It looks like since Asmodee aquired FFG, the policy around the use of company property for the intent of making fan-based tools or applications has been severily restricted. From what I could gather, not even the use of cards scan is allowed anymore. It used to be that such practice would be allowed at the price of lower picture resolution, to prevent people from getting high-res printed cards without the need to get the expansions. At least this is the reason being given, but it remains very controvertial in my opinion.

What I find controvertial is the fact sales are normally not affected by content leaking on the internet, for trivial things like rules or cards. Instead, it is a general trend I have been observing, that players would find that material on the internet (say a set of class cards from an expansion), find it interesting, and then buy the expansion just for that. I don't really believe in players fully proxy-ing games to play them, given the level of effort such thing would represent. I don't either think many players out there enjoy playing a game with vastly sub-par components made on the fly just to avoid the cost of buying a copy of the core game. I also believe most board gamers with our level of investment care about game publishers, or their FLGS and don't hesitate to purchase a game or an expansion for a product line they love.

People normally make fan-based content based on one or several of the following reasons:

1- New quests, new heroes, new items, new teams. Templates are easily found on the geek, free for people to photoshop out a few cards for their own personal use. FFG does not currently provide templates - although one could argue you can easily remove the text off a card and use the rest as a template - . The Quest Vault is, as everybody knows, but a shadow of what it could have become with the support of FFG.

2- Wikis, cards lists, card scans. These are primarly used for reference, mainly to illustrate rules questions, strategy guides (which are highly valued by the community, but FFG does not post such articles bar for X-Wing or some of the Star Wars games) and balance discussions. FFG currently doesn't allow the use of cards, nor does provide any API or even raw text reference of what the cards say. Heck, they are not even considering printing updated card text content based on errata information. You need to compile this information yourself.

3- Applications, or advanced tools (can be just an Excel sheet), to keep track of things. FFG really does leave this task to the players as for how to organize their campaigns, therefore such tools naturally emerged from the community to automate some of the quite tedious steps of campaign handling. It's also about speeding up the preparation time before actual play, to be honest.

Below is an email I got from FFG's legal department. I post it to showcase the actual phrasing in it.

Dear XXX,

While we appreciate the enthusiasm and fan support for Descent: Journeys in the Dark , we in general do not allow our game materials in software applications, including card scans.

Please remember that intellectual property policies and decisions from Asmodee North America are subject to change at any time.
Sincerely,
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
J. Lohman
Legal Affairs
[email protected]
Asmodee North America
FANTASY FLIGHT GAMES

I´m a bit concerned by this, because it showcases a decision not to let the fans expand on the game on any level whatsoever. It's hard to keep the community tight with strict restrictions like these. I'm guessing this has no impact on existing fan-based content that has already been released, but I have to say not being able to distribute game-aids or tools to the dedicated hardcore fanbase of that game feels a little harsh and almost punitive. The users of these tools are not only the player base of that game, but also people that are so dedicated to the game so they are actively searching for this kind of material, which is normally free. What damage this does to the company is still unclear to me.

What is your view regarding legal property in conjunction with the use of fan-based content?

It looks like since Asmodee aquired FFG, the policy around the use of company property for the intent of making fan-based tools or applications has been severily restricted. From what I could gather, not even the use of cards scan is allowed anymore. It used to be that such practice would be allowed at the price of lower picture resolution, to prevent people from getting high-res printed cards without the need to get the expansions. At least this is the reason being given, but it remains very controvertial in my opinion.

What I find controvertial is the fact sales are normally not affected by content leaking on the internet, for trivial things like rules or cards. Instead, it is a general trend I have been observing, that players would find that material on the internet (say a set of class cards from an expansion), find it interesting, and then buy the expansion just for that. I don't really believe in players fully proxy-ing games to play them, given the level of effort such thing would represent. I don't either think many players out there enjoy playing a game with vastly sub-par components made on the fly just to avoid the cost of buying a copy of the core game. I also believe most board gamers with our level of investment care about game publishers, or their FLGS and don't hesitate to purchase a game or an expansion for a product line they love.

People normally make fan-based content based on one or several of the following reasons:

1- New quests, new heroes, new items, new teams. Templates are easily found on the geek, free for people to photoshop out a few cards for their own personal use. FFG does not currently provide templates - although one could argue you can easily remove the text off a card and use the rest as a template - . The Quest Vault is, as everybody knows, but a shadow of what it could have become with the support of FFG.

2- Wikis, cards lists, card scans. These are primarly used for reference, mainly to illustrate rules questions, strategy guides (which are highly valued by the community, but FFG does not post such articles bar for X-Wing or some of the Star Wars games) and balance discussions. FFG currently doesn't allow the use of cards, nor does provide any API or even raw text reference of what the cards say. Heck, they are not even considering printing updated card text content based on errata information. You need to compile this information yourself.

3- Applications, or advanced tools (can be just an Excel sheet), to keep track of things. FFG really does leave this task to the players as for how to organize their campaigns, therefore such tools naturally emerged from the community to automate some of the quite tedious steps of campaign handling. It's also about speeding up the preparation time before actual play, to be honest.

Below is an email I got from FFG's legal department. I post it to showcase the actual phrasing in it.

Dear XXX,

While we appreciate the enthusiasm and fan support for Descent: Journeys in the Dark , we in general do not allow our game materials in software applications, including card scans.

Please remember that intellectual property policies and decisions from Asmodee North America are subject to change at any time.

Sincerely,

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

J. Lohman

Legal Affairs

[email protected]

Asmodee North America

FANTASY FLIGHT GAMES

I´m a bit concerned by this, because it showcases a decision not to let the fans expand on the game on any level whatsoever. It's hard to keep the community tight with strict restrictions like these. I'm guessing this has no impact on existing fan-based content that has already been released, but I have to say not being able to distribute game-aids or tools to the dedicated hardcore fanbase of that game feels a little harsh and almost punitive. The users of these tools are not only the player base of that game, but also people that are so dedicated to the game so they are actively searching for this kind of material, which is normally free. What damage this does to the company is still unclear to me.

What is your view regarding legal property in conjunction with the use of fan-based content?

To chime in, I see the danger of allowing scans to be posted, but I think the danger is minimal and overblown by this type of "corporate" policy. In general, people take offense when innocent acts are punished for the sole sake of trying to prevent criminal activity. As such, I think the company is in much more danger of losing sales by alienating their client base than they are from the mindbogglingly rare person who would try to print an entire game by himself rather than buying the actual product.

on other hand, i'm almost sure that custom made content is a good way for FFG to see what,if, and how players wants expansions.

And this message comes not from FFG, but more from Asmodée as I can see. So, maybe they will warn and limitate component in some way since it can goes againt the sellings.

I'm not so sure that they will do the same if thoses were posted on the game forum right here.

And I was just thinking about adding examples of real cards to my game aids...

Interesting development for the D2E tracker, I hope they won't affect decisions made in the past

I really wonder why they are so restrictive. Is there an example where people have printed an entire game and proxied everything? I mean I can understand this partially. Cards can be printed professionally. Tiles are probably harder but doable. Figures? Maybe with a 3D printer. In the future maybe even in good quality. So I can kind of understand that they are scared to loose sales. But on the other hand, who would go through all of this trouble?

I hope someone tells them to keep their policies reasonable.

It's a bit disapoiting since I love board games because I can do my own stuff and balance myself, easier than in a video game.

So, it's a bit more "my" game this way. Looks like times are changing ...

Ok, ok. I'll stop buying from FFG and start to scan all the things.

Oh, wait! It's not allowed anymore.

From a practical perspective, though, nobody is going to knock at your home door and have a scan at your computer looking for scans of cards or any other material you happen to keep track of that would be related to a board game. That's where I miss the "for personal use only" clause of the restriction. I don't think mentioning this would have been a great effort off Asmodee.

Now let's get real here. Nobody prevents me from taking the D2E pieces and building my own board game or video/app game with it. Would it really defile the game and hurt the business? In many cases having people expand on a game could really lift up interest and bring more people into the industry and specifically to buying FFG games.

And now the completely ridiculous statement that does not make any sense to anybody but probably still needs to be raised given that context: should my fellow Descent players pay a fee for playing the game with me (the owner of the game) What regulations do Asmodee have concerning their use of licensed material? Should I make 5 copies of the proof of purchase, should I ask my players to bind their eyes so they don't see my campaign tracker on Excel?

More seriously, should I stop sending my hero players spreadsheets of information so they can gather and pick their hero team beforehand, so we can jump into the action next time we play?

Public distribution of fan-based material is more of a grey zone for companies willing to preserve their image. It's not hard to understand why. On the other hand they just cannot control the totality of this, so why not allowing some of it? The biggest proportion of this custom material is assumed not to be harmful to the business. I have yet to see fan-based content for a board game where I sat and thought that it would be way too much or harmful to the community or the publisher.

The "worst" you can see on BGG, is somebody saying flat out a game isn't good at all, suggests to ditch the rules and provides new ones. Even in that case, still in my opinion, and as per homebrew principles, why not seeing this as a way to keep interest up into a game, especially if the only other alternative is to let it die.

Similarly, I don't believe people just throw time into designing a Hello Kitty Blood Bowl team, a Cylon faction for Forbidden Stars, or board games reviewers teams for Smash up (it's a real expansion) to hurt the game or make it sound ridiculous. People do this because it's fun. They´re not waving their My Little Pony custom monster cards at FFG saying "ha-ha you fools", they´re actually playing the game with that.

We face the same issues in my own industry, where security restrictions need to be put in place for every artifact and procedure. But when these measures cannot be 100% trusted or practical to implement, then the normal consensus is to open up for more freedom and try to restrict the things that matter the most. The alternative is to block everything and make everybody's life miserable. I have a hard time not drawing the parallel here.

So yeah, as you may have guessed I´m a bit pissed off at the moment, as I feel this is a bit Games Workshop-py of Asmodee to put the Corporate side in front of the community this way. I think nobody questions the legitimacy of Asmodee/FFG willing to regulate their licenses and make sure the market is always leaning towards sales and positive response from the community, like I said nobody wants to hurt the game, but not allowing the community to generate material to base discussions on is kind of asking us to leave the forums, since there's a clear cap of how much we can discuss here without that material. Not even rules point are easy to explain if you don't have the cards next to you.

And now the completely ridiculous statement that does not make any sense to anybody but probably still needs to be raised given that context: should my fellow Descent players pay a fee for playing the game with me (the owner of the game) What regulations do Asmodee have concerning their use of licensed material? Should I make 5 copies of the proof of purchase, should I ask my players to bind their eyes so they don't see my campaign tracker on Excel?

More seriously, should I stop sending my hero players spreadsheets of information so they can gather and pick their hero team beforehand, so we can jump into the action next time we play?

Hold on now, Indalecio. Your first statement is indeed ridiculous as you said yourself. (Why should this statement be raised?).

As to your second one: There is always an important principle: Ubi non accusator, ibi non iudex (no plaintiff, no judge). So feel free to scan your stuff to use in spreadsheets etc. as long as its not public. What they worry about is that somebody would scan their material and creates an app and sells it on the app stores.

That would indeed violate the rights of intellectual property.

However, I totally agree with the rest of what you have said. They should really be more friendly with their dedicated fanbase. In fact: the people who put in a lot of time to explain rules and create pdfs with diagrams and glossaries are extremely important for newcomers. If these people wouldn't do it, Asmodee/FFG would have to employ someone to do that or they end up with somewhat frustrated and puzzled new players. In my view, the company should value that more.

Now let's get real here. Nobody prevents me from taking the D2E pieces and building my own board game or video/app game with it.

That's the spitit! All your board games are belong to us!!!

Now let's get real here. Nobody prevents me from taking the D2E pieces and building my own board game or video/app game with it.

That's the spitit! All your board games are belong to us!!!

You have no chance to survive make your time. Zero wings PawA !

Hold on now, Indalecio. Your first statement is indeed ridiculous as you said yourself. (Why should this statement be raised?).

It doesn't make any sense, I know, but is full access to game material from a game you don't own accepted, however a small fraction of said material, artificially recreated or rendered in a way that makes it sub-par in essence, for informational purpose, and to people who already own the game, would not be allowed? The reason why I wrote this crazy stuff (like I said, I don't believe in it one bit myself) is because you could go even further into how ridiculous things could potentially become, if you held on to a policy where nothing should be shared to protect intellectual property. Since there is no mention anywhere of "personal use and/or within the family/friends circle", I´m wondering where Asmodee is setting that limit currently. Or maybe there is an underlying agreement describing best legal practice in the context of the board games industry. But like I said earlier, is sharing information using tools and/or files with my fellow players a violation to these regulations?

As to your second one: There is always an important principle: Ubi non accusator, ibi non iudex (no plaintiff, no judge). So feel free to scan your stuff to use in spreadsheets etc. as long as its not public. What they worry about is that somebody would scan their material and creates an app and sells it on the app stores.

That would indeed violate the rights of intellectual property.

The problem is that if you want to distribute your stuff (free of charge obviously), then you have to go to these channels, because that's basically how distribution works for these applications. Technically speaking there is no equivalent. The question I´m asking now, is how would Asmodee react if they saw a free app on iTunes showing in-game content, for whatever purpose (except emulating the game maybe). According to them that wouldn't be allowed. But BGG is also a place where any user can download resources. The context is quite particular there, as there are reviews made on such content, probably to avoid law infringement or pursuits. The question is if intellectual property is violated even in that case (should the content be allowed for download by BGG), and if so what makes fan-based content A different from fan-based content B. What exact artifact is categorized as intellectual property? Is it the game in its whole? Is it every subset of it? Is it the art or the graphic design?

In other words, is the problem DISTRIBUTION to a potentially wide public? Bearing in mind the target audience is limited to a very small subset of people with a certain level of investment in the game. Also bearing in mind the difficulty of restricting access to said content to only a part of the population (for practical reasons), making huge sell hubs the best platform for distribution, for maximal exposure. And technical constraints as well.

... or is it the risk of letting people EARN MONEY off intellectual property? Which is fully understandable and defendable, although fairly easy to identify and react to, therefore not really justifying the strictness of Asmodee's recommendation on the matter.

Btw I like your signature

I just need the d2etracker to play my game happy. As far as they do not touch it, I have nothing to complain about.

I just need the d2etracker to play my game happy. As far as they do not touch it, I have nothing to complain about.

The problem is in this environment tools like that don't get created in the first place. Why spend the time and effort on something that can be shut down at any time?

The problem is that if you want to distribute your stuff (free of charge obviously), then you have to go to these channels, because that's basically how distribution works for these applications. Technically speaking there is no equivalent. The question I´m asking now, is how would Asmodee react if they saw a free app on iTunes showing in-game content, for whatever purpose (except emulating the game maybe). According to them that wouldn't be allowed. But BGG is also a place where any user can download resources. The context is quite particular there, as there are reviews made on such content, probably to avoid law infringement or pursuits. The question is if intellectual property is violated even in that case (should the content be allowed for download by BGG), and if so what makes fan-based content A different from fan-based content B. What exact artifact is categorized as intellectual property? Is it the game in its whole? Is it every subset of it? Is it the art or the graphic design?

In other words, is the problem DISTRIBUTION to a potentially wide public? Bearing in mind the target audience is limited to a very small subset of people with a certain level of investment in the game. Also bearing in mind the difficulty of restricting access to said content to only a part of the population (for practical reasons), making huge sell hubs the best platform for distribution, for maximal exposure. And technical constraints as well.

... or is it the risk of letting people EARN MONEY off intellectual property? Which is fully understandable and defendable, although fairly easy to identify and react to, therefore not really justifying the strictness of Asmodee's recommendation on the matter.

Hmm I'm no lawyer, but I would guess that they want to ban 2 things:

1) Someone making money with their intellectual property without their permission

2) Someone making it possible to play the game without buying their stuff

As long as you don't make any money and you don't act against their interest, it shouldn't be a big problem. You might be below the radar. Still, they may complain and force you to remove the pictures etc, but you don't think you would get a lawsuit or anything like that.

I once bought a nice app to browse magic cards. Really a nice thing, but one day, all the pictures were missing. The guy who made the app got a copyright complain and had to remove the pics. That basically killed the thing

I see that my previous points on issues such as this fell on deaf ears.

To be perfectly clear, FFG/Asmodee were/are practically forced to tell you no if you ask, or they risk losing the rights, wholly or in part, to their IP:s.

If you ask beforehand, you are basically told no, and you can make no claims of ignorance. Asking beforehand is like requesting a cease-and-desist before you even do something.

If you ask beforehand, you are basically told no, and you can make no claims of ignorance. Asking beforehand is like requesting a cease-and-desist before you even do something.

While I agree the job of Asmodee legal is to protect their IP, I disagree that asking ahead of time is always a bad idea. Yes, it makes it a lot easier to demonstrate that you had willful intent to violate copyright if they have a dated email informing you of their stance. However, they do (did) not always say "no". For example, I sought clearance from FFG legal before posting my glossary, and they approved the idea. Granted, I didn't have any card scans in it.

Since you linked the thread i originally created:

I did ask FFG before i started my work on uploading scans to the wiki.

The answer was that they decide this on a case by case basis.

They also told me to use the same rules regarding scanned cards they already gave to descentinthedark.com

(for the whole conversation read http://descent2e.wikia.com/wiki/Legal )

Which means I'm allowed to upload scans of low quality to the wiki.... "for now".

They always reserve the right to change their mind and tell me tomorrow to remove all the scans from the wiki (which i hope i don't have to).

I also sought approval in advance for the D2Etracker. Which they also granted, with some requirements attached (no money for use of the tracker and no adds, add FFG copyright to images,...)

If you ask beforehand, you are basically told no, and you can make no claims of ignorance. Asking beforehand is like requesting a cease-and-desist before you even do something.

While I agree the job of Asmodee legal is to protect their IP, I disagree that asking ahead of time is always a bad idea. Yes, it makes it a lot easier to demonstrate that you had willful intent to violate copyright if they have a dated email informing you of their stance. However, they do (did) not always say "no". For example, I sought clearance from FFG legal before posting my glossary, and they approved the idea. Granted, I didn't have any card scans in it.

I concur. I have published a few peripheral materials for FFG games in the past. I've sought permission to do so and I've never been told "no" before. So, asking first is not always a death sentence.

In the past, FFG was always very generous with their permission for fan-made content, even going so far as to officially allow the old ti3.org website (no longer around, but not for legal reasons) where you could basically play TI3 online, provided you had a set of all the cards. They allowed fans to post scans of the systems, representations of the ships, etc, etc. You could build entire maps and easily move ships around turn by turn. The only limitation they put on the fans is that they couldn't post scans of cards. Each player needed to have access to his own copy of all the cards as a means of ensuring everyone involved owned a copy of the game. This was old FFG, mind you, before ANA came along. So yes, the policy about not posting card scans is not a new thing. Perhaps some fans out there have been posting low-quality card scans without asking permission first, and perhaps FFG has turned a blind eye provided the quality wasn't too high, but that doesn't mean FFG "allowed it" per policy. It just means they had better things to do with their time than hunt down every errant fan online.

I'm not surprised that ANA is tightening up on legal permissions, considering that FFG's policy beforehand was so remarkably loose. I AM surprised it's taken this long since the merger for issues like this to begin surfacing. I'm also not saying I agree with everything they say vis-a-vis legal permissions, I'm just saying that they do, in fact, have a right to make those calls.

At the end of the day, we are talking about FFG/ANA's IP here. They have a legitimate right to control its use. The true proliferation of fanbase material is based on mutual respect between fans and company. That means we give the respect of making sure they're OK with what we publish online, and they show us the respect of letting us do (some) stuff. But the minute people start talking about "just doing it" without asking permission is the minute this mutual goodwill turns into a warzone.

Would you rather have some restrictions placed on the kind of content you can make as a fan, or would you instead prefer to provoke another Great Purge, like the one GW pulled in 2009? If this becomes a war, Descent is not the only property that will be impacted. And it won't be entirely FFG's fault, either, much as I'm sure some people in the community would make it out to be. Destroying the community is not something FFG can do by themselves, nor is it something they would want to. It might be something they get pushed into doing , but only if WE give them sufficient reason. And btw,doing this isn't going to teach FFG any "big lesson" about "how to treat their customers." It's only going to show them this game line is no longer worth the trouble it causes. Which means Descent goes out of print while FFG focuses on other products whose communities aren't full of assholes undermining their legal rights.