Shadow of War's controversial Forthog Orcslayer DLC is now free

---

The DLC was intended to immortalise Michael Forgey, an executive producer at Monolith who died of a brain tumour last year, and to raise funds to help support his widow and children.

---

by Chris Brand

@pass_controller

---

Warner Bros. were selling the DLC for £3.99 and promised that a percentage would go to his family. In the description of a, since deleted, YouTube video, the small print stated that the publisher would only donate money from sales that were made in most states of the U.S. This seemed to suggest that proceeds from any sales in Europe, and the excluded states, would not go to the family.

It has since been cleared up by Warner Bros. who released a statement claiming that profits from all sales worldwide would have been donated to the family, but the decision was made to only promote the donation in certain U.S. states so as to not run afoul of charitable promotion laws. The publisher went on to state:

"Our decision not to promote the donation outside the U.S. (even though we intended to donate the money) caused many to question where funds from other territories were going. Answering that direct question itself 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."

To further muddy the waters, a "factually incorrect" tweet from the team said that international funds would not be going to the family. Once again, the company assured us that this was an error and their intention was to give all profits from worldwide sales to the family.

The promotion has now been scrapped. The DLC will be free to anyone who purchases Shadow of War and refunds given to those who had already paid for the content.

"We now recognize that tying our donation to sales of the DLC was not the best way to achieve our goal of offering financial support to the family and creating a lasting memorial to Michael Forgey. We sincerely apologize to the fans and to the Forgey family for the confusion we created.

To ensure the two original aims are still met and to provide transparency to the community, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment will instead make a donation directly to the Forgey family."

If you wish to donate, you can do so via their youcaring site.

COMMENT ON THE FORUMS