Saturday 28 July 2012

Thoughts on NDA violators

For those who don't know, dust 514 is under a strict NDA (non disclosure agreement) that means that you are not allowed to talk about, post or store images of the game outside the confines of the Dust 514 forums and other NDA approved areas under punishment of a permaban from dust 514 altogether. Now, this may seem drastic, but in this entry I will talk about why its a good thing CCP has such a firm stand against such things and why we, as the community should rally against infractions.


First off, lets look at it from CCP's standpoint, they don't want people prematurely reviewing a game that is still being polished and changed all the time. What could be vastly overpowered one build could be damn near useless another build. Even the graphics have had a massive overhaul since the closed beta started.

This brings me to my first point; follow this situation... Early NDA breakers post video, random youtube asshat goes "OMG DIS GAME SUX DA GRAPHX R SHT PLAY COD!" Granted that these are not exactly the kind of person we want in the beta anyway but you get the point. The game gets bad publicity before its even out which means come launch we have less people to shoot at.

Now I'm actually a movie maker by trade so I can actually understand the need to want to "show people how good the game is" quoted from a few NDA breaking vids. But these people who do have innocent intentions get banned and suffer the consequences of their actions, but is this right? The answer is yes. You see, in addition to those "simply wanting to show how good the game is" are those wanting to be the next yoggscast and will post shit videos thinking it will make them a youtube star. See, I want to post a video detailing step by step how to deal with the learning curve of dust 514, however I respect the NDA so I can't which is unfair on decent vbloggers if the ones who ignore the NDA go unpunished.

On the anti-NDA side one could argue that paying to get into a game that is still under NDA is unfair. To these people I argue that the merc pack was just an extra with the beta inside it. Beta access aside, everything inside the pack more than makes up for the cost, so if you really wanted you could just buy it for launch and redeem it then. I have been in the beta for ages and bought the merc pack for the awesome extras. At the end of the day Dust 514 is CCP's baby and they will decide how to raise it.

These are just my thoughts on the matter. If you have any thoughts, please post them below.

3 comments:

  1. I think CCP should lighten the NDA somewhat. Maybe by allowing well known community leaders e.g. such as you to publish stuff that CCP had a chance to review. They are flogging beta keys around like there is no tomorrow. To expect that everyone reads and follows the legaleese in the NDA to the point seems a bit outlandish. Nevertheless I too have to respect the NDA so my blog over on G+ is also a bit limited (gplus.to/talkietoastereve). I too would love to do videos but I am currently holding off on buying the equipment to record from my PS3 until the NDA is lifted or relaxed.

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  2. Good article, Jenza! Keep up all the hard work, believe me - I totally get how much the NDA blows as far as putting a wet blanket on talking about all the cool stuff. But its awesome to see someone stepping up and leading the Dust community, I'm sure you'll find plenty to talk about that isn't locked up by a legal contract! And once it goes live, you'll be free to blog a lot more. Looking forward to it!

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  3. ... my elgato will arrive in a few days - they better lift that NDA :-)

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