Neverwinter Nights Article @ Wired.com

The guys at Wired.com have written a report about BioWare’s Neverwinter Nights in which they speak negatively about the end-user license included with the game. In the article, they talk to Bill Marcellino, the man behind the NWN world entitled A Land Far Away. A snippet:

But despite the hundreds of hours of work Marcellino and his cohorts will ultimately put into this world, it will likely end up the property of the game’s publisher and developer. Marcellino’s crew won’t get a cent. They may not even be credited for their work.

That’s because Infogrames, the publisher, and game developer BioWare have included in Neverwinter an end-user license that gives the two companies an “irrevocable royalty-free right to use and distribute” player-created worlds, if those realms are offered for download. A “best effort” will be made to credit those players, nothing more.

This means that any adventure with user-made materials belongs to Infogrames and BioWare, which can then turn around and sell it — although they’ve promised players they won’t, and have changed the license slightly in response to user concerns. Players now can hold on to the rights to worlds created with stock Neverwinter components, which don’t have to be downloaded.