Comment on Marvels Rivals requires creators to sign a contract that removes your right to give a negative review to access the playtest

Vespair@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

• brbposting@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  Number three combo, hold the freedom please

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  • Vespair@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    Sincere thank you for providing what I was referencing 👍

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• mriormro@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  They can write anything they want in a TOS, doesn’t mean it’s legally enforceable.

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  • reverendsteveii@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    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.

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    • Sonicdemon86@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      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.

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      • DR_Hero@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

        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?

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      • catloaf@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

        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.

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  • Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    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.

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  • Buddahriffic@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    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.

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  • Potatos_are_not_friends@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    Bingo! It’s written in a “cover my ass” but that ass can get kicked by the courts.

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    • PlainSimpleGarak@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      Exactly. Anyone can put anything they want into a terms of service/contract. Doesn’t mean it’ll hold up in court.

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  • Arbiter@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    Good luck getting it thrown out, that’ll be an expensive legal battle even if you do win.

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    • echodot@feddit.uk ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      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.

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      • Arbiter@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

        Ah yes, Europe and California the only two places.

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  • xkforce@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    If enough people believe that it is, they’re not going to be as likely to fight things that they should be.

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• EatATaco@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  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.

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  • Vespair@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    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.

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    • EatATaco@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      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.

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      • rockSlayer@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

        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.

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      • reverendsteveii@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

        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.

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  • CosmicTurtle0@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    If it’s still in alpha, then a standard non disclosure should be fine.

    A non-disparagement clause is overkill.

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    • EatATaco@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      I could agree that it’s overkill, but that doesn’t warrant the outrage we’re seeing here.

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      • applepie@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

        There is an idiom about the Forrest and the trees. You don't appear to see the Forrest?

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  • A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    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 positive comments can go unchallenged is bullshit and entirely unreasonable.

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    • EatATaco@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      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.

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      • A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

        , they shouldnt be releasing it to streamers and youtubers to play, in alpha, on their goddamn channels, while muzzling them in hwo 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)

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  • JoMiran@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    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.

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    • EatATaco@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      Sure I agree that would be wrong. But I also think that would be unenforceable.

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      • JoMiran@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

        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.

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• reverendsteveii@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  which tv manufacturer was it that updated their eula and if you didn’t agree it bricked your tv?

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  • Randomocity@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    Roku had a new agreement that if you didn’t agree you couldn’t access the TV

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  • maccentric@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    Revo, but they don’t manufacture TVs

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• Emerald@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  I really don’t understand the point of a McD’s app anyways. They have a drive thru

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• DumbAceDragon@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  [deleted]

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  • Vespair@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    What a wonderful and poignant aside that adds absolutely nothing to the discussion at hand.

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    • DumbAceDragon@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      Yeah I don’t know why I thought that was relevant to this specific comment.

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      • Vespair@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

        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 ✌

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