EA/Bioware's stance on modding Dragon Age
In response to communication from the Nexus Staff, the Dragon Age development team provided their perspective on this issue.
Their basic position is:
BioWare will allow relatively free use of its in-game resources (models and textures) from Dragon Age (all games) by modders who wish to create new content for use in the Dragon Age series. BioWare requires three things:
1. Mod must be totally non-commercial. There can be no payment specifically for the creation, use, or distribution of any mod using BioWare’s assets.
2. Mod author must have a legitimate copy of the source game/DLC from which the assets were obtained.
3. Mod cannot recreate any DLC adventure itself. In other words, a modder can use a DLC asset in a new work, but can't simply remake the whole thing.
This is not blanket authorization to take anything and everything from Dragon Age and use it in any way one wishes. As always, modders need to respect the copyrights / IP rights of others, including other modders, and observe the terms of the EULAs associated with any hardware or software. When in doubt, ask permission!
We here at the Nexus want to thank the BioWare team for their very liberal policy. This welcomed stance in support of the modding Community is very much appreciated.
18 comments
I had the same thoughts. I presented the exact case you outlined above to my contacts at BioWare, and got the response you've already seen.
Bottom line: I've adopted a DADT attitude.
I know this is not allowed before and logical common sense tells me that BW would not like it but their recent stance can be vague regarding how much asset can be included.
I would just state however that this attitude seems to stem from publishers rather the dev studios and its great to see Bioware taking a fairly liberal attitude to modders even if they aren't releasing a toolset to us.
That's up to you. Take a whack at modding the DA2 Quanari mesh/texture and (the) Sten's DA:O .mor! ">
I forgot all these games you release really cut into their own sales.
As far as a toolset update is concerned, I recently inquired again about the possibility, and the answer I got this time was a rather short "I can't discuss that" (previously answers were of the "we still don't know yet" nature). Take that at face value, YMMV. One thing I do know is that the toolset updates that were made to handle DA2 have 3rd party licensed technology, which means that BioWare would need to pay for addition licensing in order to release the TS update to the public. I don't know about anyone else, but from a business perspective, that's a waste of money in a tight budget project since the ROI will definitely be negative at this point. Still, there is hope.
Great; thank you for posting that.