-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
WB Clarifies Shadow of War Charity DLC, it will be free, WB IE will donate money
- Thread starter dex3108
- Start date
Zombie James
Banned
Good. This is what they should have done from the very start.
ChaosSmurf
Member
Shout out to the internet who, instead of using some basic common sense, got angry about literally giving to charity.
Bronetta
Ask me about the moon landing or the temperature at which jet fuel burns. You may be surprised at what you learn.
You mean the charity DLC which wasnt even going to charity in 90% of the world it was being sold in?
Check yourself before you wreck yourself.
Zombie James
Banned
Are you dense?
ChaosSmurf
Member
Sorry you're embarrassed that you got angry about helping a grieving family. The money was clearly always going to go to them to anyone with a lick of sense.
Alexander DeLarge
Member
Except their PR fucked up and people thought they were profiting off a "charity DLC".
Rellik
Member
I bet you're one of them people who donates to a charity just because it's a charity without researching to see where your money is actually going.
Shout out to the internet who, instead of just accepting paid DLC to 'honor' a developer who died where only a small part of the profit went to the family of that developer, decided to call WB out on it's bullshit and actually get them to publicly apologize and do what they should've done in the first place.
LongDongJunon
Member
And by clarify they mean retcon
Taliban Stan
Member
Wait... so they originally planned to sell the DLC and donate ALL the proceeds to his family but the internet was outraged and came up some conspiracy theory that got so popular that the company is now scrapping the idea of using all proceeds to fund a donation and is just doing a one time donation.
People do realize that sales probably would have been bigger than whatever they'll donate now and could have been a potentially multi-month/year income stream for the family? And now that is eradicated completely... and people feel that's a good thing.
Free DLC > helping people in trying times I guess. Let's you know where their heart really lies.
People do realize that sales probably would have been bigger than whatever they'll donate now and could have been a potentially multi-month/year income stream for the family? And now that is eradicated completely... and people feel that's a good thing.
Free DLC > helping people in trying times I guess. Let's you know where their heart really lies.
Leafhopper
Banned
Lol.
How was that always clear when the commercial literally said that it wont go to the family if you live outside the US?
DOWN
Banned
Thats not correct. Nor does it even fit common sense. And it especially doesnt make sense if you read the OP.
We're talking about WB here. The bolded isn't as clear as you think.
What happens to states or places that bought the DLC but it didn't count as charity per region laws? You really think a company doubling down on microtransactions in a $60 game would actually give the money away if the rules of charity don't apply in certain places?
I'm not angry because I don't even care for the game. They way they went about this was typical WB in that they went wrong in every possible way about it.
That's what WB says now, but the trailer for the DLC very clearly stated that only sales made in certain states of the US would go to the family. I'm preeeeeetty sure that donating everything wasn't the original plan.
Meme Master Flux
Member
You really don't get the meaning behind all of this do you
ChaosSmurf
Member
Because any other outcome is a PR disaster, evil in a way most reality TV shows can only aspire to, and stupid in the extreme. Setting up legal international charity operations isn't something you can do at the drop of a hat.
Maybe they would have? It's hard to say because it didn't come to pass. Like a large amount of the outcry prior to this, it was assuming WB would handle it in the worst possible way.
I'm happy things got sorted all out though, and the family is getting support either way.
Except it was. Compliance laws can be fun.
This. When people went all internet detective, it would have been best to just ignore it. By trying to get in front of it with that tweet, they made it worse.
Bronetta
Ask me about the moon landing or the temperature at which jet fuel burns. You may be surprised at what you learn.
Yeah I read the OP, the one where WB backtracked their fuckery. The original PR said:
https://kotaku.com/shadow-of-war-producer-memorialized-in-dlc-1798703505
Common sense means not accepting everything at face value and questioning the truth instead of letting corporations get away with whatever they want.
RecRoulette
Member
Pretty much. Glad WB straightened things out.
ChaosSmurf
Member
People are equating "they made a business decision I don't like in a videogame" with "they will take money from a grieving widow and children." Presumably because they somehow think those things are as bad as each other?
This is what you are doing. Read the OP again. If they said "we are giving the money to charity from everywhere" it "could have triggered compliance obligations or put us in violation of cause marketing laws in some of the 241 territories in which the content was available."
Well it was a PR disaster because they didn't clarify it until now.
RadioactiveLobster
Member
While I am glad that they've decided to donate directly to the family (they don't say how much I noticed) I don't for a second think this is all the result of a miscommunication.
It's clearly a direct reaction to the PR disaster and in no way their original plan.
It's clearly a direct reaction to the PR disaster and in no way their original plan.
Zomba13
Member
Well it's a good thing exactly that happened isn't it!
The image has already been posted that says where donations will be made when you buy and only mentions US states. That is what people were upset and annoyed by. WB saying, in the DLC advert, that not every purchase will be donated.
Nobody went 'internet detective'; the trailer literally says that donations will be made on purchases in the US with some exceptions in the small print. How the hell can anybody see that and conclude 'Well, obviously all profits will go to the family'?
If the original plan was to donate all profits, this wasn't just a fuck up from a guy on Twitter, but they should really do something about their wording in trailers.
HP_Wuvcraft
Banned
Good on them. This is really what they should have said in the first place.
Anything to keep the narrative of the evil publisher intact, right?
Anything to keep the narrative of the evil publisher intact, right?
Well, it was, WB is just complete shit at clarifying it.
Maybe companies who care about making as much money as possible will have a lick of humanity and decency?
Do you know what universe we live in, my friend? That's like saying games going digital would lower up-front costs of purchases. That didn't happen as prices are more likely to stay fixed, sans sales.
You might have too kind of a heart to believe morality and decency will win in corporatism. If charity law didn't apply to purchases in South Carolina, for example, why would WB go out of their way to take any of that money and push it off as charity instead of keeping it for themselves? Again, they're totally fine with lottery loot boxes that you have to pay real money for, so they do not have a precedent of humility when it comes to purchases for their products.
If you want an example of companies that do DLC and emphasize charity via said purchases right, look at Bohemia Interactive. Hell, just look at how they do DLC and the rest of industry looks like a joke.
While I'm sure this was the intention the entire time, WB games definitely needed to have clarified this info much more clearly than they did the first time around. Glad to know that they did provide this clarification (although it probably should have happened much sooner). Too bad that after this mess and all other issues with the game, I'm still going to hold of on it for now.
Honestly, I would call you a fool for not fully understanding the situation, but considering how many people have already called you out, it would be redundant at this point...
Honestly, I would call you a fool for not fully understanding the situation, but considering how many people have already called you out, it would be redundant at this point...
Did you read absolutely nothing about where the money was going for players outside of the US?
Basically this. They're still not gonna back off the regular MTs in the game, so they're still S+ class scum.
Screaming Meat
Unconfirmed Member
That was the right move, I think. Fair play.
ChaosSmurf
Member
I read the part of this announcement where they said they were going to donate all the money anyway (obviously) and explained why they couldn't specifically say that. Did you?
This is likely due to laws surrounding stuff like this. Players playing in Maryland can't receive prizes playing on Magic: The Gathering online, for example. 50 states leads to weird things happening.
This man gets it. Internet outrage culture at it's finest.
BassForever
Member
Or make the dlc free, then via there website set up a "if you'd like to donate the suggested vaue is $5" with 100% of proceeds being donated. Heck some people might be willing to donate more then however much they wanted to sell this dlc for and make more money off it.