown notices if WOTC has the intention to release a character creation app soon(tm*soon trademarked Blizzard ent.). I could understand C&D notices if WOTC already had a character creation app available. But they don't. As far as I'm aware their intended product will never be completed. There is no word of a replacement on the horizon, or any plan to do so. At best this is equivalent to C&D notices for fan-fiction. It doesn't accomplish anything but rile up the customer base.

Yes! These are excactly my thoughts on the matter. I'm not one to jump on the "hate the big bad company"-wagon, but this pisses me off just a tiny little bit. Even an announcement that they had something planned would have helped a lot. Why make the game more diffucult to play? I don't get it.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Under the law, they have to defend their patents & trademarks (copyrights are different) or risk having them diluted or even losing them. While they may not have derivative product X in development NOW, if they have any plan of doing so in the future, they have to act.

That's the law. Don't like it? Well, as the saying goes, don't hate the player, hate the game.

Personally, I would recommend that they do send those C&D letters- or more, if required- but also keep an eye out on exactly what those unlicensed products were doing and how popular they were. If they were significantly well thought out and executed, it might make good business sense to buy out or license those product and being them into the official product line, rather than merely make the offending products disappear and- if they were planning on doing something similar- reinventing the wheel when it came time to bring it to market. It is efficient and customer pleasing, and businesses do it all the time.

Most recent example I can point to: Space Bags. The company that created them got bought out by Ziplock.

 

[Newtonian]

I wish them well. C&D's suck, regardless of if it's amicable or not.

 

[Fergurg]

There is one angle that is probably not true, but I would be curious on where people would stand if it were:

What if WotC doesn't want Dungeons and Dragons to have a character builder?

Understand that this is theoretical. Scenario: WotC announces that they aren't going to make a character builder because they want to discourage people from bringing their iPods to the game table when they aren't the GM. Under this idea, you have a company that is explicitly saying that that thing you want to have an as option with D&D (a computerized character builder) ... you can't. Even though it would make many people angry, that decision is part of a bigger decision of branding Dungeons and Dragons as, "A table-top game, not a computer game".

How would this affect your view of WotC sending out C&D's to character builder makers?

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

What if WotC doesn't want Dungeons and Dragons to have a character builder?

(Edit)

How would this affect your view of WotC sending out C&D's to character builder makers?

I would be surprised if that hypothetical were true. If it were true, I would be surprised at WotC's seeming lack of vision.

It wouldn't affect my view of their sending out of C&D letters, though.

 

[MerricB]

There is one angle that is probably not true, but I would be curious on where people would stand if it were:

The problem with that is that Wizards want there to be a character builder. (They just want it to be theirs, or at least properly licensed).

Wizards got burnt badly by the failure of Morningstar. As a rule, companies really don't like announcing things that then fail to eventuate.

I'm pretty sure the current state of things is that they're working to get a new builder up, but the negotiations (or coding) hasn't yet reached the state where they're ready to announce something.

Cheers!

 

[pemerton]

I read the web-article about the X-Men and Spider-Man contracts. My main take-home was that X-Men fans are still whinging 20 years later!

From the article:

In the latest run of Uncanny X-Men, SHIELD, the Avengers, and She-Hulk have all shown up at one point or another.

<snip>

And further, the franchise's 50th birthday was marked by an event called "Battle of the Atom," largely seen by X-Men fans as underwhelming.​

X-Men has been a cross-over vehicle for ever (X-Men Annual number 10 (?) was a cross-over with the Avengers); and underwhelming franchise events go back at least to Age of Apocalypse.