Marvels Rivals requires creators to sign a contract that removes your right to give a negative review in order to access the playtest
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from simple@lemm.ee to games@lemmy.world on 12 May 2024 11:37
https://lemm.ee/post/31738255
from simple@lemm.ee to games@lemmy.world on 12 May 2024 11:37
https://lemm.ee/post/31738255
On today’s episode of “This shouldn’t be legal”…
Source: twitter.com/A_Seagull/status/1789468582281400792
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Shows that they have amazing confidence in their product. This is the same to me as saying “We know it sucks so please don’t say so if we give you this key.”
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
If your alpha is trash, then:
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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”?
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.
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.
If it’s still in alpha, then a standard non disclosure should be fine.
A non-disparagement clause is overkill.
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.
There is an idiom about the Forrest and the trees. You don't appear to see the Forrest?
It’s an alpha product we’re talking about. It’s not me who’s missing the forest for the trees.
Do you live under a rock or you smoking corpo rocks?
You’re the one getting worked up over not being able to consume a product in its alpha state without agreeing to some non imposing rule.
I’m simply not going to join the alpha.
If anyone here is desperate to suck at the teet of a corporation, it ain’t me.
And yet…
“I don’t suck teets, I lick boots” ;)
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.
Sure I agree that would be wrong. But I also think that would be unenforceable.
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.
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.
This is what I mean by unenforceable.
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.
See: nolo.com/…/unenforceable-contracts-tips-33079.htm…
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.
What exactly do you mean by “protected speech”?
Protected by the law.
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Which law?
I ask, because many times people point to the first amendment for things like this, but that doesn’t apply here.
The CRFA.
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.
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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.
It’d be a lot more reasonable if they simply said “No public discussion of this game, period”
Trying specifically to squelch the negative comments so any claims can go unchallenged is bullshit and entirely unreasonable.
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.
Number three combo, hold the freedom please
<img alt="" src="https://sh.itjust.works/pictrs/image/2723e192-5641-4cf9-94da-9c743c471903.webp">
Sincere thank you for providing what I was referencing 👍
which tv manufacturer was it that updated their eula and if you didn’t agree it bricked your tv?
Revo, but they don’t manufacture TVs
Roku had a new agreement that if you didn’t agree you couldn’t access the TV
They can write anything they want in a TOS, doesn’t mean it’s legally enforceable.
Bingo! It’s written in a “cover my ass” but that ass can get kicked by the courts.
Exactly. Anyone can put anything they want into a terms of service/contract. Doesn’t mean it’ll hold up in court.
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.
That’s what they want you to think, just start a class action lawsuit. Lawyer love those. Force the companies to respond to the class actions.
Collective mass arbitration is my favorite counter to this tactic, and is dramatically more costly for the company than a class action lawsuit.
www.nytimes.com/2020/…/arbitration-overload.html
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.
If enough people believe that it is, they’re not going to be as likely to fight things that they should be.
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.
Good luck getting it thrown out, that’ll be an expensive legal battle even if you do win.
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.
Ah yes, Europe and California the only two places.
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What a wonderful and poignant aside that adds absolutely nothing to the discussion at hand.
Yeah I don’t know why I thought my pseudointellectual comment was relevant here.
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 ✌
I really don’t understand the point of a McD’s app anyways. They have a drive thru
No way they can enforce that. I hope nobody is going to intimidated by this.
This isn’t a “we’ll sue you” clause, it’s a “we’ll never do business with you again” clause
Which is usually unwritten but understood. It’s wild that they put it in writing.
Well normally they just tell you you aren’t allowed to talk about the game period. This is a slightly relaxed position from that stance.
Yes but it still looks bad because it’s saying “you can talk about it, but only if you say nice things”. A full embargo would’ve made more sense and wouldn’t have raised any eyebrows. This current contract leads me to believe it’s a shit game.
Yeah, I think they normally do full embargoes for that exact reason.
Embargoes do get a bit of backlash sometimes, but not nearly enough.
When I am aware they are a huge red flag for me in any case.
Why should a full embargo get backlash? They are trying to get input for an understanding, controlled population before unleashing it on a wider public. The whole idea is that the preview is not representative enough to start setting expectations for everyone. But it is far enough along to get the general idea and get feedback to address.
I am constantly testing pretty well known products in advance of their release and they are frequently crap. Like one thing I’m working on hasn’t been able to work at all for a week due to some bugs that something I did triggered and they haven’t provided an update yet. However when they actually are available to the general customers, they are pretty much always solid and get good reviews. If I publicly reviewed it, it could tank this product even though no one could possibly hit most of the stuff that I hit.
A full embargo seems fair. The selective embargo seems like an unfair idea, but also is a bad idea. If everyone knows they are allowed to talk about it, but only the good parts, then people will be speculating on what is not said. One product I tested had someone fanboying so hard about it they were begging the product team to lift the embargo so they could share their enthusiasm. They said no, they didn’t want partially informed internet speculation running until they could address all aspects of the product publicly, and frankly there was too much crappy parts even if he was over the moon over the product and didn’t really use the bad parts.
I suppose I could see being uncomfortable with the “testers” also being the likely “reviewers”, because your are developing to the tastes of specific reviewers and tailoring for a good review in the end even if those reviewers aren’t fully representative of the general population. It’s easier to get a few dozen key influencers happy by catering to them/making them feel special, than releasing a product and hoping you hit their sensibilities.
I hope there is a bunch of really sarcastic positive reviews, listing everything they hate about the game as if it’s what they really love about the game.
Yep, this is the move 👍
The ToS forbids satirical reviews. I’d start a review by reading out this portion of the ToS and then make a list of things I hate, just saying I’m not allowed to talk about this aspect of the game, or this aspect of the game, etc, etc.
Judges are smarter than that. So are juries.
A judge would probably throw this out long before it went to a jury.
Yeah, I sometimes forget that the law isn’t a code to be broken with this One Neat Trick. That goes double when you are going up against power.
It’s a mobile game from NetEase. I think it’s a excellent opportunity to be a madlad and review it like that because fuck them.
Aww boo hoo I can’t review any more of their shitty gacha games?
No satire? Guess anything on the internet is out of the question then.
What do they think a review is?! If they wanted an advertisement, buy an ad spot on Google ya cheap bastards.
Because they want the benefits of advertising with the power of word-of-mouth, all at the expense of free.
That they think they can get away with it is bananas to me.
If you say “x and y is broken it not implemented yet” that’s an objective negative review.
If both x and y are broken, then it’s totally unplayable.
Y’all heard it here, this person says Marvels Rivals is unplayable. Do not preorder!
I actually looked into the game because I didn’t know anything about it and figured I should inform myself a bit.
What makes this whole overreacting raging we are seeing here even more funny and ridiculous is that the game is going to be FTP. So basically, once released, anyone can go and try it out, for free, to see whether or not it’s worth any investment by them.
So, yeah, if someone is offering you to pre-order this game, I definitely suggest you not buy it because they are trying to scam you.
Y’all heard it here, this person says Marvel’s Rivals is a totally unplayable pay to win scam!
I saw that line and immediately thought “oh ho ho, we have a loophole. This wasn’t a subjective review, it was entirely objective. The game is objectively shit.”
you can do a non subjective review.
Product X has Y thingamagingies which is better than their previous model and Z percent more than their competitors product
Just black list people like a normal company - whoever i suspect they did this to revoke access during EA.
I’m assuming it’s with regards to the Play Test which is in very early stages and shouldn’t be judged as completed. Seems fair enough if it’s nowhere near complete
Right. It makes sense right up until the point where they only act on negative reviews.
Non disclosures / non disparagement are industry standard, but this is bonkers. Non-disclosure but only for the stuff we don’t like? The fuck
Hmm… A perfectly neutral review with a share of the wording from the contract is nothing but factual, and I believe could be argued to be non disparaging?
No, disparaging is disparaging, even if it’s warranted. But, if I were a small streamer who got a key, I would just repeat the non-disparagement clause any time I saw something obviously broken.
They can stop me saying anything negative but that doesn’t cover body language (they might try to sue but they wouldn’t ever be able to prove it to the degree required unless I had posted something like this explanation, and even then it’s dicey), and I don’t see anything in there about a minimum number of positive sentences of words to hit. God help these chucklefucks if they ever run into a Djinni or a cursed monkey’s paw.
It’s one of the reasons that nobody says anything bad about the product that their sponsor provided to them. Either that or people don’t want to ruin their relationship with their sponsors so they will talk highly of a product even if it isn’t good.
Aww, the Devs feelings might get hurt
Nah, this is a pathetic attempt to get free ads from games journalists without any downsides
The developers of the game had zero input on this. They’re developers; this is a contract which would be written by lawyers, directed by management. The same management who force crunch on the devs you want to blame. Learn to recognise the enemy, please and thanks.
Management is part of the development team… Developers doesn’t just mean programmers.
A director of a project is still management, but also a developer.
I was in his stream when people sent him the contract they signed just to get the key. Wild. The game is janky looking as fuck so they definitely know how bad it is.
Could be wrong but this does not sound sound outlandish for a alpha. There should be no point to ruin a name/brand before it is out. You should not leave a “review” of a unfinished product.
If the product is unfinished, why is it being released to the public, in any capacity?
If they want to playtest and find bugs in their unfinished product, they should do that. By paying a QA team and playtesters, not by trying to dupe streamers into generating free advertisement.
You have never played an early alpha of a game and signed a NDA to not disclose it I did this with many games the finals, th division heatland, x defient, arc raiders etc. although in this case since there are yt videos and streams seems a little weird. I was uneducated the games I am talking about when I played had watermarks on them and were made for testing etc had no idea the game was like viewable. In this case it looks more like if tarkov or an EA game said you can’t leave reviews.
To clarify yes I fully agree that not ok and didn’t know the full facts.
It must be a REALLY good game. Only the best games that were already going to get high reviews would ever resort to such a policy
Basically makes any test results null and void
How? The agreement restricts public statements, not negative feedback as a whole.
I’m not sure what your argument is here but it doesn’t seem solid. How is a reviewer supposed to do their job?
The Closed Alpha playtest isn’t an invitation to publicly review, it’s an invitation to playtest. They’re trying to gather data and feedback on an inherently feature-incomplete and unpolished game to help with development. There are going to be private channels for feedback and the playtest data itself is like feedback so public channels are redundant. Obviously Marvel is also just trying to dodge criticism, but that’s not a mutually exclusive reason.
Yeah this seems to be something people are missing. These tests sometimes prohibit all reviewing and commenting in their NDAs (including positive ones). It’s a playtest, not a beta, review copy or pre-release.
You sure? Post doesnt stipulate
It did say “subjective negative reviews”. I would take that to mean that strictly objective negative reviews are perfectly acceptable.
Every reviewer who signed this should post a review, but of the business practices and why not to buy the game.
You would literally break the contract
Arguably it’s not detrimental to the reputation of the game, but the company.
“Great game. Never buy it.”
“It’s a game. Don’t buy from them.”
Nope. They would be talking about the company not the game.
Which discourages people from buying the game, thus hurting the game.
“Good game, but the company behind it is shit and required me to sign this contract. <Insert contract clause>. Remember this whenever your reading the totally honest reviews about how good the game is.”
When they reach the aspects of the game that they didn’t like they can just say “let’s skip this next part about CTF mode, because I signed a contract” and let the viewers deduce what they deduce.
I mean most play tests let you say nothing at all. So not sure if this is better or worse.
I think the difference is that those play tests we are thinking of are for lack of other terms locked down. Playtests I have done were not able to be recorded, streamed and had water markers all over the place. In this case people are playing and streaming making videos at that point you should be able to give opinions on the game.
Saying nothing at all is better than only being allowed to say good things and none of the bad. The former doesnt shift opinions in either direction but the latter introduces a pro-buying bias to reviews. Good for the publisher and no one else.
It’s worse.
Playtest results inhibit you from disclosing things because they are subject to change. They take gamers’feedback, decide if they want to act on it, and at the end of the day the finished product may look different so it makes no sense for people to loudly state “they have feature X, and they don’t have feature Y” because by release it may be the other way around.
Whereas this type of contract says “idgaf what’s bad about the game, you can only sing its praises online”.
Silence > dishonesty.
If it’s actually a closed beta then it shouldn’t be open to streamers at all. If are going to allow stream is to play it then it’s not really a closed beta. It’s a marketing gimmick.
I think we should rename this community “gaming controversies” because that’s all that’s ever discussed here.
I’m just curious, what exactly would you prefer to see here? I don’t think this community is specific controversies, but I do think it is, and rightly so, mostly focused on gaming discussion rather than just games. And contentious topics are simply famously those which cause and often merit the most discussion.
Would you prefer instead if all of the posts were simply “How Great Is God of War?” followed by a chain of comments saying nothing but agreement?
I’m excited about the Paradox sale this weekend. Haven’t seen that mentioned anywhere on Lemmy🤷
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This is so stupid. Isn’t this a free-to-play game? With one-time-purchase games you can try to fool people, then take your money and leave while people complain about the game behind you.
But this is a free-to-play game, they intend to make money by gradual ongoing revenue from in-game purchases, etc. You can’t fool people who are actively playing the game.
The contract hurts their image, and prevents them from receiving critical feedback.
My first thought is: This is probably a shitty game because if it was good, they wouldn’t be worried.
They are probably concerned because management has decided that the game should be shown off even though it’s probably not ready. This is that kind of clouged together solution.
As per usual it just seems to have blown up in their gormless faces.
No satire either??
So you can say nothing but praises for the game, but if they detect sarcasm, you’re STILL getting sued?
Iron Man is shooting green lasers? wtf?
Edit: After watching the gameplay video, I can say it’s a similar game to Paladins by Hi-Rez studios. The only thing is that Paladins has EAC and makes it unplayable on my OS.
This is utter hogshit, but also seems relatively easy to work around. “I am legally forbidden from sharing my opinions on the quality of Marvel Rivals.” is a pretty clear and succinct review that technically flies under their legal fuckery.
i feel bad for the developers who worked on it because from what i played so far it looks like a surprising amount of love and care was put into the game. they didn’t need something like this at all to get generally favorable first impressions. shameful display from the suits who are always ready to ruin everything.
Blink twice if you signed the contract…
seriously, i was expecting a complete farce of a game considering it’s fucking NetEase but i was pleasantly surprised. the visuals, lighting and shaders, the particle effects, the UI, everything is so thoughtfully made and in line with the theme. even the alternate skins have “inspired by this comic issue” note attached.
Sounds pretty good. Personally i have no interest in Marvel stuff so its not up my alley, but i always like it when a fanbase gets something they enjoy. Have fun!
Ok regardless of whether or not you should be able to. Why the fuck would you? Wouldn’t it be in your ultimate best interest to recieve negative feedback early? So that it could be addressed?
I wager they are angling for the negative feedback to be private.
Not bootlicking, just reading the letter of the law. I read this more as “don’t be a total dick about it” so I’d love to hear a contract attorney’s take on this.
??? There’s nothing in this wording that implies anything more than “don’t negatively review us”
It’s says subjective negative reviews. it seems if you say “It kept crashing” or “this feature wasn’t working” or “this feature was super bugged” those aren’t subjective.
All reviews are subjective by definition. Your examples are observations, not reviews. A review is my opinion of the product based on my experience. Like honestly, if you ever wrote a review about anything on Steam, or IMDB, or GoodReads or whatever, go find it and remove everything that’s subjective and see what you’ll end up with. Not like you’d be able to post it, because they require you give a score, which is inherently subjective.
There’s nothing in the definition of review that requires it to be subjective. It’s shocking that you didn’t even stop to look it up to first figure out if this is accurate.
I did and it does. For example the Merriam-Webster English Dictionary defines review as:
Whereas evaluation is defined as:
It’s subtle, but it’s in there. The examples you gave don’t fall under this definition, as they don’t determine anything, they’re just statements of facts. However the statement “this game is shit” is a determination of quality and thus a review. If you just stop for a moment and think about it, you’ll realise that it is impossible to determine the quality of a video game in a purely objective way.
The only subtle thing here is the subtle change in your wording from simple “review” to “determine the quality.” I agree with you there, as whether you think something is good or bad is subjective.
But it appears you realize Im right, which is why you’re trying to reframe it. Why is it hard for you to admit you were wrong? It’s okay, no one is perfect.
I literally gave you a definition that says a review means to determine quality, I just assumed you would make the connection between that definition and the sentence you quoted, but apparently you’re too dense for that. The only error I made in this conversation is assuming that your reading comprehension is above that of a 3rd grader
“Or” do you really not know what that word means? Do you really not realize that when you cherry pick one part of a definition that it doesn’t mean none of the others apply?
Are.you really such an idiot that you don’t know this? Or is it just that you’re willing to be completely dishonest in defense of your ego?
And of course you don’t address the fact that I called out your reframing. Stupid and dishonest. Lol
You’re only strengthening my theory that you have absolutely no reading comprehension. Or you’re just trolling. Literally none of the things you just said make any logical sense whatsoever and I refuse to believe that anyone that passed elementary school can be so absolutely illiterate.
Please do tell me how if I wrote the whole definition there of “determination of the value, nature, character, or quality of something or someone” instead of shortening it to just “determine quality” it would make my entire point completely invalid.
And literally how can you look at my comment and, with straight face, say that I didn’t address your claim of “reframing”. It was all literally addressing it. But ok, you’re a moron so you might have not understood my point so let me put it in simpler terms:
Me show you the definition of word Me give an example Me refer to definiton to show example can be described with word You: that’s reframing
Do you see how absurdly idiotic you’re being?
You see that “or” in the definition? The word I already pointed out to you in the previous post? It does not mean “the one thing from this list that I get to pick because it makes me not wrong” it means “any of these things.” I can’t believe someone insulting me as “not having the reading comprehension of a third grader” needs this explained. It’s honestly hilarious. Although, can we appreciate for a second that you first said it was “subtle” but now are trying to argue that “it so obvious even a third grader would figure it out.” lmao. This is classic. Please keep it up.
If I’m being absurdly idiotic, god help us because no way in hell we’re going to be able to come up with a term describe your stupidity. You’re not giving us nearly enough space to reach the depths of your stupidity if the fact that I understand what “or” means makes me “absurdly idiotic.” lol
I sort of saw it that way, but the last bit about “subjective negative reviews” seems unusual even for contracts.
There’s enough lazy rage bait “Turns out X is DOGSHIT?!?” videos out there that I don’t think it’s unreasonable to put some terms in expecting some professional effort. But disallowing even polite criticisms definitely seems too far.
The opinion of what is and isnt “subjective” is up for a lot of debate even if you dont personally have a major stake in a videogame’s marketing campaign (such as the authors and enforcers of these contracts).
Sounds pretty clear-cut, if you say anything bad about the game regardless of if it’s true or not then you’re in violation of this contract. That’s ridiculous.
They’re are actually saying you can’t criticize the game. Now, you tell me who is the arbiter of what is and isn’t “criticism”, because it never says constructive criticism isn’t criticism so presumably is also not allowed.
Oh, you want only good reviews? It’d be a shame if people reviewed your game like “I apologize, I have nothing to say - I am under contract to say nothing bad about the game, and I have nothing good to say about it either.”
UPDATE:
gamerant.com/marvel-rivals-apologizes-alpha-banni…
Thanks for the link, just posted it.
these ass hats know what they are risking. they just plan for a “sorry we got caught” apology ready if needed in the hopes that they get away with it.
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.
It says not to leave “subjective bad reviews”. As in, objectively bad is fine.
Care to clarify what is objectively bad? Like, an example
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.
.
Graphics aren’t the same as aesthetics.
The graphics can be objectively bad in so far as the technology used may be out dated, less sophisticated, or slower than other implementations.
Aesthetics (how everything looks) are subjective.
Game kills all life on earth when starting
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.
It also says you can’t compare it to other games “maliciously.” What the fuck does that even mean?
“Marvel Rivals is just as bad as Cyberpunk 2077 at launch.”
???
We just have a give a positive spin
“The game is really good at sucking”
“This game would definitely win an honorary award for ‘Games I don’t Care About’”
“This Christmas I would gift the game to all my cousins whom I hate”
Good whom.
It’s going to be relentlessly compared to OverWatch. It’s basically an OverWatch clone with Marvel characters.
Oh my bad.
“It’s just as bad as OverWatch 2.”
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”
Does the contract also require a review to be made at all?
“I signed a contract that forbids me from saying anything negative about this game. I am therefore contractually obligated to say nothing”
This game doesn’t ruin your entire day by playing it for even a second.
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.
They saw what MKBHD’s honest reviews did to Fisker and Humane and said “can we stop that from happening?”
This is market manipulation at its best. The whole board should be jailed for it.
yes
no
Yes
No
Maybe
so
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.
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?
This is just my opinion but most comic book based games suck anyway.
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.
That’s by design. They weren’t interested in writing a good game or getting honest feedback. They wanted everyone to buy it and get money for it.
Don’t worry folk’s. We pay taxes so that the FTC and FCC gotz our backz broz.
Do they have our back though?
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?
Do that while explaining how that contract clause works!
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.
lmao
If I were forced to not say anything negative about a game, I would painstakingly refrain from saying anything positive as well.
“Do I recommend this game?..”
<img alt="" src="https://c.tenor.com/a-5XS9l-jUQAAAAC/tenor.gif">
I hate these filthy Neutrals Kiff. With enemies you know where they stand, but with Neutrals, who knows. It sickens me.
That contract has absolutely no legal bearing in any way shape or form.
Let them go to court over this, get thrown out and counter sued.
It’s not a legal thing. Is the message. “I’m not giving you any more access in the future because you broke our agreement.”
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.
So long as this is only about the pre release and not about the game at all stages. Review embargoes are somewhat normal prior to launch.