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.

 

[Distracted DM]

This sort of thing - automating the issuance of legal documents - is literally my job! I'm not saying that makes me better or smarter or to shut up or w/e, I'm just saying that to me, it's extremely important where an error is coming from.

Here, an accident could occur, but it'd be something like the guy incorrectly selected the addressee details, it pulled those in, and thus got sent somewhere nonsensensical. That's an actual accident. And that does happen, but it's trivially resolved - "Did you mean to send this?" "No, we'd appreciate it if you deleted it please!". That's it.

This sort of thing though, where all the details were correct, it was sent to the right people, it was about the right product (mod, in this case), but shouldn't have been, that's no an accident. It likely took a lot of clicking and typing and double-checking things to even send this out, even with pretty good automation. That's not an accident, and that's why WotC didn't call it that. WotC called it a "mistake", and that's a much broader term, that covers a much wider range of potential failings. In this case the failing is likely down to "check before messing with something which might cause public blowback".


I am very well aware lol, as someone who works with those tools. That's why I am saying this isn't an accident though. This isn't a misclick or a whoopsy or a malfunction, this is a bad process/decision, which is different.

Like, specifically, say we had a meeting at my law firm to determine whose fault this was if it was us doing it - well it wouldn't be mine or my team's, because it wasn't a misclick or an accident or malfunction in that sense. The fault would lie with either the process, which maybe fails to say "Stop and consult [senior person X] before sending DMCAs out for [free mods]", or where maybe it did, but the senior person said "Sounds good to me" (in which case, they're at fault because now the client is annoyed), or where the junior lawyer or paralegal or w/e said "Eh I don't need to follow process, I got this!" (in case uh oh for said person!).

Hey, it was my job too!

On further thought though, since WotC was completely within its rights to send that DMCA... it's more likely that they ARE responding to PR backlash.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

completely within its rights

I'm not saying that they're not, but I do slightly wonder here given this mod just appears to use Larian's copyrights rather than WotC's? Maybe Larian have fully assigned them over to WotC but I kind of doubt it.

There's no easy way to find that out though I suspect, so this is idle wondering on my part.

 

[DEFCON 1]

At this point does it even matter?

People who are anti-WotC have already stepped off the train. Those that are still on the train even after however many of these incidents have happened obviously don't really care (like myself). So I suspect that the number of players who consider any new incident as "finally the breaking point!" to be exceedingly small. Which means it doesn't matter if this was an accident or if only some people at WotC knew or whether anyone thought about it or cared about any PR hit after the fact.

WotC/Hasbro have things that any corporation has to deal with or things they think they have to deal with (even if they realistically actually don't.) And they are going to do them and continue to do them. And if there's a backlash they will walk it back and say "Sorry!" And except in the extremely small number of people who do have some sort of "scandal breaking point"... those that hate WotC and don't buy their stuff will continue to not buy their stuff... and those of the rest of us who don't care about these so-called scandals will continue to buy the D&D products we wish to buy.

It is what it is. So arguing about it is kinda pointless. You either care or you don't.

 

[Morrus]

At this point does it even matter?

People who are anti-WotC have already stepped off the train. Those that are still on the train even after however many of these incidents have happened obviously don't really care (like myself). So I suspect that the number of players who consider any new incident as "finally the breaking point!" to be exceedingly small. Which means it doesn't matter if this was an accident or if only some people at WotC knew or whether anyone thought about it or cared about any PR hit after the fact.

WotC/Hasbro have things that any corporation has to deal with or things they think they have to deal with (even if they realistically actually don't.) And they are going to do them and continue to do them. And if there's a backlash they will walk it back and say "Sorry!" And except in the extremely small number of people who do have some sort of "scandal breaking point"... those that hate WotC and don't buy their stuff will continue to not buy their stuff... and those of the rest of us who don't care about these so-called scandals will continue to buy the D&D products we wish to buy.

It is what it is. So arguing about it is kinda pointless. You either care or you don't.

A topic of conversation doesn't have to be a dramatic 'breaking point' to be valid. That seems a ... limiting ... way of determining the viability of conversations.

As long as some people are interested in talking about it, any topic is valid. That's how conversation works.

 

[BMaC]

It is what it is. So arguing about it is kinda pointless. You either care or you don't.

Why don't you care?

 

[Sulicius]

I'm not saying that they're not, but I do slightly wonder here given this mod just appears to use Larian's copyrights rather than WotC's? Maybe Larian have fully assigned them over to WotC but I kind of doubt it.

There's no easy way to find that out though I suspect, so this is idle wondering on my part.

No, it's WotC's IP. That's why Larian now goes to make their own game again. Creative freedom, ownership and less board meetings.

 

[Cordwainer Fish]

Why don't you care?

Plus, when I don't care I don't hit PTT, I spin the dial.

 

[Stormonu]

Is this another case of foot-in-mouth syndrome for WotC?

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Is this another case of foot-in-mouth syndrome for WotC?

Yum yum yum

 

[Cergorach]

How does this happen accidentally? Human error, probably by not understanding what Nexusmods is, just like Morrus... No slight to Morrus! Nexusmods isn't the maker of the mod. Nexusmods is the hoster of the mod, it's a platform for mod makers. A nexus for mods... (Creator of the mod is Xun.)

But Nexusmods is owned by Black Tree Gaming LTD, Nexusmods also offers premium services and there work almost 40 people there, it's a for profit business. So lawyer sees a commercial business offering BG3 IP content, contacts their person at WotC, we have this commercial business offering BG3 IP, should we sent a notice? => WotC, what a business profiting from our IP, yes, send them a notice!

People don't know everything and often don't interpret what they see correctly. Lawyers don't have to be computer gamers and WotC isn't a computer game company, they just license their IP out to companies that are. Larian knows what Nexusmods is. WotC probably doesn't, some of their employees might, but some of their employees might also know how to pour concrete, it's not institutional knowledge. The team that recently got fired, working on Sigil would probably have known...

This is not unique to WotC. And certainly not unique to the pnp RPG business...