On today’s episode of “This shouldn’t be legal”…
Source: https://twitter.com/A_Seagull/status/1789468582281400792
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
Number three combo, hold the freedom please
They can write anything they want in a TOS, doesn’t mean it’s legally enforceable.
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.
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.
Good luck getting it thrown out, that’ll be an expensive legal battle even if you do win.
“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.
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.”
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.
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.
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
My first thought is: This is probably a shitty game because if it was good, they wouldn’t be worried.
Basically makes any test results null and void
How? The agreement restricts public statements, not negative feedback as a whole.
or providing subjective negative reviews
I’m not sure what your argument is here but it doesn’t seem solid. How is a reviewer supposed to do their job?
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.
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.
It says not to leave “subjective bad reviews”. As in, objectively bad is fine.
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.”
???
No satire? Guess anything on the internet is out of the question then.
Engaging or providing subjective negative reviews
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.
This is market manipulation at its best. The whole board should be jailed for it.
This is market manipulation at its best.
yes
The whole board should be jailed for it.
no
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.
On today’s episode of “This shouldn’t be legal”…
Think about it this way. The same guys who stream video game reviews to make money are paid by the advertisers who sponsor their streams. And the sponsor won’t pay for a stream if its disparaging of their content. So the streamer is being paid to cut an ad.
Imagine if you hired someone to go door-to-door selling people your sandwiches. And in the middle of each sales call the guys you hired would take a big bite, spit out the sandwich, and say “This is awful! I hate it!” What are you paying these asshole for?
Just stop pretending streamers are these independent objective observers and recognize them for what they are - online door-to-door sales guys. These early releases are just their sales kits. And why am I going to extend a sales kit to a guy who isn’t going to sell my shit?
