Warner Bros. makes Shadow of War charity DLC free; Instead will donate money directly to dev’s family

Back in the beginning of September, Warner Bros. and Monolith revealed that they will be releasing DLC that will immortalize Executive Producer Micheal "Forthog" Forgey, who passed away last year from brain cancer, in Shadow of War as Forthog Orc-Slayer. The $5 DLC was detailed to be sending a portion of its cost to Forgey's family.

There was some confusion over whether or not the donations towards Forgey's family would come from global DLC sales or North American only, as the fine print suggested. Warner Bros. released a statement on the DLC saying that they would not be profiting from it in any way.

With the negative press around the DLC, Warner Bros. has once again released a statement and this time, they are changing everything.

Here's the backstory on the situation, as per Warner Bros.' wording:

"Specifically, we decided to sell the DLC worldwide and donate all profits from the DLC to the family. Although we decided to donate all profits to the family, we only planned to actively promote this donation in the U.S. (excluding certain states based on their charitable promotion laws). We hoped this approach would raise as much money as possible for the Forgey family in compliance with the law. 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.

"Additionally, a factually incorrect tweet from our team exacerbated the confusion by stating that international funds would not be going to the family. For absolute clarity; our intention was always to give all profits from the DLC, worldwide to the Forgey family."

With the marketing and their own Tweet working against their intentions, Warner Bros. has decided that making the DLC free and donating directly to the family is the best course of action – as is apologizing to fans and the Forgey family over the confusion.

"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. The DLC will be withdrawn from sale and will be a free download for owners of Middle-earth: Shadow of War. Anyone who has purchased the DLC will receive a full refund."

The Forgey family is taking donations on YouCaring.