Alpha/Beta Streaming LP'ing

Hi,
will it be allowed to stream or make Videos of the Alpha and Beta stages of the game?
For those who get keys (like me) .

my guess is:

for alpha: nope.
beta: maybe or only late in the beta.

I guess you are allowed to show the game directly to close friends,
but publicly posting unfinished work on the interwebs is not always received as well as you might think.

There will probably be some sort of NDA prohibiting all information sharing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-disclosure_agreement

Usually the NDA is lifted when the development is almost finished, when the product is in a presentable form.

There would be probably no NDAs as many of community members are not US residents. Also, Beta/Alpha access was listed as KS reward, so you should get it (if applicable) without any additional paper signing. So you may just refuse signing NDA and demand your access.

But it's more about common sense and respect. You may stream videos from alpha/beta, but you should not to. There are three reasons not to:
1) It may hurt marketing => hurt after-release sells => less money for further development => less further development => it may hurt PA.
2) A lot of people here has elitist attitude more or less. They want to have something others don't have. By publishing something "for bakers only" all over the Internet you ruining the whole thing for this people.
3) As Uber care about marketing and not so much about community, it will lead to less frequent updates for alpha/beta. It may even lead to single alpha version (without updates) and single beta version. To prevent any further leaks.

So again, just don't do this - don't cut the bough you are standing on.

What does that have to do with anything? Do you belive NDA's are exlusive to US?

They never said you would get unconditional access.

A more extreme example of your logic would be if you didnt have a computer but still demanded access, they never claimed that you needed a computer. Its common sense that you need a computer and its common sense that you need to sign a NDA for a alpha and beta.

I doubt that Uber has resources to make their NDA's enforceable/legally accountable outside of US. And if NDA is not enforceable, it's just a paper "Please, don't do it. Please-please."

Your example is invalid - they may give me beta access, no matter if I have PC or not. It's my problem that I can't use it, not theirs. But they can't say "Ok, we promised on KS that we will give you Alpha/Beta access, but there is a little problem - you should sign an NDA before you'll get your reward". And if I'll refuse? It's more like "Ok, we promised that we will give you Alpha/Beta access, but you should sign-in using your Facebook account with 1000+ friends, so we may trust that you are real person, not a bot".

I'm not quite sure, but I think in my country the law would give me the right to enforce participation without signing an NDA. Because when i ordered the product there was nothing about signing NDA to have access to alpha/beta.

In my mind this NDA-stuff becomes some kind of outdated. Just google "Castle Story" which is another KS-funded game, which is atm in alpha-stage. There are many videos about this backer-exclusive prototype (not quite so backer-exclusive since it's already leaked) and I think this doesn't hurt the game, but rather boosts it. I missed the KS but I'm going to preorder the game exactly because of this videos.

However, I'm not going to stream anyway, whether it's allowed or not. So an NDA wouldn't hurt me much.

Allright then, what if they argue that the NDA signing is part of the beta?

Then you have access to the beta, its not their problem if you dont wish to advance further then the NDA window. Just like it isent there problem if you ingame dont wanna build a factory but still wish to access the units it can make.

Perhaps they must give me my money back. Explanatory statement: "I paid, they deny access. I didn't paid for signing a NDA."
But this somehow depends on the laws and courts. Perhaps a lawyer backed the game and enlightens us.

However since no one from Uber wrote anything and I haven't seen the NDA nor the alpha, this discussion is somehow pointless. So I'll wait what Uber has to say.

Well if they argue that the NDA is part of the Beta and you payed for Beta access, then yes, you did pay to sign a NDA.

But as you said, its pointless to argue about it at this time, we shall just have to wait and see.

So im dropping the discussion now (wont post any reply to further this particular argument).

well streaming of these things, will be difficult when you only want let people see it who have access to it. you would need an extra site which allows you to stream only to these people, thats not so easy.

I am damn sure that people will anyway show some of the alpha and beta, its somehow normal (sounds mean, but in all games I was in a alpha beta or just prototype, they showed it )

I think I read somewhere that alpha will be pretty much closed, while beta might be more open. But I cant remember who wrote that, might as well have been a troll.

This is a developer only game, no evil life sucking publishers are involved. However, NDA during alpha sounds fair.

NDA or not, youtube will be flooded with video's of PA the second alpha is up. I'm sure Uber are expecting this and have also worked out the cost / benefit of removing every video. Chances are that they won't do anything at all. If anything, it probably means that the alpha may look a tad more visually polished than you would expect.

Personally i put my money into Uber making the best possible game they can. I wan't every drop of the cash they got (and no doubt the large amounts of there own cash) to go straight into the production. I don't want them to spend large amounts of money enforcing an NDA which in all likelihood would fail. Think im going to stop there because i sound like an entitled brat

Oh and don't expect much of a reply from Uber. Their stance on this sort of thing wont be set in stone yet so why comment?

Pretty sure Neutrino mentioned somewhere in a forum post that they are planning on an NDA for alpha. Can't remember offhand what topic it was in, and I'm too lazy to search for it.

Nightnord, is it possible for you to ever post something that isnt inflammatory and whining? You seem to feel entitled to all sorts of things, and you're the only one that does. I wouldn't be surprised to see an NDA. I also wouldn't feel like they needed to tell me about it in the KS page. It's common sense. You're being given access to something that is not publicly available. You knew that would be the case when you signed up. To assume that means they won't have some sort of NDA preventing you from sharing it all over is infantile.

As far as demanding your money back if you don't want to sign it, feel free. They might even give it to you without arguing so they don't have to deal with your attitude in the alpha process.

During the early SMNC beta (when there was only one map, and things were buggy), we put up a few unpublished YouTube videos so that Uber could see what bugs we found.

Of course, this was with no more than a few dozen people. Uber could easily track down anyone being naughty.

I don't remember anyone publishing videos back then. We were all fairly well behaved.

I think more interesting is if alpha players are allowed to talk about it in the backers forum. Post screenshots and such here.

I guess there definitely will be some kind of forum for alpha-players to discuss stuff.

Uber has every right to enforce an NDA until release whether you paid for access or not. That said, the devs have said that they're still undecided on an NDA and that if one is required it likely won't be too restrictive.

I've played some betas with awful NDAs that wouldn't even let you tell people you had access.

This is it.

Not quite, in the most recent livestream they were asked if people could talk about the alpha in here and they said there would be another separate forum just for the alpha.