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What happens if a character license expires?
In today's devstream Mathieu brought up the possibility of a character licence expiring (be it due to Behaviour not having the money to extend the licence, the licence owner not being interested in extending it, or the licence owner changing and the new owner not being cooperative) - and then haven't said what exactly would it mean for DbD if that happened.
Would the DLC still be in the store?
If not, would people who already purchased the characters still be able to use them?
If not, what would happen with the money they spent on the dlc/cosmetics and the bloodpoints invested to level them up?
Comments
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They would still be in the game just can't be updated as far as I'm aware.
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They said they just can't add anything new to it. Its like the Friday the 13th game. Its still there to play but they haven't been able to add anything in over 2 years.
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Probably the same thing that happened with Scarface recently in Payday 2. The DLC stopped being on sale but anyone that had the DLC would keep it.
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No new cosmetics for sure, but what about game play changes or add on updates?
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if they can't sell the DLC does that mean it becomes available with shards?
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No, that's still "selling," even it it's not for real money. It gets locked and/or removed from stores so that no transactions, profitable or otherwise, can take place, since the company has no right to oversee such transactions because you cannot sell what you do not own.
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This ^
I'm also wondering if a new player came across, let's say freddy, really liked the killer and wanted to get it in stores, if they could still at least see that he's not for sale. Or if they would just remove it from the shop altogether, leaving the new player clueless.
And I can definitely see some black market stuff going on if this were to happen... Secret trades if you will
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I'm also hoping that in a theoretical situation, if the worst comes to the worst and a licenced character can no longer be playable in the game after an expired licence, the devteam could make a workaround to still keep the character itself still in the game.
As far as I know, the killer's gameplay/perks on a technical level aren't licenced, but rather are Behaviour's property. So for example if Myers would have to go, giving him a different OC model, renaming his as "The Stalker" and changing the flavor texts in his bio/addons/etc. should technically be a way to keep the killer's power in the game, and allow people to still use a killer they invested their time and progress in.
Hoping that wouldn't have to be the case of course, and that what you guys say is correct. I can't help but ponder the worst case scenario though. Not gonna lie, ever since the devstream I'm kinda concerned about maining any licenced character if there's even a tiny chance they might outright disappear at some point in the future.
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The character gets sent to the Netherrealm.
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The whole devstream is currently archived here: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/771212558
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I have studied this quite a bit. I was a top tier F13 player and youtube creator when the license came under fire.
Any content created, being created, or planned (with actual release dates, betas etc) would remain in game and the dlc would still be available. However, without a proper license deal with whomever owns the IP after the license expires, no new content regarding that character could be planned.
I've often wondered if Freddy has had some IP issues considering he's based off a one-off remake that the original writer was not fond of. Could this explain the fact that Freddy has no customization options in store?
--note*----
the Freddy situation is just food for thought and a curiosity of mine. No such info has ever been shown.
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If that were to happen Im sure BHVR could release a Store Brand Krueger, a Killer with same power, same statistics, "same" perks and instead of being "Freddy Krueger, The Nightmare" it would be "Johny Koegler, The Unpleasent Dream" he would be heavily burnt from falling into a pit of acid, wearing a caked dirt bowler hat and an tacky blue and black vertical stripe sweater.
The license holders own the character and lore but they dont own the ideas of how they were recreated in the game nor the Perks BHVR created or anything of that, they can carbon copy them, put them into a slate blank Killer with different effects and art and call it a day.
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I laughed so hard at "Johny Koegler" I almost choked....lol
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