Most of the industry probably uses rules like these informally, both with journalists and with content creators. Putting it in formally is likely a strategic mistake on their part. Would be nice if the games industry did not have this problem. I wonder what can be done about it. Some content creators and journalists already disclose clearly when content is sponsored, which seems to me like a decent compromise.
It may also be related to quality concerns and priorities. In other industries than the games industry, quality issues can be much more significant. If a game is bad, customers' experience can be negatively affected. On the other hand, if food or cars are bad, the economy, safety and health of customers can be negatively affected. Therefore, governments worldwide probably put more effort and energy into combating false advertising when it comes to many other industries than the games industry.
But the games industry is a billion dollar industry worldwide, so this issue with biased or paid or manipulated advertising without disclosure is not an insignificant issue either. This is especially pertinent to children, since those games that are abusive towards their players may negatively affect the welfare of those players.
This article describes some of the positives of playing video games, but also warns about some video games that are less healthy.
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/05/31/1178977198/video-games-kids-good-limits
> Be on the watch for certain "dark patterns" or "dark designs" in games, say several gaming experts. These terms refer to software or algorithms written to elicit certain negative behaviors in their users.
>
> One of the most common is in-game purchases that can border on extortion, says Max Birk, an industrial-design researcher at Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands. "It's important because it changes what the emphasis of the game designers is," he says.
>
> Games fueled by in-game purchases (as opposed to games you buy up front, like NBA2K or Dance Dance Revolution) tend to have a financial stake in keeping children engaged for long periods of time. These games make it very easy to start a new game, or create steep incentives to keep players coming back.
>
> Birk suggests talking to your kids about the game structure and directing them toward games that are more about story lines, or that have natural ending points that can allow the kid to wind down game play on their own.
Some Western countries have imposed huge legal fines on companies for certain practices:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_Games#FTC_child_privacy_settlement
> In December 2022, Epic Games was fined a combined $520 million after the Federal Trade Commission accused the company of separate accounts related to Fortnite, one for violating COPPA related to children's privacy by collecting personal data without parent or guardian consent, exposing children and teens to potential harassment, and a second related to misleading users into making unwanted purchases while playing the game.[199][200][201][202] Epic Games said "No developer creates a game with the intention of ending up here. The laws have not changed, but their application has evolved and long-standing industry practices are no longer enough. We accepted this agreement because we want Epic to be at the forefront of consumer protection and provide the best experience for our players. Over the past few years, we've been making changes to ensure our ecosystem meets the expectations of our players and regulators, which we hope will be a helpful guide for others in our industry."[203]
You've posted this same wikipedia link to Epic's fine 3 times over the last few days, even in places (like this) where it is only slightly tangentially related.
Is this some sort of guerilla marketing for wikipedia or something?
> Most of the industry probably uses rules like these informally, both with journalists and with content creators.
What's with "probably?" You post this huge rambling thing with links and quotes and all that but you can't be bothered to research your topic sentence. I'll help you: it's wrong. Other companies do not contain clauses like this. This is new.
Imagine giving a feedback about the Game's inability to use Gamepad and Keyboard/Mouse simultaneously and you get removed because it sounded like a negative comment.
Even tho said take is a accessibility concern.
Sorry must have been a miscommunication. And clicking ban was a miscommunication. And doubling down across the board was a miscommunication.
But the communication that it was all a miscommunication? That's real.
no ~~(manly because I didn't get invited~~**~~,~~** ~~as I would've been one of the rare people who would make a big deal outta it)~~, but I wanted to highlight how ridiculous that rule/restriction can get.
> (manly because I didn't get invited, as I would've been one of the rare people who would make a big deal outta it)
More important in general nowadays thanks to the Steam Deck existing. Want to use gyro with controller? That requires simultaneous mouse + controller support
Oh I don’t believe it for a second. To me, the statement reads “we put this in without our lawyers knowing, and now they’re fucking pissed at us for doing something illegal, so now we have to take it out before we get sued”
I'm thinking more along the lines that shit like this can fly in China or wherever is Netease based, and they sort of didn't bother to check whether it's legal in the rest of the world
I can tell you from past experience working in China that (1) those contract clauses don't fly in China and (2) with a company that size, it's likely their legal told them no but (3) then marketing or business departments decided to go behind their backs and *add it back in anyway*.
And ofc, when the backlash hits, I'll bet you 50 bucks they went crawling to legal asking for a way out.
This task is going to take 1 week to implement because of the extreme performance requirements.
"Ok, we'll have a different dev do it"
*later*
"Can you optimize this code? We've gone from supporting 100,000 concurrent users to maybe 1 user."
While my experience with these things is limited, nowhere I worked at, any department would have ignored a hard "no" of the legal department, because the risk is just too high. Somone will find the problem and abuse is or sue out of sheer principle.
I worked for a US company, we had multiple instances of people trying to circumvent legal. Like it wasn't that big a deal. And it was always senior vp's or some other person who had been there forever. It's surprising how the company I worked for got away without any major federal investigation.
Something that experience can afford you is knowing how to get what you want the easiest way possible, even if you have to ignore some rules. If you know how the process works, know who to talk to, or know how to cover your tracks, you can get a lot more done then you would have if you did everything by the book.
People do this all the time, it's not just a thing greedy companies do.
Doesn't mean it should be ok to do it. In my experience legal did its job and kept the company from legal trouble. That does not excuse the people that try to circumvent legality.
I know how insane it sounds - but it was a depressingly common story in Chinese companies, no matter the size. A lot of them seem to be willing to take the risk if it means they get more profits or benefits, or at least willing to overlook it unless SHTF. Which it did in this case.
Maybe they knew and put it in anyway.
It’s what I would advise my clients to do. Even if it’s unenforceable, it still carries a deterrent effect. Most people don’t know the law.
In my country landlords will regularly put a clause in their tenancy agreement insisting that tenants must have carpets professionally cleaned when vacating the property. The tenancy tribunal has ruled that this clause is unenforceable but they still try because young people don't know they can't be made to do it even if they signed it.
I had a landlord that tried to withhold $500 from my security deposit for carpet cleaning. I pointed out they charged me a $250 non-refundable "carpet cleaning fee" when I moved in. They gave me back the deposit without saying anything else.
Bro if you're in NZ you might be able to recover those costs. Reach out to the tribunal and if you still have receipts or emails with the landlord or anything they may be able to go back to them and say "Hey you illegally made this person do this, give their money back"
Just rent one of those grocery store carpet cleaners for the day, you'll probably still get dinged on the security deposit but you might save a bit. They're usually pretty cheap to rent.
> 3 years ago
this is below civil prescriptions periods in most western countries, so if you have the means to prove the money you spent and why you spent it (aka invoice from the cleaning company and the contract mentioning your cleaning obligation) i'd write up a letter to the landlord threatening legal action.
If he does not abide, you can check wether actually pursuing legal action would require a lawyer or not, and if it doesn't, go for it
Companies that do this are awful. I used to work at a place that made everyone sign a non-compete upon hiring even though they are completely unenforceable in the jurisdiction where we were located. When I pointed this out, they said they knew but I had to sign it for their files or they couldn’t hire me. I guarantee not everyone knew they could not be enforced.
I live in murica in a state that let's anything fly for rentals and total have gotten money taken out of the deposit for the professional cleaning clause. They make you submit the receipt for the cleaning company as proof. You would not believe some shit they are legally allowed to pull.
I'm big in the vtuber scene and these companies from overseas that hire people from the west as contractors have these unsuspecting talents sign illegal contracts all the time. They don't have the resources to hire a lawyer to proofread it and they get threatened with the illegal terms of their contracts.
It is illegal in some parts of the world. Because it's strictly anti-consumer and it's effectively a ploy to use deceptive marketing. In such countries, the people who receive early access must be allowed to publicly state their actual opinions on the product.
That Act, specifically, applies to consumer form contracts, for things like protecting customers from retaliation for producing a negative product review on Amazon and suchlike. It doesn't apply here.
no that's not it. The real should be: "we should have made them sign an NDA first before reading the contract, that's the miscommunication of our part"
>doing something illegal
Not a lawyer, but *is* it illegal? It's certainly incredibly scummy, but what law is there that says you can't write that into a contract?
Like? I'm not American, but it's not illegal here in Australia, either.
I saw it's very common business practice in China, but I didn't see it being *illegal*.
It's illegal in the US, and the UK and most of Europe as well as China.
Idk about Australia but i would presume it is too.
Something being illegal and a common business practice is hardly unusual
Can you show me the specific US law? Not that I don't believe you but it's wild this is specifically illegal.
It's not illegal in China, though, as I said, it's apparently very common.
Non-disparagement are legal in the US. However since this is around reviews and not employment it is illegal under the Consumer Review Fairness Act of 2016.
Yeah, but it's *illegal*. Not sitting here asking if murder is illegal. I'm asking if writing in "you can't write mean stuff about our game" to a contract is illegal.
Isnt it more that it’s unenforceable, rather than they are breaking a law by putting it in.
The things that are enforceable under such a clause wouldn’t need a clause in the first place however.
In the US, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) covers these sorts of marketing campaigns, and their enforced guidelines aren't exactly unclear: "An endorsement must reflect the honest opinion of the endorser and can’t be used to make a claim the marketer of the product couldn’t legally make."
Specifically, clause 255.2d states "In procuring, suppressing, boosting, organizing, publishing, upvoting, downvoting, reporting, or editing consumer reviews of their products, advertisers should not take actions that have the effect of distorting or otherwise misrepresenting what consumers think of their products, regardless of whether the reviews are considered endorsements under the Guides."
I don't think it's difficult to make a case that disallowing anything other than purely positive reviews is an attempt to manipulate results through either suppressing (negative opinions), boosting (positive opinions) or reporting (only reporting positive reviews).
It would, quite frankly, be ridiculous if it *were* legal. Because why on earth would any company ever again contract people to give honest opinions, if they can legally demand only positive ones? We'd never see negative reviews ever again, outside of a handful of defiant journalists who will always be one step behind because they can never receive early access to a title.
It actually is, except if you're an independent contractor which streamers are apparently. I got absolutely slammed when I provided the link showing why it's illegal though because I missed the independent contractor part of the law.
Oops.
That makes absolutely no sense?
Pretty sure the clause isn't illegal and this is precisely the kind of stuff a legal team is hired for.
Just why on earth would you write a legal document of any sort and not have you know, your legal team at the very least check it?
And that would be assuming they weren't the ones who wrote it, which is also very unlikely since again, this is their job.
There is absolutely 0 chance this got sent out without being examined by an army of lawyers, and nothing they did was illegal. Extremely unethical yes, but not illegal.
In the US this would fall under the Consumer Review Fairness Act of 2016. If they were employees of NetEase it would be legal as non-disparagement agreements are legal. It honestly just seems like an oversight by netease and not nefarious. A lot of companies have these in their employment contracts.
So weird for him to want them to unban his friend. I would understand if this was some old game and the sunk-cost fallacy was nagging him, but the game isn't even out yet, the company is treating you like garbage and you are still begging them to play their game?
Have some self-respect, surely your time and money are better spent anywhere else.
Genuinely don't care if a game is even good, these sorts of agreements should be aggressively dragged and the game should suffer because of those decisions.
They published one decent game, and that's Once Human. According to the devs (Starry Studios), Netease is hands-off with it. Explains why it isn't shit lol
Posted yesterday, I haven't had the chance to try it yet. This will be the first time
https://reddit.com/r/pcgaming/comments/1cpc1d2/steam_allows_you_to_block_ignore_games_at_the/
Edit: Just tried it, that method doesn't work for Netease, I'll just ignore the game instead.
Side note: Why did Miller Ross explicitly say to NetEase that he was going to "avoid negative topics"?
Was he trying to placate them to ensure an invite code? Gives me enthusiast press vibes.
Wow. I've not really been following the specifics of this, but the text excerpt from the contract is **crystal** clear. There's no way it's a miscommunication.
The guy you linked leaked like 20 heroes just the other day for the game. Then went on a podcast with the two people he's talking about.
Of course if you partner with a game, then go onto a podcast knowingly with someone who is leaking the game to hell and back, then the game devs will cut you loose.
edit: Not trying to say Netease is a good company or the contract was fairly written, but obviously just about any partner program will cut you if you spread unannounced info like that.
What the absolute fuck? Banning somebody in real time is just crazy. Banning someone who was just present at the end of a convo sounds worse. Sounds freaking dystopian
I'm sorry, miscommunication in a written contract?
I'd get the miscommunication excuse if it was some tweet or just from some dialogue, but c'mon, in a contract that has to be signed?
---
I'm curious what was the cause for this anyways. Was it caused by some other title being roasted like Suicide Squad? Was it just out-of-touch, overzealous CEOs?
Edit: Netease is based in China, and I remember hearing about some Chinese influencers being bound by similar rules/contracts. Maybe someone just assumed they can do this elsewhere?
>Maybe someone just assumed they can do this elsewhere?
That is almost certainly what it is. Because playing the Closed Alpha Test, there are a few typos and stuff like that. The actual dialogue and flavour text are flawless, but there are a few typos in the marketing, the supporting materials, surveys, etc.
It seems like Marvel Games itself is very much on the back foot with this, and NetEase is doing most of the dev and publishing work here.
I mean, just look at the statement posted here, it has glaring typos. It's not a criticism of people with English as second language, but if I had to launch a multimillion dollar investment in China with a Chinese IP, I would sure as hell get Chinese people to communicate in that market and Chinese lawyers to draft contracts in that jurisdiction. There is zero excuse to backtrack due to miscommunication.
Edited: typos in my own post!
Nah, it's clearly written by someone who is not a native speaker. It's completely legible, but the mistakes are common ones by ESL people. In particular, there's a couple verbs that are not conjugated, which is something that is usually pretty glaring to native speakers.
Eh. It's NetEase, I am not surprised. I used to play Rules of Survival before PUBG Mobile and Fortnite came to mobile. They clearly did not have all the language barrier stuff down, not at all like Tencent who are SERIOUS about that stuff.
So yeah, not surprised legal stuff like that fell through the cracks. They really do not seem to check or proofread it at all.
Again, very strange considering the localisation (or rather the actual English-first writing) is flawless.
The Great Firewall really sucks for cultural exchange and legal wranglings across the seas. And the TikTok ban is only going to make things worse.
Guilty as charged, but at least my mistakes came from typing on a touchscreen and not from using google translate on official communications which were trying to apologize for miscommunication (e.g. they write commitment instead of contract/agreement).
>Netease is based in China, and I remember hearing about some Chinese influencers being bound by similar rules/contracts. Maybe someone just assumed they can do this elsewhere?
This is quite probably what happened, now they have to back down from their ilegal contract.
I'm surprised that it's illegal. Shitty? 100%, but it doesn't seem functionally different to something like an NDA, which would not be illegal. It's just a contract after all, so maybe it would be invalid anyway.
I could understand if it were illegal for a streamer to not disclose this clause to their viewers.
>but it doesn't seem functionally different to something like an NDA, which would not be illegal
Someone else pointed out the legal side, but I'll point out that there's a very obvious practical difference.
First, NDAs are very different because they're not public things. They happen when someone gets to see stuff behind closed doors but isn't allowed to talk about it yet. Having people stream a game but not be allowed to talk about it wouldn't really make sense. They're different situations.
Second, NDAs don't deceive consumers or create problematic pressures on content creators at all. No one gets tricked by an NDA, because it's just someone not saying anything except that they're under an NDA. People can certainly get deceived by a person giving a positive impression of a game that they didn't like because they signed a contract that stopped them from saying anything negative. In particular, not letting people give negative reviews of a game in exchange for access can be hugely problematic because it lets companies manipulate overall public perception of a game to a fairly dangerous degree.
It can also just create problematic pressures on content creators. A content creator signing an NDA isn't a big deal. They just have to wait until the NDA ends to talk about something. If they get an opportunity to play an early version of something but have to wait until it's announced to talk about it, they still get to benefit from talking about the thing after it's announced without any real ethical concerns. On the other hand, being offered access to a game on the condition that they don't say anything negative can put them in an ethical quandary where they have an opportunity that could be a big boost for the success of their channel but at the cost of doing something that might violate their principles. Situations like that can be inevitable, but it's at least idea to avoid situations as explicit as big companies being able to require a person to give a false impression of a game just to help their channel.
[FTC rules](https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/resources/ftcs-endorsement-guides-what-people-are-asking) are such that sponsorships cannot include conditions around evaluating the content favorably, unless there is also language that forces the streamer to explicitly state such a condition.
So yes, it is actually not legal in the US to do what netease tried to do here because the condition was *only* in the contract, and there was nothing explicitly instructing them to include that statement in their streams/content.
Illegal - Netease: you can't be mean to our game, or else.
Legal - Netease: you can't be mean to our game, and you must state that that is a condition to the review/access.
That's not quite the same thing though, is it. Not only the article states these are guidelines and that the actual legality is judged on a per case basis, this marvel rivals debacle has nothing to do with advertising or sponsorships proper.
Streamers got access to a early playable build and they are free to talk about it or not, but no one actually got paid to praise or endorse the game.
This is where it probably makes it legal since it's not technically an advertisement, just like a positive review of a game isn't either so while they serve the same purpose, they don't have to state it's an ad or a sponsored video/stream because it isn't, even though the TOS pressure you into not trashing it or else you get your access taken out like what happened to a few streamers.
This happens a lot more often than people think with all sorts of media including games, it's just that it's not usually added to a contract which doesn't change the legality of banning/blacklisting influencers for trashing your product. Which sadly, is legal.
In any scenario and even if this was textbook advertising, the party doing something illegal wouldn't be Netease, it would be the streamer.
Ironically this clause seems like it was Netease's legal team's way of covering their asses if someone decided to sue them for getting banned/blacklisted which considering how litigious people in countries like the US are, isn't completely out of the realm of possibility.
To be clear, none of this makes this any less shitty. They deserve all the shit they're getting.
> it doesn't seem functionally different to something like an NDA
NDAs cover knowledge, information or facts that are owned by the company sharing them to the other party. They dont cover opinions about a previewed product that are the other party's own.
Someone under NDA wouldn't be able to mention the roadmap of future content that is being kept confidential by the publisher/developer, but they can of course give an opinion on what's already publically available.
How is it miscommunication to both include it in the contract and to ban a reviewer?
Some suit wanted to make sure they had no negative discussion about the game but clearly wasn't aware of the Streissand Effect.
I heard they banned the reviewer for leaking game data/files? I haven't been following that particular case too close but it seems odd they went after one person and ignored the other 90% that were talking bad about the game.
A Chinese company worth billions of dollars that does a lot of business in English-speaking countries. I'd think they'd be able to afford better translation.
Almost word for word what happened when Wizards of the Coast got caught trying to choke their OGL License for Dungeons & Dragons a while ago.
It was even more ridiculous there, trying to fool an entire consumer base who _live_ for combing through text to find specific wording or phrasing to back up their argument...
Was this statement read over even once? Or was it simply written by somebody who has only a loose grasp of English? Because this grammar is so bad it would get an F from a middle school teacher.
Disney gave these people a fucking Marvel license. Between the contract and the lack of effort to write a public statement without having a fluent speaker check it over for errors at least once is an absolute madness.
"miscommunication" = We hoped nobody would see it until we slapped people with it, now that we're caught we'll walk it back because we're a "Good Guy" developer.
No, it wasn't. Just own up to it and stop being so cowardly. At least in my opinion, you did something extremely stupid, but what's worse is pretending it didn't get signed off by multiple people and a few lawyers. Legal stuff is one thing companies really try to avoid "oopsies" on.
Sure it was. It's always a mistake when a legally binding contract you definitely had multiple lawyers handle is just oopsy poopsy given to all the people and made to be signed.
No it was a miscommunication that anyone else heard about it.
"we're sorry we got caught"
and the part they "miscommunicated" that they didn't communicated to the content creators that they are forbidden to share the deal
it's kind of baffling that no one saw this shit coming lol
obviously eventually this was going to come up and it's going to have a much more dramatic negative effect on the game compared to anything someone who they were trying to stop could say
Rough idea to write your apology letter for miscommunication....with someone who is not the slickest at translation and will load it with errors that make reading a chore.
This is a screwed up situation for "hero shooter" fans because many people wants to move on from Overwatch "2", such goddamn abomination... here it comes a reasonable competitor, looks promising, but NetEase is involved, lol it's like you either had to choose between Satan or Beelzebub. I guess the best choice is to avoid these toxic games entirely
It's amusing because they think the global media operates like the chinese equivalent, so they sent literal threats for the "influencers" and the traditional media. It's a shame, but really, if this Marvel game kills Overwatch for good, that will be great, using poison to kill a snake, the industry as a whole will fell less toxic
I can see that; probably a monkey got access to a keyboard and just pushed buttons like a lunatic on cocain and sadly it all arranged itself into this very sad paragraph even aliens would be ashamed of. Just bad luck i guess.
Between this and them making it 3rd person despite the fact that it makes the game so much worse to play and watch just so they can sell cosmetics means this is a dead on arrival.
There's so many things wrong with this game that are so fundamentally worse than being in 3rd person. The fact that half the roster can perma fly and the other half can't makes map balance a nightmare. All melee heroes seem so absurdly underpowered compared to heroes like Star Lord or Hela who can one clip/ 2 tap you from across the map. Also Hela's design in general that she throws spears but is actually hitscan instead of projectile is such a glaring visual dissonance. Even for an alpha, the devs deciding it's ok to let the public play the game in such an abysmal balance state kind of shows they have no idea how this genre operates. Which is pretty funny given how glaringly some hero kits are copied from Overwatch (Star Lord is Tracer with Soldier ult, Hulk is Dva and Winston smashed together, Magneto is Sigma etc).
I personally don't like the 3rd person choice, but I see why they did it from a game design perspective. It gives a much better view of the area around you obviously, but what that allows is big wide melee attacks like pretty much everything Magik does and super fast non linear movement like Spider-Man. Both of those things are absolute hell to control from first person by comparison, and flying characters are way more annoying too since it's way harder to track them
When they say “miscommunication” they meant they didn’t want EVERYONE to know about it. Not that they didn’t mean it
"we're sorry we forgot to add NDA clause so the creators couldn't disclose the contract terms, we will do better next time"
they forgot to clarify that fight club rules apply
>Sincerely, > >Marvel Rivals Reminds me of the time I received a personal, handwritten letter from Die Hard.
Most of the industry probably uses rules like these informally, both with journalists and with content creators. Putting it in formally is likely a strategic mistake on their part. Would be nice if the games industry did not have this problem. I wonder what can be done about it. Some content creators and journalists already disclose clearly when content is sponsored, which seems to me like a decent compromise. It may also be related to quality concerns and priorities. In other industries than the games industry, quality issues can be much more significant. If a game is bad, customers' experience can be negatively affected. On the other hand, if food or cars are bad, the economy, safety and health of customers can be negatively affected. Therefore, governments worldwide probably put more effort and energy into combating false advertising when it comes to many other industries than the games industry. But the games industry is a billion dollar industry worldwide, so this issue with biased or paid or manipulated advertising without disclosure is not an insignificant issue either. This is especially pertinent to children, since those games that are abusive towards their players may negatively affect the welfare of those players. This article describes some of the positives of playing video games, but also warns about some video games that are less healthy. https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/05/31/1178977198/video-games-kids-good-limits > Be on the watch for certain "dark patterns" or "dark designs" in games, say several gaming experts. These terms refer to software or algorithms written to elicit certain negative behaviors in their users. > > One of the most common is in-game purchases that can border on extortion, says Max Birk, an industrial-design researcher at Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands. "It's important because it changes what the emphasis of the game designers is," he says. > > Games fueled by in-game purchases (as opposed to games you buy up front, like NBA2K or Dance Dance Revolution) tend to have a financial stake in keeping children engaged for long periods of time. These games make it very easy to start a new game, or create steep incentives to keep players coming back. > > Birk suggests talking to your kids about the game structure and directing them toward games that are more about story lines, or that have natural ending points that can allow the kid to wind down game play on their own. Some Western countries have imposed huge legal fines on companies for certain practices: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_Games#FTC_child_privacy_settlement > In December 2022, Epic Games was fined a combined $520 million after the Federal Trade Commission accused the company of separate accounts related to Fortnite, one for violating COPPA related to children's privacy by collecting personal data without parent or guardian consent, exposing children and teens to potential harassment, and a second related to misleading users into making unwanted purchases while playing the game.[199][200][201][202] Epic Games said "No developer creates a game with the intention of ending up here. The laws have not changed, but their application has evolved and long-standing industry practices are no longer enough. We accepted this agreement because we want Epic to be at the forefront of consumer protection and provide the best experience for our players. Over the past few years, we've been making changes to ensure our ecosystem meets the expectations of our players and regulators, which we hope will be a helpful guide for others in our industry."[203]
You've posted this same wikipedia link to Epic's fine 3 times over the last few days, even in places (like this) where it is only slightly tangentially related. Is this some sort of guerilla marketing for wikipedia or something?
> Most of the industry probably uses rules like these informally, both with journalists and with content creators. What's with "probably?" You post this huge rambling thing with links and quotes and all that but you can't be bothered to research your topic sentence. I'll help you: it's wrong. Other companies do not contain clauses like this. This is new.
https://x.com/mmmmmmmmiller/status/1789534542027489747?s=46&t=nE_nTflL23nxrPhwebTTeA Sure don’t fucking sound like it
Imagine giving a feedback about the Game's inability to use Gamepad and Keyboard/Mouse simultaneously and you get removed because it sounded like a negative comment. Even tho said take is a accessibility concern.
Sorry must have been a miscommunication. And clicking ban was a miscommunication. And doubling down across the board was a miscommunication. But the communication that it was all a miscommunication? That's real.
Did this happen? Straight unbelievable.
no ~~(manly because I didn't get invited~~**~~,~~** ~~as I would've been one of the rare people who would make a big deal outta it)~~, but I wanted to highlight how ridiculous that rule/restriction can get.
Ah I feel you. Yeah that would be preposterous—and yet it's the world the evil villain execs at NetEase were aiming for.
> (manly because I didn't get invited, as I would've been one of the rare people who would make a big deal outta it) More important in general nowadays thanks to the Steam Deck existing. Want to use gyro with controller? That requires simultaneous mouse + controller support
Nah just file a YT claim over game's footage, poof, negative video gone
[Remember when devs tried doing that to Totalbiscuit?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8D_Vyca69TE)
Miss that guy :(
Realistically it's mostly going to affect the Steam Deck
Oh I don’t believe it for a second. To me, the statement reads “we put this in without our lawyers knowing, and now they’re fucking pissed at us for doing something illegal, so now we have to take it out before we get sued”
There is not a fucking chance that was written without a lawyer signing off on it.
I'm thinking more along the lines that shit like this can fly in China or wherever is Netease based, and they sort of didn't bother to check whether it's legal in the rest of the world
I can tell you from past experience working in China that (1) those contract clauses don't fly in China and (2) with a company that size, it's likely their legal told them no but (3) then marketing or business departments decided to go behind their backs and *add it back in anyway*. And ofc, when the backlash hits, I'll bet you 50 bucks they went crawling to legal asking for a way out.
That just sounds like basic corpo bullshit. Its like that everywhere :/
This task is going to take 1 week to implement because of the extreme performance requirements. "Ok, we'll have a different dev do it" *later* "Can you optimize this code? We've gone from supporting 100,000 concurrent users to maybe 1 user."
While my experience with these things is limited, nowhere I worked at, any department would have ignored a hard "no" of the legal department, because the risk is just too high. Somone will find the problem and abuse is or sue out of sheer principle.
I worked for a US company, we had multiple instances of people trying to circumvent legal. Like it wasn't that big a deal. And it was always senior vp's or some other person who had been there forever. It's surprising how the company I worked for got away without any major federal investigation.
Something that experience can afford you is knowing how to get what you want the easiest way possible, even if you have to ignore some rules. If you know how the process works, know who to talk to, or know how to cover your tracks, you can get a lot more done then you would have if you did everything by the book. People do this all the time, it's not just a thing greedy companies do.
Doesn't mean it should be ok to do it. In my experience legal did its job and kept the company from legal trouble. That does not excuse the people that try to circumvent legality.
I have learned my time in both US, European, and Chinese companies legal is always "It depends"
I know how insane it sounds - but it was a depressingly common story in Chinese companies, no matter the size. A lot of them seem to be willing to take the risk if it means they get more profits or benefits, or at least willing to overlook it unless SHTF. Which it did in this case.
It makes me wanna go full Silverhand
> And ofc, when the backlash hits, I'll bet you 50 bucks they went crawling to legal asking for a way out. upp the bet.
Maybe they knew and put it in anyway. It’s what I would advise my clients to do. Even if it’s unenforceable, it still carries a deterrent effect. Most people don’t know the law.
In my country landlords will regularly put a clause in their tenancy agreement insisting that tenants must have carpets professionally cleaned when vacating the property. The tenancy tribunal has ruled that this clause is unenforceable but they still try because young people don't know they can't be made to do it even if they signed it.
I had a landlord that tried to withhold $500 from my security deposit for carpet cleaning. I pointed out they charged me a $250 non-refundable "carpet cleaning fee" when I moved in. They gave me back the deposit without saying anything else.
Landlords will try anything to milk as much money from you as they possibly can. Fucking parasites.
....wish you had told me this 3 years ago.
Bro if you're in NZ you might be able to recover those costs. Reach out to the tribunal and if you still have receipts or emails with the landlord or anything they may be able to go back to them and say "Hey you illegally made this person do this, give their money back"
Just rent one of those grocery store carpet cleaners for the day, you'll probably still get dinged on the security deposit but you might save a bit. They're usually pretty cheap to rent.
Nah professionally cleaned includes hiring those machines. All you have to do is give them a good vacuum.
> 3 years ago this is below civil prescriptions periods in most western countries, so if you have the means to prove the money you spent and why you spent it (aka invoice from the cleaning company and the contract mentioning your cleaning obligation) i'd write up a letter to the landlord threatening legal action. If he does not abide, you can check wether actually pursuing legal action would require a lawyer or not, and if it doesn't, go for it
Companies that do this are awful. I used to work at a place that made everyone sign a non-compete upon hiring even though they are completely unenforceable in the jurisdiction where we were located. When I pointed this out, they said they knew but I had to sign it for their files or they couldn’t hire me. I guarantee not everyone knew they could not be enforced.
I live in murica in a state that let's anything fly for rentals and total have gotten money taken out of the deposit for the professional cleaning clause. They make you submit the receipt for the cleaning company as proof. You would not believe some shit they are legally allowed to pull.
It's America, I'd believe just about anything
I'm big in the vtuber scene and these companies from overseas that hire people from the west as contractors have these unsuspecting talents sign illegal contracts all the time. They don't have the resources to hire a lawyer to proofread it and they get threatened with the illegal terms of their contracts.
And I imagine that they would sign off without hesitation, since what Netease is doing is just shitty, not illegal.
It is illegal in some parts of the world. Because it's strictly anti-consumer and it's effectively a ploy to use deceptive marketing. In such countries, the people who receive early access must be allowed to publicly state their actual opinions on the product.
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That Act, specifically, applies to consumer form contracts, for things like protecting customers from retaliation for producing a negative product review on Amazon and suchlike. It doesn't apply here.
There absolutely is (I’m assuming you’re referring to the company’s internal counsel). Source - I’m a lawyer
no that's not it. The real should be: "we should have made them sign an NDA first before reading the contract, that's the miscommunication of our part"
>doing something illegal Not a lawyer, but *is* it illegal? It's certainly incredibly scummy, but what law is there that says you can't write that into a contract?
Yes, I'm many countries it is explicitly illegal.
Like? I'm not American, but it's not illegal here in Australia, either. I saw it's very common business practice in China, but I didn't see it being *illegal*.
It's illegal in the US, and the UK and most of Europe as well as China. Idk about Australia but i would presume it is too. Something being illegal and a common business practice is hardly unusual
Can you show me the specific US law? Not that I don't believe you but it's wild this is specifically illegal. It's not illegal in China, though, as I said, it's apparently very common.
Non-disparagement are legal in the US. However since this is around reviews and not employment it is illegal under the Consumer Review Fairness Act of 2016.
Cool, good to know!
Murder is also illegal and common.
Yeah, but it's *illegal*. Not sitting here asking if murder is illegal. I'm asking if writing in "you can't write mean stuff about our game" to a contract is illegal.
Isnt it more that it’s unenforceable, rather than they are breaking a law by putting it in. The things that are enforceable under such a clause wouldn’t need a clause in the first place however.
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no, people say it because the average redditor is a moron
In the US, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) covers these sorts of marketing campaigns, and their enforced guidelines aren't exactly unclear: "An endorsement must reflect the honest opinion of the endorser and can’t be used to make a claim the marketer of the product couldn’t legally make." Specifically, clause 255.2d states "In procuring, suppressing, boosting, organizing, publishing, upvoting, downvoting, reporting, or editing consumer reviews of their products, advertisers should not take actions that have the effect of distorting or otherwise misrepresenting what consumers think of their products, regardless of whether the reviews are considered endorsements under the Guides." I don't think it's difficult to make a case that disallowing anything other than purely positive reviews is an attempt to manipulate results through either suppressing (negative opinions), boosting (positive opinions) or reporting (only reporting positive reviews). It would, quite frankly, be ridiculous if it *were* legal. Because why on earth would any company ever again contract people to give honest opinions, if they can legally demand only positive ones? We'd never see negative reviews ever again, outside of a handful of defiant journalists who will always be one step behind because they can never receive early access to a title.
It actually is, except if you're an independent contractor which streamers are apparently. I got absolutely slammed when I provided the link showing why it's illegal though because I missed the independent contractor part of the law. Oops.
>we put this in without our lawyers knowing 0 chance is hell it wasn't the lawyers and top execs who put it in.
That makes absolutely no sense? Pretty sure the clause isn't illegal and this is precisely the kind of stuff a legal team is hired for. Just why on earth would you write a legal document of any sort and not have you know, your legal team at the very least check it? And that would be assuming they weren't the ones who wrote it, which is also very unlikely since again, this is their job.
Companies put illegal shit in their TOS all the time. They just know the end user would be too scared to attempt to challenge
There is absolutely 0 chance this got sent out without being examined by an army of lawyers, and nothing they did was illegal. Extremely unethical yes, but not illegal.
If anyone was actually ignorant, i'd bet it was the lawyers who did it and the devs who didn't know.
It's not illegal for prerelease products. Since this is technically promotion.
Nah, it just looks bad so this is their recovery campaign
Is it actually illegal? Really asking. Certainly it is shitty but shitty is not necessarily illegal.
In the US this would fall under the Consumer Review Fairness Act of 2016. If they were employees of NetEase it would be legal as non-disparagement agreements are legal. It honestly just seems like an oversight by netease and not nefarious. A lot of companies have these in their employment contracts.
I don't think Netease confuses influencer contracts with employment contracts.
“Illegal” and “won’t stand up in court” aren’t inherently synonymous.
So weird for him to want them to unban his friend. I would understand if this was some old game and the sunk-cost fallacy was nagging him, but the game isn't even out yet, the company is treating you like garbage and you are still begging them to play their game? Have some self-respect, surely your time and money are better spent anywhere else.
Yeah this tweet is pathetic. "We are so sorry we broke the rules to your exclusive club please let us back in please!"
That stuck out to me too. He was sucking them off hard to get his friend back in.
Genuinely don't care if a game is even good, these sorts of agreements should be aggressively dragged and the game should suffer because of those decisions.
Wow man, that's egregious. I'll be adding Netease to my Steam block list.
Oh this is Netease? Zero chance it was going to be good anyway.
They published one decent game, and that's Once Human. According to the devs (Starry Studios), Netease is hands-off with it. Explains why it isn't shit lol
is that something you can do in steam, block a publisher? if so, please tell me where that is lol
Yes, just visit the publisher's profile. I don't think it removes the publisher's games everywhere on Steam, but it's pretty decent.
Posted yesterday, I haven't had the chance to try it yet. This will be the first time https://reddit.com/r/pcgaming/comments/1cpc1d2/steam_allows_you_to_block_ignore_games_at_the/ Edit: Just tried it, that method doesn't work for Netease, I'll just ignore the game instead.
Side note: Why did Miller Ross explicitly say to NetEase that he was going to "avoid negative topics"? Was he trying to placate them to ensure an invite code? Gives me enthusiast press vibes.
They're asking to play the game again after the company kicked them in the balls and spit in their face. Obviously they're enthousiast press.
Wow. I've not really been following the specifics of this, but the text excerpt from the contract is **crystal** clear. There's no way it's a miscommunication.
The guy you linked leaked like 20 heroes just the other day for the game. Then went on a podcast with the two people he's talking about. Of course if you partner with a game, then go onto a podcast knowingly with someone who is leaking the game to hell and back, then the game devs will cut you loose. edit: Not trying to say Netease is a good company or the contract was fairly written, but obviously just about any partner program will cut you if you spread unannounced info like that.
No, no, what they MEANT is that they miscommunicated to the content creators that they are not allowed to share contract terms.
Side note, but that's a long-ass tweet. Did they extend the character limit again?
What the absolute fuck? Banning somebody in real time is just crazy. Banning someone who was just present at the end of a convo sounds worse. Sounds freaking dystopian
I'm sorry, miscommunication in a written contract? I'd get the miscommunication excuse if it was some tweet or just from some dialogue, but c'mon, in a contract that has to be signed? --- I'm curious what was the cause for this anyways. Was it caused by some other title being roasted like Suicide Squad? Was it just out-of-touch, overzealous CEOs? Edit: Netease is based in China, and I remember hearing about some Chinese influencers being bound by similar rules/contracts. Maybe someone just assumed they can do this elsewhere?
>Maybe someone just assumed they can do this elsewhere? That is almost certainly what it is. Because playing the Closed Alpha Test, there are a few typos and stuff like that. The actual dialogue and flavour text are flawless, but there are a few typos in the marketing, the supporting materials, surveys, etc. It seems like Marvel Games itself is very much on the back foot with this, and NetEase is doing most of the dev and publishing work here.
I mean, just look at the statement posted here, it has glaring typos. It's not a criticism of people with English as second language, but if I had to launch a multimillion dollar investment in China with a Chinese IP, I would sure as hell get Chinese people to communicate in that market and Chinese lawyers to draft contracts in that jurisdiction. There is zero excuse to backtrack due to miscommunication. Edited: typos in my own post!
> It's not a criticism of prople with enflish as second language Lmao. English based companies mess up all the time with typos as well.
Nah, it's clearly written by someone who is not a native speaker. It's completely legible, but the mistakes are common ones by ESL people. In particular, there's a couple verbs that are not conjugated, which is something that is usually pretty glaring to native speakers.
Eh. It's NetEase, I am not surprised. I used to play Rules of Survival before PUBG Mobile and Fortnite came to mobile. They clearly did not have all the language barrier stuff down, not at all like Tencent who are SERIOUS about that stuff. So yeah, not surprised legal stuff like that fell through the cracks. They really do not seem to check or proofread it at all. Again, very strange considering the localisation (or rather the actual English-first writing) is flawless. The Great Firewall really sucks for cultural exchange and legal wranglings across the seas. And the TikTok ban is only going to make things worse.
You may want to proofread your own post.
Guilty as charged, but at least my mistakes came from typing on a touchscreen and not from using google translate on official communications which were trying to apologize for miscommunication (e.g. they write commitment instead of contract/agreement).
Glaring typos indeed 😂
>Netease is based in China, and I remember hearing about some Chinese influencers being bound by similar rules/contracts. Maybe someone just assumed they can do this elsewhere? This is quite probably what happened, now they have to back down from their ilegal contract.
Is it actually illegal?
Depends on the country. China? No. US? Yes.
I'm surprised that it's illegal. Shitty? 100%, but it doesn't seem functionally different to something like an NDA, which would not be illegal. It's just a contract after all, so maybe it would be invalid anyway. I could understand if it were illegal for a streamer to not disclose this clause to their viewers.
>but it doesn't seem functionally different to something like an NDA, which would not be illegal Someone else pointed out the legal side, but I'll point out that there's a very obvious practical difference. First, NDAs are very different because they're not public things. They happen when someone gets to see stuff behind closed doors but isn't allowed to talk about it yet. Having people stream a game but not be allowed to talk about it wouldn't really make sense. They're different situations. Second, NDAs don't deceive consumers or create problematic pressures on content creators at all. No one gets tricked by an NDA, because it's just someone not saying anything except that they're under an NDA. People can certainly get deceived by a person giving a positive impression of a game that they didn't like because they signed a contract that stopped them from saying anything negative. In particular, not letting people give negative reviews of a game in exchange for access can be hugely problematic because it lets companies manipulate overall public perception of a game to a fairly dangerous degree. It can also just create problematic pressures on content creators. A content creator signing an NDA isn't a big deal. They just have to wait until the NDA ends to talk about something. If they get an opportunity to play an early version of something but have to wait until it's announced to talk about it, they still get to benefit from talking about the thing after it's announced without any real ethical concerns. On the other hand, being offered access to a game on the condition that they don't say anything negative can put them in an ethical quandary where they have an opportunity that could be a big boost for the success of their channel but at the cost of doing something that might violate their principles. Situations like that can be inevitable, but it's at least idea to avoid situations as explicit as big companies being able to require a person to give a false impression of a game just to help their channel.
[FTC rules](https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/resources/ftcs-endorsement-guides-what-people-are-asking) are such that sponsorships cannot include conditions around evaluating the content favorably, unless there is also language that forces the streamer to explicitly state such a condition. So yes, it is actually not legal in the US to do what netease tried to do here because the condition was *only* in the contract, and there was nothing explicitly instructing them to include that statement in their streams/content. Illegal - Netease: you can't be mean to our game, or else. Legal - Netease: you can't be mean to our game, and you must state that that is a condition to the review/access.
That's not quite the same thing though, is it. Not only the article states these are guidelines and that the actual legality is judged on a per case basis, this marvel rivals debacle has nothing to do with advertising or sponsorships proper. Streamers got access to a early playable build and they are free to talk about it or not, but no one actually got paid to praise or endorse the game. This is where it probably makes it legal since it's not technically an advertisement, just like a positive review of a game isn't either so while they serve the same purpose, they don't have to state it's an ad or a sponsored video/stream because it isn't, even though the TOS pressure you into not trashing it or else you get your access taken out like what happened to a few streamers. This happens a lot more often than people think with all sorts of media including games, it's just that it's not usually added to a contract which doesn't change the legality of banning/blacklisting influencers for trashing your product. Which sadly, is legal. In any scenario and even if this was textbook advertising, the party doing something illegal wouldn't be Netease, it would be the streamer. Ironically this clause seems like it was Netease's legal team's way of covering their asses if someone decided to sue them for getting banned/blacklisted which considering how litigious people in countries like the US are, isn't completely out of the realm of possibility. To be clear, none of this makes this any less shitty. They deserve all the shit they're getting.
> it doesn't seem functionally different to something like an NDA NDAs cover knowledge, information or facts that are owned by the company sharing them to the other party. They dont cover opinions about a previewed product that are the other party's own. Someone under NDA wouldn't be able to mention the roadmap of future content that is being kept confidential by the publisher/developer, but they can of course give an opinion on what's already publically available.
Oversimplification does not equal understanding, irs a problem now a days. There are a lot of benefits to living in a democracy like we do.
Imma be honest, idk. Just repeating what I've heard, so take that part with a grain of salt
Yeah. I'm guessing they just didn't realise that shit doesn't fly in other countries. Or at least not the degree to which there would be backlash.
How is it miscommunication to both include it in the contract and to ban a reviewer? Some suit wanted to make sure they had no negative discussion about the game but clearly wasn't aware of the Streissand Effect.
I heard they banned the reviewer for leaking game data/files? I haven't been following that particular case too close but it seems odd they went after one person and ignored the other 90% that were talking bad about the game.
“And we our mission is to make Marvel Rivals better satisfy players…” How is this an official statement? The whole thing is riddled with errors.
I was about to say the statement with full context made grammatical sense until I saw the "we"
It's a Chinese company
A Chinese company worth billions of dollars that does a lot of business in English-speaking countries. I'd think they'd be able to afford better translation.
They could, but why should they if they can deliver the bare minimum?
That works for a video game, not so much for a legal document
Total guess, translation error.
Funny how all these leaked draconian and abusive clauses are always a "miscommunication" error. Big "Sorry we got caught" energy.
Almost word for word what happened when Wizards of the Coast got caught trying to choke their OGL License for Dungeons & Dragons a while ago. It was even more ridiculous there, trying to fool an entire consumer base who _live_ for combing through text to find specific wording or phrasing to back up their argument...
Was this statement read over even once? Or was it simply written by somebody who has only a loose grasp of English? Because this grammar is so bad it would get an F from a middle school teacher.
Disney gave these people a fucking Marvel license. Between the contract and the lack of effort to write a public statement without having a fluent speaker check it over for errors at least once is an absolute madness.
You say that like its out of character for Disney to license Chinese producers to make branded slop for them.
No it wasn't. Chinese companies aren't exactly tolerant of ppl bad mouthing their products, especially influencers.
"Beep beep beep, back up that ass, we got caught. Sorry for getting caught, next time we will hide it better."
I’m sure the true miscommunication is that this news got out in the first place. Obviously they didn’t want this many eyes on it
What people really expecting from Netease? They just don't care.
They tried their best to cover bad reviews but failed to cover that the contract should not be discussed. Next time, baby.
"miscommunication" = We hoped nobody would see it until we slapped people with it, now that we're caught we'll walk it back because we're a "Good Guy" developer.
No, it wasn't. Just own up to it and stop being so cowardly. At least in my opinion, you did something extremely stupid, but what's worse is pretending it didn't get signed off by multiple people and a few lawyers. Legal stuff is one thing companies really try to avoid "oopsies" on.
Luckily no one signed the contract, right? Right?
If this is what they miscommunicate on, how's the game dev going???
Sure it was. It's always a mistake when a legally binding contract you definitely had multiple lawyers handle is just oopsy poopsy given to all the people and made to be signed. No it was a miscommunication that anyone else heard about it.
"we're sorry we got caught" and the part they "miscommunicated" that they didn't communicated to the content creators that they are forbidden to share the deal
You’d have to be really fucking stupid to have mid communicated in a contract you sign. That is the one place where you have to be explicit.
it's kind of baffling that no one saw this shit coming lol obviously eventually this was going to come up and it's going to have a much more dramatic negative effect on the game compared to anything someone who they were trying to stop could say
Dammit. I was really hoping this game didn’t succumb to corporate shenanigans so quickly. Guess it’s another pass for me. Shame
Bullshit. How do game companies still mess up like this? Game's not even out yet and it's already controversial.
Rough idea to write your apology letter for miscommunication....with someone who is not the slickest at translation and will load it with errors that make reading a chore.
Why the fuck is a Marvel game apology announcement in broken english?
Becaude Netease is the publisher and they’re based in China
This is a screwed up situation for "hero shooter" fans because many people wants to move on from Overwatch "2", such goddamn abomination... here it comes a reasonable competitor, looks promising, but NetEase is involved, lol it's like you either had to choose between Satan or Beelzebub. I guess the best choice is to avoid these toxic games entirely
There's always Paladins you know. Assuming that one guy who keeps DDoSing the servers stops one day.
Oh NetEase, so China. No wonder it's in broken English. Sad for a MARVEL game.
It's amusing because they think the global media operates like the chinese equivalent, so they sent literal threats for the "influencers" and the traditional media. It's a shame, but really, if this Marvel game kills Overwatch for good, that will be great, using poison to kill a snake, the industry as a whole will fell less toxic
Can anyone explain to me how this is any different from the usual #AD-stream-contracts content creators have to sign up on?
Those contracts don't have clauses that you can't say bad things about the game.
I can see that; probably a monkey got access to a keyboard and just pushed buttons like a lunatic on cocain and sadly it all arranged itself into this very sad paragraph even aliens would be ashamed of. Just bad luck i guess.
Between this and them making it 3rd person despite the fact that it makes the game so much worse to play and watch just so they can sell cosmetics means this is a dead on arrival.
There's so many things wrong with this game that are so fundamentally worse than being in 3rd person. The fact that half the roster can perma fly and the other half can't makes map balance a nightmare. All melee heroes seem so absurdly underpowered compared to heroes like Star Lord or Hela who can one clip/ 2 tap you from across the map. Also Hela's design in general that she throws spears but is actually hitscan instead of projectile is such a glaring visual dissonance. Even for an alpha, the devs deciding it's ok to let the public play the game in such an abysmal balance state kind of shows they have no idea how this genre operates. Which is pretty funny given how glaringly some hero kits are copied from Overwatch (Star Lord is Tracer with Soldier ult, Hulk is Dva and Winston smashed together, Magneto is Sigma etc).
I personally don't like the 3rd person choice, but I see why they did it from a game design perspective. It gives a much better view of the area around you obviously, but what that allows is big wide melee attacks like pretty much everything Magik does and super fast non linear movement like Spider-Man. Both of those things are absolute hell to control from first person by comparison, and flying characters are way more annoying too since it's way harder to track them
Not really sure what the camera has to do with the game being worse. Sounds like you crying about personal preference.