Fucking bonkers. Between this an McD’s changing their ToS to say using their app waives any right to non-arbitration dispute, something needs to be done about companies trying to effectively write new laws into their ToS. This shit is beyond egregious
We aren’t talking about something in production, like this app, we are talking about play testing a game in alpha. I would be upset if this was in a released game, or even like the beta test, but if it’s still under serious development it seems incredibly reasonable to me.
A general NDA is reasonable, sure, but allowing only comments which glaze the game but not those which criticize it is not. I genuinely cannot even fathom how you think the contrary; I don’t mean that in offensive, so if you can articulate why you believe that way I would like to try and understand.
I agree that it should just be an NDA to be the most fair. But keep in mind I’m responding to someone who is claiming this is beyond egregious and that there should be laws against this.
It’s just not a big deal. It makes sense for them to say that you can’t disparage the game, because it’s in alpha, but why would they restrict good press? If you find this to be disagreeable, it’s alpha and you can just wait for release.
While I find it disagreeable, I don’t see anything to be outraged over, as avoiding it is as simple as not playing a game in alpha.
Unlike the mcdonald’s example where it is actually a released product.
I work for a video game company, and I promise you’re being far too generous about their motives. This NDA prevents press from doing press. If the alpha is bad, they’re not allowed to say how or why it’s bad, at all.
I understand exactly why they are doing it; what you say comes as no surprise. It’s 100% part of my point.
Coming from software development, including a small amount of game development, I understand how trash alphas can be, especially if you introduce users/players. So it seems reasonable that if the point of the alpha is to flush these bugs/exploits out, which is the point, then restricting the players who are allowed in from disparaging a far from complete game is not some ridiculous overreach everyone here seems to want it to be.
Okay, if they want to bug test, there’s DECADES of accepted practice. Paid/intern bug hunters or playtesters, with an airtight NDA. They’re there to stress tests and find issues, there needn’t be a public facing element.
Marvel want free bug testers, and to get the hype train moving - but don’t want to pay for actual testers who work quietly, and want only positive commentary. Marvel want an astroturf campaign to push preorders, not actual genuine discussion or bug testing.
I’ve been part of public alpha releases, and generally they don’t allow streaming or public commentary, outside of the invite-only forum/discord channels - BECAUSE THEY WANT THE FEEDBACK TO FIX ISSUES.
Marvel want free bug testers, and to get the hype train moving - but don’t want to pay for actual testers who work quietly, and want only positive commentary. Marvel want an astroturf campaign to push preorders, not actual genuine discussion or bug testing.
Okay, then the problem is with the people doing the work for free, not with Marvel realizing that people will do it for free.
The issue is that the people who do this work for free are not like you, and want that early access. . .either for strictly personal reasons or because it benefits them financially (such as is the case with streamers).
You’re literally defending ‘post-truth, race to the bottom standard’ capitalism. Yes dumb consumers exist, but that isn’t a free pass for corporate exploitation or false advertising. Because this isn’t an alpha, it’s advertising.
es dumb consumers exist, but that isn’t a free pass for corporate exploitation or false advertising.
Except I didn’t see where they advertised that people were going to be able to join the alpha with no restrictions, and I don’t see this as “exploitation” at all. People want to play these games first. I don’t get why, but they do. And they are being given that opportunity.
I’m on publisher QA side. Every so often, around this time of year, my company does closed internal playtests for games that are on the pre-alpha release candidate (usually it’s the ones they expect to be blockbusters). Generally when a pre-alpha RC is selected for this, a very small subsection of the game is highly polished to give Users an honest preview of what the devs expect the launch game to be. Obviously since it’s in alpha a lot of things will be changed and there are a lot of game breaking bugs to be found still, but the general experience should still be up for discussion if it was bad. I know it’s possible to imagine a game in alpha as released, because part of my job is to give professional feedback to the producers without ever mentioning unfinished or bugged aspects of the game.
Make people sign an NDA to playtest it, don’t release a “public closed beta” contingent on this non disparagement agreement bullshit
Most people (except for you, apparently) can see right through this kind of thing. The only reason you’d make someone sign a legally binding document saying “you’re not allowed to say bad things” is because you know there are bad things to say. If there are bad things to say and you know about them, the correct move (from both a technical and PR perspective) is to fix the bad things before allowing your game to be played publicly. Preventing people from talking about the bad things won’t magically get rid of the bad things.
Alpha testing is, by definition, testing on unreleased code. Even though they are offering the testing to some select group of people, it’s still considered un-released.
The only reason you’d make someone sign a legally binding document saying “you’re not allowed to say bad things” is because you know there are bad things to say.
False dichotomy. There is also the possibility that you realize, from experience, that when you start introducing users, unexpected shit happens.
They could do the alpha testing completely internally, or they could give some super fans pre-access with more restrictions on what they are allowed to say. Would I prefer they be able to speak their mind? Of course. But I get why the company would do this and it’s really a complete non-issue.
Sure, they could do an NDA, or they could also get free publicity. It’s reasonable for them to choose the latter, and if you don’t like it, it’s reasonable for you to wait for release.
Preventing people from talking about the bad things won’t magically get rid of the bad things.
Yeah, that’s pretty clearly not the point. They presumably want to fix the bugs without them counting against them in the court of public opinion.
Alpha testing is, by definition, testing on unreleased code. Even though they are offering the testing to some select group of people, it’s still considered un-released.
I go out of my way to explain how alphas are typically done as a games industry professional, and you’re still out here spewing the same nonsense? get outta here. This is not a defensible action by a corporation. When a game reaches alpha, the whole of the game is unready but the part used in the public playtests are extensively reviewed by QA and gets as polished as possible. When a game is at alpha stage, it’s by definition gone through multiple release candidates.
Are you arguing that alpha testing is not considered in house testing? It’s literally the definition.
The alpha phase of the release life cycle is the first phase of software testing (alpha is the first letter of the Greek alphabet, used as the number 1). In this phase, developers generally test the software using white-box techniques. Additional validation is then performed using black-box or gray-box techniques, by another testing team. Moving to black-box testing inside the organization is known as alpha release.[1][2]
Alpha software is not thoroughly tested by the developer before it is released to customers. Alpha software may contain serious errors, and any resulting instability could cause crashes or data loss.[3] Alpha software may not contain all of the features that are planned for the final version.[4] In general, external availability of alpha software is uncommon for proprietary software, while open source software often has publicly available alpha versions. The alpha phase usually ends with a feature freeze, indicating that no more features will be added to the software. At this time, the software is said to be feature-complete. A beta test is carried out following acceptance testing at the supplier’s site (the alpha test) and immediately before the general release of the software as a product.[5]Wikipedia link
I’m sure parts of the game are well polished. I’m sure some only release a small part of the game for advertising reasons. They are doing something different here maybe. I don’t really know. But this is such a non-issue that the outrage over it is laughable. Not surprising, at all, however, considering I’ve been a gamer all my life and I know how unreasonable we can be.
False dichotomy. There is also the possibility that you realize, from experience, that when you start introducing users, unexpected shit happens.
If you’re not willing to let the unexpected shit be public, don’t do a public alpha test. That’s the point everyone here is trying to make. Like, what are these streamers and content creators supposed to do when they run into a game-breaking bug, or they run into some mechanic they really dislike? Ignore it and hope no one notices, for fear of saying something “disparaging” about the game? Do you not see how unreasonable that is? We all understand that alphas are incomplete and will have bugs, and unexpected shit will happen. We all also have different opinions about what we like in video games. Them trying to hide from that, rather than just being upfront about it (like every other alpha or early access game I’ve ever played) is asinine.
They could do the alpha testing completely internally
They should do the alpha testing internally, if they’re not willing to have their product be honestly reviewed, or pay to have their product advertised.
But I get why the company would do this and it’s really a complete non-issue.
Considering that this thread exists, Seagull’s original tweet got the immense attention it did, and the studio announced hours ago that the particular clause everyone (except you) is taking issue with was a mistake that they’re looking into fixing, uh, maybe it actually isn’t just a “non-issue”?
Sure, they could do an NDA, or they could also get free publicity. It’s reasonable for them to choose the latter, and if you don’t like it, it’s reasonable for you to wait for release.
No, actually, I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect “free publicity” on the condition that the ones providing that publicity muzzle themselves if they don’t like the game. That’s exploitative behavior by this studio. Expecting free anything and then attaching unreasonable legal stipulations that you know the other party cannot fight is unethical.
Yeah, that’s pretty clearly not the point. They presumably want to fix the bugs without them counting against them in the court of public opinion.
They want to control the narrative around their unfinished video game, by trying to legally bully content creators, who have way less legal and financial leverage, into doing their bidding. That is unethical. Full stop, no I will not be taking any more questions.
I can’t help but think that if this sort of thing proliferates that it will essentially hamstring reviews. This particular agreement might be just because the game is in alpha, but it’s part of a broader trend of ToS/EULA wishlists that are so restrictive that they’re probably illegal already buy in order to test that you have to go to court against a huge, overpaid legal team which leads to people having their basic rights violated.
This is a slippery slope fallacy “if they are allowed to do something mild and legal now. . .well, it will just lead to terrible violation of our rights in the future!”
What undermines your point is that if they try to put these illegal restrictions on many people, violating their basic rights, then they are opening themselves up to large class action lawsuits.
The problem is that unless the agreement explicitly states that the non-disparagment section applies only to the test playtest, the agreement would essentially place a gag order on that creator for the life of the game.
What makes you think that? The language is fairly boiler plate and easily enforceable. We, “the company”, give you, “the creator”, an asset, “a free game copy”, under the condition that you promise not to do or say anything that could diminish the value of the asset. Not only is it enforceable, it leaves room for compensatory damages if you are found in breach of contract.
I haven’t read the entire agreement, so I don’t really know nor do I care to. But I suspect that it would squarely fall under protected speech once the game has gone public and they’ve “purchased” it.
Just like truth in advertising laws exist, some restrictions are rightly placed on free speech in the interest of consumer protection. Imo this case clearly should fall under similar consideration.
Early access to a game is not an asset you can “un-receive” just because you purchase your own copy later. Of course, you could make arguments against the terms being overreaching in court, but not many creators have the resources or desire for a legal fight.
Other creators chimed in and said that they brought up the section in Discord and legal said they’d look into it. To me, this just seems as lazy copy and paste that they were warned about but did nothing about. Now they have a possible PR disaster on their hands unless they take swift action.
PS: Apparently section 2.6 is way worse but it hasn’t been shared yet.
Of course, you could make arguments against the terms being overreaching in court, but not many creators have the resources or desire for a legal fight.
I see. That’s not what “unenforceable” means. Unenforceable refers to a contractual responsibility that a court would never enforce. There are many reasons why a court would chosen to not enforce a contract but none of them are because a defendant doesn’t have the means to combat it.
Your linked to an article literally starts by asking “What kinds of contracts might not hold up in court?” and then goes on to explain this as one of these as “For example, a court will never enforce a contract promoting something already against state or federal law.” Basically proving my point.
And I’m universally downvoted, and you’re universally upvoted. Lemmy users crack me up.
But it’s just the playtest that is free, not the actual game itself? If they are giving the playtest AND the actual game for free then yeah that makes more sense, but otherwise I think it would likely be considered unconscionable for playtest access to mean they can’t criticize the full game they (eventually) paid for, and thus it would likely be unenforceable.
That is certainly something that can be argued in court, and the case might be very strong…but you’d still have to take it to court. Something else to consider is that if the agreement isn’t clear about its limitations, then it can be argued that it isn’t limited. All the company has to do is send you a key to the full game when it’s available and they are technically still in compliance with the agreement. It would not matter if you tell them that you do not wish to participate anymore, or that you bought your own copy, you’d still be bound.
I could agree that it’s overkill, but that doesn’t warrant the outrage we’re seeing here. IMO of course. If this is really offensive to you, just wait for release. Considering it’s FTP so this doesn’t apply as much, but I would recommend even waiting until way after release to buy a game.
Sure, more reasonable and fair. But this is neither unreasonable nor particularly unfair, as long as it’s restricted to the alpha. If you find it bad, don’t play it, and understand that what opinions come out of alpha are biased by this. I would recommend taking all reviews that come out of any alpha with a huge grain of salt.
they shouldnt be releasing it to streamers and youtubers to play, in alpha, on their goddamn channels, while muzzling them in how they can respond to issues that present themselves during their video/stream, if they want to “protect” (shut down any legitimate criticism concerns) their “alpha” (free advertising)
I agree with you. But this is basically a non-issue, which is my point. If you don’t want to be restricted, don’t play the alpha. Why is this so hard for some people to accept? Again, we aren’t talking about a released product, but some playtesting.
It’s already been decided in Europe. Terms of service have about as much legal weight as toilet paper. Usually what’s true in Europe is true in California as well so I assume something similar has happened over there.
even then, it’s essentially paywalling your rights. you need to go to court, wait for the matter to be adjudicated, hope it works out in your favor, run out any potential appeals, all while paying attorneys and not being able to do something you’re legally entitled to do. If you can’t do all that, then your rights are moot.
A lot of companies got spooked a few years back and walked back their arbitration agreements. I wonder what changed for companies to decide it’s worth it again. Maybe the lack of discovery in the arbitration process even with higher costs?
You can’t “just start” a class action suit. You need to sue, get other people to sue, coordinate, and apply for class action status. That’s more time and effort than an individual suit.
Yeah, it’s time to nip this on the front end though. ToS are such a part of daily life now. They should be regulated to be concise, use standardized consumer-friendly language, and have bounds against non-arbitration and other nonsense like this. This sort of legislation is well overdue.
Having unenforceable or illegal clauses in a legal contract means the contract wasn’t written in good faith, which should void the whole thing. Regardless of any “if parts of this contract are deemed illegal, the rest still stands”.
It would be nice to see more proactive involvement of the legal system with this, like have some people whose job it is to challenge these consumer contracts and standardize them kinda like how some open source licenses are standardized. Modularize it, so instead of writing out the whole “limited liability” section, they could refer to an established one by name. Then each module can be the subject of study and challenge, like if a more limiting one should come with other compromises elsewhere.
I think at that point, most honest companies would just pick a standard license or contract, plus maybe a few modifications and shady ones will have more trouble hiding shit like this in the middle of pages and pages of the same boring shit you’ve read hundreds of times before if you actually do read these things before signing or clicking agree.
At this point, most contracts should probably be unenforceable because few people actually do understand what they are agreeing to, which is supposed to be one of the essential parts of a contract. So many parts should probably have an “initial here to show you agreed to this” at the very least. But I’m no fool, this is likely considered a feature rather than a bug for most of the people involved in making and enforcing these things.
All good; I wasn’t trying to be offensive in my reply and was sincere in calling it poignant. Sometimes I get worked up and make tangents that feel vaguely related too. We’re cool if you’re cool ✌
This is being blown out of proportion. These sorts of terms are pretty standard for a closed playtest, as it doesn’t represent the final product and the developers don’t want reviews to be published criticising things that will likely be fixed for the release version.
As stupid as it is, it doesn’t stop a creator from simply demonstrating issues, without commentary. Just show people the issues and don’t remark on them.
That being said, nobody should sign this. Trying to forbid people from making satirical remarks? What the crap?
They literally can’t do that. Satire is a protected right under the first amendment. Anyone can make public satirical remarks regardless of signing that contract.
You are aware that first amendment protects speech from government actions/bodies only. It’s not something you can use against a private business (there are other laws for discrimination.)
The point of the contract is that if one is in breach the company can sue for damages and potentially remove the offending media.
The suing process would be through a legal body such as a court system, in this case federal court since the media is on the Internet, therefore the contract doesn’t hold any legal binding. No federal court would uphold a contract that violates the first amendment.
Contracts adhere to laws and rules just like any other legal document. You can’t just put whatever you want into a contract and have it be binding.
Sure, but that term does not violate the first amendment since the government didn’t stop you from saying it, so would hold up. You might be able to get it thrown out due to something else, you would need a lawyer for that.
That contract will have penalties for violations, and those are what you would be subject to if in violation.
That’s not how that works. The contract is in and of itself a violation of the first amendment. Therefore it has no legal binding. They wouldn’t be able to remove the offending media from any platform or sue for damages if someone breached the contract.
If there are internal ramifications due to a breach of contract that’s something that could be handled internally, such as the content creator not being offered any review materials in the future. But a contract wouldn’t be necessary for that either way.
Moreover, specifically for satire, there are whole acts in the law advocating for it. There is absolutely nothing, no clause or agreement that would ever prohibit someone from publicly satiring any given entity. Regardless of any contract.
Well that’s stupid. Getting negative reviews is also a good thing. It allows you to re-evaluate your product(s). Pretty much you’re going to sell a half assed product, pretending it’s amazing because you refused to take critically-negative feedback from your paying customers. Guess they just want to completely obliterate their company.
It doesn’t feel practical to enforce, save in so far as it lets them put you on a list of people not to extend future early-release games to. But you have to assume they were already doing that, as any marketing department worth its salt is going to have a boutique set of insider streamers who are effectively just contracted media flaks plugging your product.
On today’s episode of “This shouldn’t be legal”…
Think about it this way. The same guys who stream video game reviews to make money are paid by the advertisers who sponsor their streams. And the sponsor won’t pay for a stream if its disparaging of their content. So the streamer is being paid to cut an ad.
Imagine if you hired someone to go door-to-door selling people your sandwiches. And in the middle of each sales call the guys you hired would take a big bite, spit out the sandwich, and say “This is awful! I hate it!” What are you paying these asshole for?
Just stop pretending streamers are these independent objective observers and recognize them for what they are - online door-to-door sales guys. These early releases are just their sales kits. And why am I going to extend a sales kit to a guy who isn’t going to sell my shit?
By the contract, you couldn’t say anything detrimental about the game, so such a statement would still be forbidden. Whether such a vague limitation on what a content creator can say would hold up in court is a different thing.
Not being able to make satirical comments about any game-related material would mean nobody could say something like, “Controlling Iron Man feels like fighting Jarvis for control of the suit”, or “Storm is as effective as a light breeze”
In the context of a game, let’s say a clearly outdated graphics engine that everyone can agree on looks very dated. Or game-stopping bugs. Constant crashes. Etc.
My understanding is that Digital Foundry type of performance review is fine, but comments on how the control feels laggy or the game is a lower-tier copycat of Overwatch are not okay.
You might be right. This might not have been a mistake. Some creators in the Twitter thread said that they brought it up ahead of time but the company sent those agreements out as is anyway.
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