Warner Bros Clarifies the Forthog Orc-Slayer Confusion

During development of the upcoming Middle-Earth: Shadow of War game developed by Monolith Productions Mike Forgey, the Executive Producer of the company, had passed away due to cancer.  In an effort to commemorate his efforts to the team, Warner Bros Interactive released a DLC called "Forthog Orc-Slayer" as an additional character and announced that all proceeds made from this DLC would be donated to the Forgey family.

Well, when you read the fine print, you'll notice that this excludes not only any countries outside the US, but a small number of US states as well. An outrage emerged, and claims of Warner Bros trying to profit off the death of an employee were filling the air. This lead to a staff member tweeting out (a tweet now deleted) confirming that profits from the excluded locations were not being donated to the family. Fans continued to be outraged, many boycotted, and even more demanded refunds.

Earlier today, Warner Bros finally made a remark on the matter. In the Warner Bros Community pages, A WB Admin made a statement clarifying their intentions. They claimed that for legal reasons pertaining to charitable promotion laws, they were not able to promote the charity DLC in certain places. This is why they were excluded in the fine print. They also stated that the tweet made by a staff member claiming that those profits were not going to the family was entirely false, but they could not dispute it without infringing on said charitable promotion laws. They apologize for the stress and confusion they caused when they only wanted to do good. 

How they made it up to the community is even better. They have decided to make a donation themselves to the Forgey family, make the Forthog Orc-Slayer DLC free, as well as refund anyone who purchased it. Personally, I couldn't think of a better move to make. 

You can read the statement from Warner Bros here. You can visit the DLC Steam Page here.