The Verge Under Fire For Publishing Info About ‘Deadlock,’ Valve’s Secret Shooter

RangerJosie , 3 hours ago

What was so secret about it?

Cyv_ , 3 hours ago

So apparently they had a bit asking players to not share info about the game, but you could technically back out of it without agreeing so legally they can post whatever they want. It feels like a case of “this is legal to do but maybe kinda shitty and valve might be upset”. Basically the agreement was informal and not enforceable and the verge just said fuck it. They did get banned afterwards, but I think that and not working with them in the future is all valve can do.

deegeese , 2 hours ago

If 10,000 people are doing something, it is NOT secret, and journalists must report on it for the general benefit of society.

Valve has their head in the clouds if they thought they could keep an informal secret among the population of a small town.

Cyv_ , 2 hours ago

This isn’t some grand conspiracy it’s a closed beta for a video game. It’s pretty normal to have an NDA or embargo agreement to get access. It sounds like valve just goofed the implementation. So yeah it’s totally legal for them to post it, valve just might avoid giving them early copies in the future.

RangerJosie , 2 hours ago

Totally. Verge just lost their access to breaking gaming news. They’ll be blacklisted from now on.

That said, I don’t know anyone who goes to The Verge for breaking news on gaming.

gaylord_fartmaster , 1 hour ago

There is no NDA for Deadlock, and anyone in it can invite anyone they want, as often as they want. It’s not like Valve has no idea how to privately test their game. I think they made these decisions deliberately.

Cyv_ , 43 minutes ago

A bit of the eula says not to share info about the game, but you can literally back out without accepting the eula, and still play. So I don’t know if I’d call it intentional, but there’s definitely no legal reason they can’t post whatever they want. They just got banned for it and might have damaged their relationship with valve somewhat. Depends on how much valve cares tho.

snailfact , 52 minutes ago

I can’t believe their secret game they gave to 10 thousand people got leaked

ccunning , 3 hours ago

Why wouldn’t they just put journalists they gave access to under embargo?

edgemaster72 , 3 hours ago

It’s not clear if he actually got access from Valve or from a friend or someone else. The article simply states

Earlier today, I received a no-strings-attached invite to play Deadlock on Steam.

ccunning , 1 hour ago

Ok - but they all originate from Valve, right? They couldn’t just put it behind a paywall or “NDA”wall?

edgemaster72 , 1 hour ago

From my understanding users of the beta can then invite others to join as well, Valve isn’t necessarily directly choosing who has access. So if Valve didn’t send the invite themselves they wouldn’t know to specifically put someone under a more strict NDA or whatnot because they’re a journalist. Could they have done more to restrict all users from sharing information? Yes, since apparently you just have to hit escape to bypass the agreement pop up, and there’s no other sort of NDA or contract or w/e in place upon joining.

I’m just speculating, but I think they chose not to do that so people could openly get their friends playing with them instead of going through waves of sign ups and hoping to get in together, or otherwise risk people losing interest when they can only play with randos. I could also see a line of thinking where you assume people want to talk about the game, so let them bring others in to play with them and that gives them someone to talk to about it too instead of just spilling the beans for randos on the internet.

ccunning , 1 hour ago

That’s all I’m saying. Valve is the gatekeeper and left the gate wide open. They blew it and they’re looking for someone else to blame.

phdepressed , 1 hour ago

Valve fucked up but the Verge still broke the social contract regardless of whether they’re legally in the clear or not.

Doing something just because “it’s legal” doesn’t make it a moral justification. My wife and I have a joint bank account. It is legal for me to take money from it and gamble it all away, the gate is “open” but that doesn’t make it morally justifiable.

moody , 24 minutes ago

Meh, I don’t think there’s anything morally wrong with what he did. What he did wasn’t just legal, it’s literally his job. The only issue is that Valve is now angry at him for their own failing.

To continue the same analogy, they didn’t just leave the gate open, they literally invited a bunch of people and told them to invite other people. I’m not sure what they expected if not this exact situation.

dormedas , 15 minutes ago

Valve isn’t really angry as far as I can tell, or have heard. They’re about as angry as any other person which goes and posts this stuff online: revoking access. If Valve wanted to expand their testing userbase without people leaking it online, they would have sought NDAs and other legally-binding agreements with testers and - by extension - journalists who can test the game.