Developer for Shadows of War Immortalized in Game

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monkeymagick

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Monolith Productions, the developers of the upcoming Middle-earth: Shadows of War are paying tribute to their executive producer who passed away last year due to a brain tumor at the age of 43. Michael David Forgey will be immortalized as Forthog the Orc Slayer in DLC content for the game. WB Games will donate a portion of every Forthog DLC sold to his family through December 31st, 2019. A nice gesture by the team and the character looks pretty badass.

Check out the tribute.

Forgey, who was married with three children, was a music enthusiast who played in a band made up of Monolith staff called Orc Slayer. Accordingly, Forthog Orc-Slayer wields a devastating guitar axe, which you can see in the video below. (The song was written and performed by Forgey himself.)
 
As if I didn't already want this game that is a great gesture by the studio and WB games!
 
I have my own tombstone in a custom Urban Terror sniper map. It's like Bing though, only myself and around 7 other guys know about this.
 
One of my long time work buddies, ten years working together, died of brain cancer a little less than a year ago.

Brain cancer is a vicious bitch of a cancer.

I miss him a lot.
 
Why not include him in the game and give $0.10 for every copy sold instead? They pushing more DLC sales using his name, with "a potion to xyz" as the bargaining chip to get the family's permission to do so.
 
Yeah, this would have been a much better gesture if 100% of the DLC proceeds went to the family. It's not like there are distribution costs really...

Considering what they have already done to this game, though, this is not surprising.
 
Gweenz said:
I hate to be cynical but....yeah ...This has the look and feel of sleazy corporate bullshit.
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I don't disagree, but I mean, they didn't have to do anything, did they? People die from cancer all the time. $3.50 out of a 3.99 (pounds sterling? typo? not sure?) DLC is a pretty decent percentage if you ask me, and putting the guys likeness and original music composition into the game he worked on seems like a tribute he would appreciate (I mean, they did it, so I assume they got permission from people who would know if he'd want this, and therefore he would have).

WB Games / Time Warner might be shady as fuck, but I ask myself what exactly should they have done in this instance for me to not shit on them? Maybe make a large one-time donation in addition to the DLC percentages? I don't know, but I think that even if they aren't doing exactly what I feel they should, they're coming pretty darn close, no? If we can't give them credit for making a decent effort, what incentive do they have to try again in the future?

Hats off to Mr. Forgey, his family, and to WB for their gesture.
 
Nicepants42 said:
I don't disagree, but I mean, they didn't have to do anything, did they? People die from cancer all the time. $3.50 out of a 3.99 (pounds sterling? typo? not sure?) DLC is a pretty decent percentage if you ask me, and putting the guys likeness and original music composition into the game he worked on seems like a tribute he would appreciate (I mean, they did it, so I assume they got permission from people who would know if he'd want this, and therefore he would have).

WB Games / Time Warner might be shady as fuck, but I ask myself what exactly should they have done in this instance for me to not shit on them? Maybe make a large one-time donation in addition to the DLC percentages? I don't know, but I think that even if they aren't doing exactly what I feel they should, they're coming pretty darn close, no? If we can't give them credit for making a decent effort, what incentive do they have to try again in the future?

Hats off to Mr. Forgey, his family, and to WB for their gesture.
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That's what I thought. They didn't have to do anything and I think it's totally cool that they did and also donate some money. IMHO being put in the game is the coolest part especially for someone who has been into the whole thing their whole life. Definitely hats off to them for the effort regardless what people think about DLC, corporations, etc.
 
man.. that guitar axe is awesome. would be cool if he plays the guitar side of it if it did bard like things.
 
lost my dad and brother to brain cancer. ill pick up the game just for this.
 
Nicepants42 said:
$3.50 out of a 3.99 (pounds sterling? typo? not sure?) DLC is a pretty decent percentage if you ask me, and putting the guys likeness and original music composition into the game he worked on seems like a tribute he would appreciate (I mean, they did it, so I assume they got permission from people who would know if he'd want this, and therefore he would have).
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The devil is in the details, and I feel like they do themselves a disservice if they don't lead with just how large that "portion" is. Too many other times a "portion" of a new car sales for $30k going to charity is $10; 87% of it is pretty good in my book.
 
TwistedAegis said:
The devil is in the details, and I feel like they do themselves a disservice if they don't lead with just how large that "portion" is. Too many other times a "portion" of a new car sales for $30k going to charity is $10; 87% of it is pretty good in my book.
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it is in the article... It is even stated in what you quoted. 3.50 out of 3.99 is being donated. Sure it isn't 100%, but is a reasonable amount.
 
Exavior said:
it is in the article... It is even stated in what you quoted. 3.50 out of 3.99 is being donated. Sure it isn't 100%, but is a reasonable amount.
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Right, guess I wasn't clear, I saw that in the quote above and think it is a very reasonable amount. Just saying that as they continue to advertise, they should insure to highlight how large the portion is, not just say "a portion of the proceeds."
 
Nicepants42 said:
I don't disagree, but I mean, they didn't have to do anything, did they? People die from cancer all the time. $3.50 out of a 3.99 (pounds sterling? typo? not sure?) DLC is a pretty decent percentage if you ask me, and putting the guys likeness and original music composition into the game he worked on seems like a tribute he would appreciate (I mean, they did it, so I assume they got permission from people who would know if he'd want this, and therefore he would have).

WB Games / Time Warner might be shady as fuck, but I ask myself what exactly should they have done in this instance for me to not shit on them? Maybe make a large one-time donation in addition to the DLC percentages? I don't know, but I think that even if they aren't doing exactly what I feel they should, they're coming pretty darn close, no? If we can't give them credit for making a decent effort, what incentive do they have to try again in the future?

Hats off to Mr. Forgey, his family, and to WB for their gesture.
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I know. I hate to be negative at things like this but we're talking about a corporation here. They can't do anything 100% good even when they try. I imagine a board meeting where they are talking about this situation and someone says "let's donate ALL the proceeds to his family!" and some dickwad executive trumps that with "let's donate most of it but not all and make a nice tidy profit from it!". The right thing to do is donate 100% and not worry about nickels and dimes. It's optics, and it looks bad.
 
Gweenz said:
I hate to be cynical but....yeah it's this. Donate 100% of the proceeds to his family and not just a portion and I will change my tune. This has the look and feel of sleazy corporate bullshit.
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I think we're on the same page here.
I appreciate that this in all probability originated as gesture of kindness and love on behalf of his colleagues and friends and that it still basically is a rather nice and commendable thing to do - his family will get some financial security in a certainly dark time they are going through.
But the way they went about it just leaves a sour taste in your mouth - somebody higher up just couldn't hold back from grabbing some profit and publicity from the death of a man.

On a related note - do you think they'll release another DLC if God forbid his widow dies? Maybe spin it into a special DLC pack collection? They could donate a part of the profit to the Omnissiah's fund for the Appeasement of Machine Spirits. No more than 60% though, that would be too much of a good thing.
 
Exavior said:
it is in the article... It is even stated in what you quoted. 3.50 out of 3.99 is being donated. Sure it isn't 100%, but is a reasonable amount.
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The remaining 49 cents probably covers taxes and platform fees. So essentially they're giving 100% of the money they get. At least WB allowed them to do that. I'm surprised they're even doing that considering how shitty WB is about everything.
 
Regardless of the percentage that goes to the family, the game will sell very well and his family will be taken care of by fans via a wicked gesture of the staff.
 
Most excellent, I loved his smile when the [H]orde crested the hill and he moved in. Great gesture by the team, well played. incentive to purchase
 
I think it's important to remember that, as shady as WB has been in the past as a publisher the guys at Monolith are not the WB and they are the ones donating their likely extremely limited time to create this DLC and WB gave them the resources to do so. While WB may not be donating money out right I still think it probably cost them a pretty good chunk of change to get this out there and the nature of the content in addition to the donation is likely a lot more personal and heartfelt than we realize and will mean a hell of a lot more to his friends and family than a straight up donation would have.


Nicepants42 said:
I don't disagree, but I mean, they didn't have to do anything, did they? People die from cancer all the time. $3.50 out of a 3.99 (pounds sterling? typo? not sure?) DLC is a pretty decent percentage if you ask me, and putting the guys likeness and original music composition into the game he worked on seems like a tribute he would appreciate (I mean, they did it, so I assume they got permission from people who would know if he'd want this, and therefore he would have).

WB Games / Time Warner might be shady as fuck, but I ask myself what exactly should they have done in this instance for me to not shit on them? Maybe make a large one-time donation in addition to the DLC percentages? I don't know, but I think that even if they aren't doing exactly what I feel they should, they're coming pretty darn close, no? If we can't give them credit for making a decent effort, what incentive do they have to try again in the future?

Hats off to Mr. Forgey, his family, and to WB for their gesture.
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While I obviously have no problem with them supporting the family of a friend/co-worker via DLC and agree with Derangel that the remaining money from sales are likely being used to pay for cost of distribution and the like, not being kept for monetary gain, I don't think a person/company should need "incentive" do to a good thing every once in a while.
 
So something a lot of people missed that's been reporting on this:


To summarize, if you're outside of the US and you purchase the DLC, no proceeds from the purchase goes to the family. The percentage also doesn't go to the family if you live in one of the following states: AL, HI, IL, MA, MS, SC.
 
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