The Halloween Stream That Was Actually Mostly About Licensing: A Summary

Surprisingly, no one else has made a post like this yet that I've seen, so even though it wasn't a Q&A, here's mine for anyone who missed it, saw it but forgot, or couldn't understand what was said.

As always, please bear in mind that this is official information, unofficially worded. While I naturally did my best to be as true to what was said on stream as possible, these are my words, not the developers', so don't read too far into the way anything is worded, unless it is in quotation marks " " in which case it is a direct quote from the stream.

If you want to watch the stream for yourself, you can do so here:

Featured on this stream were:

@not_Queen - Lead Community Manager

@mcote (Mathieu Cote) - Game Director, Not A Lawyer

Justin Banks - Product Manager

Opening Announcements

• Artwork, Cosplay and Decoration Halloween Contests are open right now. Due to a shipping issue regarding pricing, there has been a change to the rules, so make sure you check those before entering the contest(s).
• Keep an eye out for some “special stuff” posted on DBD’s social media in the near future.

Licensing Q&A

with Mathieu Cote (not a lawyer)

While Mathieu did his best to be as transparent about the process as possible, there are a lot of confidentiality issues involved with this topic so some discretion on his part was necessary.

Who contacts who?

It depends on the license. In some cases, the developers have a “wishlist” of licenses they would like to have in the game, so they reach out to the license owners to discuss it. There are a lot of different ways to go about obtaining the rights for a character, and may involve discussions with character agencies, movie or television studios, or individual creators or authors.

While the developers often reach out to license owners themselves, as Dead by Daylight has grown and become more well-known over the years, it has gone from being a “showcase” to help get license holders on board to what has apparently been described as the “hall of fame of horror”. Increasingly, therefore, owners of “very important and exciting” licenses get in contact with BHVR to discuss the possibility of having their characters in the game.

What kind of things do you have to agree on? Who decides character appearances or perks?

Again, it’s different for each license, but the owners always have the opportunity to approve designs throughout the process. The developers explain the concepts of physical interaction, hitting and hooking survivors etc. early in the process so the license holder understands the design limitations they are working with. Some aesthetic elements, like how the killer moves, are flexible to some extent in a way that mechanical interactions are not.

There are usually some rules governing character appearance, and some license holders are more flexible than others when it comes to the creation of new cosmetics that may not exist in the original license. This is easier for survivors than killers, who tend to have a single, iconic ‘look’ that defines them, such as Freddy’s striped sweater.

Speaking of looks, why didn’t Quentin’s face get changed after the original actor said he was okay with the game using his likeness?

It’s difficult to answer this question with regard to Quentin specifically because there are so many confidential discussions that can’t be talked about, but speaking in a more general sense, the rights to a character, their face and their likeness are all separate, and not always owned by the same people. Every license is different in this regard, so in some cases (Laurie Strode, for example) the license holder the developers are in contact with may have the rights to the characters but not to the actors’ likenesses, so the developers may be allowed to create a face that fits the character or is “reminiscent” of the original, but not to recreate the face of the actor who portrayed that character. Sometimes this is negotiable, or sometimes the license holder (not the actor) may own the rights to the character’s likeness (it is possible for an actor to ‘not own their own face’ in the context of them portraying someone else’s character).

Do the license holders have any say in the characters’ mechanics or their perks?

Some license holders, particularly with movies and especially with older movies, may not be as “savvy” when it comes to video games. In these cases, it is often enough for the developers to describe the “intention” behind how the character is being implemented in the game – what they do, how they make the player feel, etc. in a narrative sense, to reassure the license holder that the character is being represented appropriately. In other cases, the license holder may understand more or want to have more creative input, which they are welcome to do, but most of the time the design of gameplay mechanics is left largely up to the developers.

Do licenses expire or run out, and what does that mean for players?

Yes. Pretty much all contracts have some form of expiration built into them. The agreements between BHVR and license holders tend to have a duration, be it a long one or a shorter one that needs to be renewed regularly. It is possible that a license holder may suddenly lose the license, which can cause difficulties with the game (as in the case of Friday the 13th). If this happens, any licensing agreement the developers might have with those license holders becomes “frozen” until the case is resolved.

How do licensed cosmetics work?

During initial negotiations, the developers inform the license holders that they would like to include different outfits for the characters. If the character already has alternate outfits in the original license, that serves as a good starting point, but if they don’t (as in the case of the Demogorgon), the developers might work with the license holders to create acceptable cosmetics. Sometimes, the license holder may be completely opposed to this, and if that’s the case the developers have to respect that decision.

There are a lot of players who request different cosmetics for characters, sometimes from different properties in a franchise, and it is important to understand that these licenses are all different and may not be owned by the same people, so it’s not always possible for the developers to meet those requests.

Over time, the developers have learned the most important things that they need to ask or discuss during licensing negotiations. When discussing cosmetics, for example, they try to explain what the license holder stands to gain by allowing different outfits for the characters to be available in-game, which is something that they didn’t always talk about in the past (although when the first licenses were obtained for the game, the Store didn’t even exist yet).

Are licensed killers or perks harder to balance? Is the approval of the license holders needed to rebalance mechanics after the chapter’s initial release?

Whenever they make changes to licensed characters, the developers consult the license holders. Gameplay mechanics are generally owned by the developers and therefore under their control, but even so they will inform the license holders whenever something is changed just to keep them updated. Changes to things like flavour text for add-ons, however, do need to be approved by the license holders, which can sometimes cause delays in getting a patch released.

The fact that killers are never pitted against each other in-game makes discussing gameplay mechanics with license holders easier, since the developers are free to create unique powers without having to negotiate their relative strength in relation to other characters with the license holders – either by promising that a particular character will be the strongest in the game or telling the license holder that the character is terrible as grounds for a buff.

When a new chapter is being developed, is there ongoing communication with the license holders? How does that work?

At the beginning of the process, before production actually starts, there is a lot of discussion going on. Typically, a few of the designers and artists might sit down with the license holders to look at any reference images they may have available to help recreate the character’s original appearance and exchange ideas about how the character might be implemented into the game. This discussion is important not only for development but for establishing trust with the license holders moving forward.

Why was _____ not added to the game? Does spamming the developers on social media help to make this happen?

As much as they would like to say “No, stop doing it!” the truth is it does help sometimes, because it can help to generate interest and awareness of the game with the license holders. So it might have a positive impact in some cases. That being said, spam isn’t really useful. Any horror character, or even horror-related character, that fans of the game may want to see introduced, has definitely been discussed internally by the developers at some point, even very obscure stuff that not everyone may have heard of. And if someone on their social media mentions something strange that they haven’t heard of, they look it up and check it out.

The thing to be aware of is that Dead by Daylight only gets about four chapters a year, half of which they try to ensure are original, leaving a maximum of two licensed chapters per year, so adding “fifty different licenses” isn’t something they are able or willing to do, meaning that they have to pick and choose. There are still some great licenses that they want to bring to the game in the future, but when that happens they want it to be a surprise for the players, the way that Silent Hill was.

Why did you nerf Pyramid Head’s butt?

This was already discussed in this article, but the official stance is that Pyramid Head’s butt wasn’t touched. However, his clothing was adjusted, which goes to show “the true power of clothing that fits you well”.

Why can’t the developers give out public information during negotiations with license holders?

Licensing negotiations tend to be quite delicate, and any outside influence from fans can cause unneeded complications. For example, the developers might publicly that they were in negotiations with license holders about bringing Garfield to Dead by Daylight, but are still unsure about whether it’s going to go through or not because discussions are still ongoing. If fans were to respond negatively, saying that they hate Garfield and don’t want him in the game, that would make negotiations with the license holders more complicated and difficult. Also, as a general rule, it’s best to keep legal conversations private before any contracts get signed.

Most importantly, if the developers were to announce an upcoming license while it was still being negotiated, and the negotiations ended up falling through and it didn’t happen, there would be a lot of disappointed players, which is why the developers tend to only announce upcoming features of any kind once they are certain that they can deliver on that promise. Plus, if it were announced in advance, there would be no place for teasers or dramatic chapter reveals which the marketing team like to do for upcoming chapters.

If you [Mathieu Cote] were to add one chapter to the game from any license you want, what would it be?

Mathieu gets asked this question regularly, and his answer is always the Cenobite from Hellraiser, because he thinks that the “quiet elegance” of the characters’ aesthetic would fit well in Dead by Daylight. However, there are a lot of licenses he would like to see. Leslie Nielsen’s Dracula: Dead and Loving It is another, but he doesn’t think it would be an “exact fit” for Dead by Daylight. That said, Mathieu is also a big fan of the original chapters, and mentioned that the concept for the newest one in development is “so ######### cool, it's crazy”.

Archives and the Eternal Blight event

with Justin Banks

• Some of the event content this year will again be in The Archives. Last year, the story of The Blight was continued through lore entries attached to challenges in Tome I, and this year they will be doing the same thing to bring a conclusion to the story.
• Tome challenges will spawn plants in the matches, reminiscent of the Pustula plants from the Hallowed Blight event in 2018, which survivors can interact with, while killers will be given challenges to play as The Blight. All of these challenges will unlock lore entries for “Doors Unknown”, the final chapter in the Blight “saga”. This is the first time that they have introduced a Tome challenge which spawns items in the map, and they are looking forward to what else they might be able to do with this concept in future Archives.
• The Tome V Collection will also contain all lore entries and cinematics from the original Hallowed Blight event, as these were not previously accessible within the game in the way that the Withering Blight lore is and the Eternal Blight lore will be. This way, players can explore the entire story of the character originally known as The Alchemist, now The Blight, and his “descent into madness”.
• There will be an event-themed outfit for David King in the paid track of The Rift, and the charms granted for completing levels in the Tome will be themed around a growing Pustula plant.
• For the first time this year, there will not only be an event charm available as a login reward, but also three which can be obtained by keeping an eye on the game’s official social media channels.
• The traditional Halloween event items (medkits and flashlights) will also be returning, along with new add-ons for both, and the first universal killer add-on, the Blighted Serum, which allows the killer to do a quick Blight-like dash after hooking a survivor.
• Pustula Petal offerings will once again be playable to spawn event-themed generators and hooks, which can be interacted with for bonus bloodpoints.
• In the past, they have had event-themed Halloween lobbies, but since The Blight’s themed lobby was already drawing on the Blight event aesthetic, it will remain with the addition of pumpkins and other Halloween-themed decor.
• There will be more ‘blighted’ outfits like those released for previous Halloween events, but these will be revealed at a later date.

All of this will be coming with the Halloween event later in the month.