Cloudfall Interactive Studios Inc’s Community Content Policy

Last Updated: October 20, 2020

At Cloudfall we’ve seen some really cool creative stuff made by our community, and our Discord’s not even a year old! In order to ensure you can make content without fear of what’s allowed or not, we’ve typed up a content policy for you to look over.

If you want to make fan stuff, you should read this! We’re doing this to look into the future since we’re already so hot on community creations.

For context and transparency, this policy is very similar to how Wizards of the Coast manages their own IP. If you’re familiar with their IP rules, none of this will be a surprise. Okay, let’s go!

  1. To start: feel free to share whatever you make from our stuff, but it has to be free and harm-free.

  • You can use our IP and images and stuff to make community content for free.

  • You can’t force people to give you payments, downloads, surveys, subscriptions, email registrations etc to access it. It has to be FREELY available - no exchange!

  • You can’t sell Community Content directly or indirectly. No licensing to a third party.

  • Your Community Content has to be free for anyone (including us at Cloudfall) to look at, access, share etc without ever paying you anything, getting your approval, or giving you credit.

    • For context: we’re not saying this because we want to pretend your idea was ours all along, or anything evil like that. We’re doing it for situations where we create something, and then somebody sues us because they happened to build something similar and we didn’t even notice.

Just so you know - you can totally benefit from your Community Content if someone wants to donate to you, if you want to have ads running on your website or things like that. As long as everyone has simple access to your fan content, you’re in the clear if people want to support you after gaining access to your Community Content.

2. Label your work as Community Content somehow. Things posted in the Community Workshop discord or with similar context cues don’t need to be tagged, but anything being shared should somewhere note: “[Title of your Community Content] is unofficial Community Content permitted under the Community Content Policy. Not approved/endorsed by Cloudfall. Portions of the materials used are property of Cloudfall Interactive Studios Inc.”

This is a policy most pertinent if you’re sharing something in the public online world.

3. Don’t be harmful. Don’t use Community Content as a vehicle for bigotry or hatred (ie transphobia, racism, sexism, homophobia, ableism, etc). It’s our sole discretion regading what’s inappropriate, offensive or otherwise harmful. Feel free to mock us online if you think we’re too sensitive about what counts as offensive - either way, we have the total right to ask you to take down your Community Content or otherwise send legal action your way.

4. Don’t mess with other people’s IP, even if it respects ours.

5. Don’t plaster our logos (Captain’s Gambit, Cloudfall, etc) anywhere new unless you’ve contacted us (e.g, if you’re making a video review and want the logos, we have a media kit for you). Things like maintaining the logo on back of our captain cards is fine, but we ask that you refrain from making even modified versions of our logos.

6. On the topic of our branding: if you have a sponsor for anything you make, please don’t associate Cloudfall with your sponsor in any way. Even if they’re super cool, it’s just a better precedent for us to be unrelated. Also:

  • Don’t use a sponsor that would promote anything inappropriate or offensive.

  • Keep any shout-outs, mentions, and credits to a reasonable length.

7. Follow the laws of your city/country/region/galaxy. We have no association with anything illegal you do regarding Community Content, and it’s up to you to figure out if you’re doing something illegal.

Finally - we assume you’re cool enough that this would ideally never come into play. But if Cloudfall Interactive Studios Inc has any legal claims, fees, or expenses related to your Community Content, you’re responsible for paying all of our costs (which includes any attorney’s fees). You’re also responsible for paying for any resulting judgement or settlement.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

What counts as Community Content?

Anything you make that’s based on or incorporates our IP. The only thing that doesn’t count as Community Content is something that Cloudfall releases that incorporates our IP. That means basically any time you incorporate our IP into something, it’s Community Content - whether it’s a custom card, fanart, a website, a custom arrangement of stars, a fantroll, an Animal Crossing village, etc.

By the way, it has to be your creation, which means if you copy and paste our own literal captain cards, that’s still just stealing. Which is particularly embarassing for you, since we already provide avenues of playing Captain’s Gambit for free.

Just build your own cool stuff - don’t try to get clever about ways of stealing existing IP and pretending it’s a Community Creation.

What counts as Captain’s Gambit (or Cloudfall) IP?

Cards, captains, dossiers, music, videos, writing, gameplay, locations, lore, artwork, files, text, and any materials published by Cloudfall Interactive Studios Inc.

Is this an “Anything Goes” deal regarding what IP I can incorporate?

For any genuine community members, you have little to worry to worry about. The full rule though is that your incorporation must always keep our original IP in context.

For example, you can’t reskin all the Captain’s Gambit characters as Hollow Knight characters and disassociate yourself from the fact that your Community Creation is just a modification of Captain’s Gambit.

The broader idea is this: Don’t decontextualize any of our assets. For example, don’t build your own unrelated game with our art, then use that art with renamed characters like “Buck” “Hammy” “Brospero” “Lady Whopper®”, etc.

Anything that’s clearly meant to add to the overall Captain’s Gambit community should be no problem at all - you can always contact us and ask if you’re unsure.

Things You Can Do, Assuming You Align With What’s Outlined Above

  • Make a fanpage with our art assets

  • Post our art assets if they happen to already have our logos on them

  • Make videos and livestreams that feature or have our content

  • Take donations or get ad revenue from your streams or videos

  • Host videos on YouTube or Twitch and get donations or ad revenue, even though the “third party licensing” wording above sounds like these things wouldn’t be allowed.

  • Ask us if you make very cool fanart and want to then sell it at conventions. You can’t sell fanart or creations of that nature without contacting us first.

  • Use fanart or Community Creations in your portfolio

  • Have fun and be yourself

A Big Note: by making Community Content, you’re agreeing that everyone - including your neighbor, parents, and Cloudfall - can access your Community Content without permission. Others can use and share your Community Content, once again including Cloudfall.

We’re inspired by Wizards of the Coast to clearly state that we don’t want to get sued for spotlighting your cool Community Content, and especially not for making anything that happens to resemble something that someone made somewhere.

An Equally-Big Note: Tag us and share your neat Community Content with us! But don’t send us actual future product pitches, whether it’s a new game idea or future concept or anything of that nature unless we’re explicitly hosting some kind of contest (and if/when we do, that’ll come with some additional instructions).

It’s one thing if you make popular Community Content (like a new play mode) and Cloudfall decides we should officially support your cool Community Content by releasing things that help. (For example, look at how Wizards of the Coast took EDH and made Commander.)

But while you can maybe hope that your Community Content will get a big enough community reaction that we’ll get inspired, you cannot send us something and ask, hope or expect us to publish it. Unsolicited design pitches will be deleted and ignored without us having even cast a single reviewing-glance upon your words.

And on that happy note, that’s all you need to know! Did you really read all this? Or did you just skip to the end?

Either way, we hope you have a fine day!

Please contact us at contact@cloudfallstudios.com if you have further questions.

Stay lofty,

Cloudfall Studios