A Shadow comes for Warner Brothers...
Returning to the in-depth eye-glass level of review that was done for Trion and ArcheAge, the same model will instead be used for a more recent problem. Over the last summer, a development studio working on Warner Brothers Interactive Entertainment's upcoming game, Middle Earth: Shadow of War, suffered a tragedy as they lost their executive producer for the game to brain cancer. Monolith Productions' Michael Forgey passed away at the age of 43, leaving behind a spouse and his three children.
In the wake of this tragedy, to honor his memory, the development team created a character based off of Forgey's persona; a hero in Middle Earth: Shadow of War known as 'Forthog Orc-Slayer'. This was a tender gesture from the team and the character itself was dynamic to the point of whimsy, guitar-axe and all.
That being said, this announcement rose with it, a number of problems. The character itself would not be initially included into the game as-is. For this character to be experienced or even met, would mean paying for a minor downloadable content patch, separate from the main game. Warner Brothers has already been blamed in the past for hurting their games by cutting them up into pieces and selling the pieces as DLC before and this was starting to seem like the same issue, especially since the game already has an in-game micro-transaction market.
However, in this case, Warner Brothers made a concession to its typical antics and decided to be charitable instead. When it was announced, the Forthog DLC video on YouTube said that $3.50 of the $4.99 cost would be donated directly to Forgey's family 'til the 31st of December, 2017.
Unfortunately, this video and all other instances of the initial announcement for this character has since been taken down or edited. The reason being that, in these announcements, there was fine print listed clarifying that certain states within the U.S. and all regions outside of it would actually have their purchases counted as direct profits to Warner Brothers.
Whether or not this decision was made for the sake of creating easier or taxes or to make a quick buck, Warner Brothers backpedaled within five days of this debacle rising, issuing the following statement, "Neither Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment nor Monolith Productions will profit from any sales of the Forthog Orc-Slayer DLC regardless of the territory in which that DLC is sold."
This situation rings of either poor communication from past practices or a lack of understanding on how Warner Brothers Interactive Entertainment does their taxes. Either way, this kind of action paints a light that WB games does not truly care for their employees in the face of the bottom line.
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