Marvel Rivals is finally in player’s hands, except the contract they have to sign to play the alpha technically doesn’t let them say anything bad about it.
Obviously developers never want people to say bad things about their game, but in general, it comes with the territory. Not everything is going to be for everyone, and someone’s going to have an amount of criticism even if they do like something. So how do you avoid that? Why, by having a section of the terms of service for your alpha where those that sign it “agree not to make any public statements or engage in discussions that are detrimental to the reputation of the game.” That’s exactly what Marvel Rivals is doing, as shared by former professional eSports player and Twitch streamer Brandon “A_Seagull” Larned, who shared a look at the contract that both players and content creators will have had to have signed to play the game.
This particular part of the contract, titled “non-disparagement” explains that “this includes, but is not limited to: making disparaging or satirical comments about any game-related material, such as game features, characters or music” and “engaging in malicious comparisons with competitors or belittling the gameplay or differences of Marvel Rivals or providing subjective negative reviews of the game.” That last part is definitely odd wording, as literally all reviews are subjective, so I’m not sure how anyone could argue that their assessment of the game is somehow objective.
As noted by Eurogamer, the FAQs published in the game’s Discord server says that there is “no [non-disclosure agreement] for our closed alpha test” and that players are “encouraged to share their experience and all types of content on all platforms.” Some players have apparently made a point of it in the game’s creators Discord, though no changes have been made as of yet.
Marvel Rivals was revealed back in March, and is essentially Overwatch with Marvel characters (though obviously has a bit more going for itself than just that).