Reviewers & Non-Disclosure Agreements

[MGibster]

You may have seen that Games Workshop is under fire for an allegedly leaked non-disclosure form the company wants to have online influencers sign. i.e. These influencers get free merchandise in exchange for agreeing to the terms of the NDA. As far as role playing game companies, I've heard of NDAs for play testing but not in any other context. Do they exist for people who get advanced copies for review?

 

[TheAlkaizer]

In video games there's embargos. Reviewers and media websites are sent early builds of the game with a NDA with a certain date where they can start talking about the game. It's excessively common. Developers even start to get some stone thrown at them when they embargo reviewer until the release date.

Is that close to what you're describing?

Also, seems like Games Workshop decided that they wanted their community to hate them this year. Must be like the fifth or sixth situation I hear of in 2021.

 

[generic]

In video games there's embargos. Reviewers and media websites are sent early builds of the game with a NDA with a certain date where they can start talking about the game. It's excessively common. Developers even start to get some stone thrown at them when they embargo reviewer until the release date.

Is that close to what you're describing?

Also, seems like Games Workshop decided that they wanted their community to hate them this year. Must be like the fifth or sixth situation I hear of in 2021.

Not just this year, GW's taken the "torch the fandom" approach, taking down animations for violating copyright and cracking down on content creators who've criticized them.

 

[John R Davis]

Yeah especially bad for bad reviews

 

[aramis erak]

If GW is doing it, it's not surprising in the least.

 

[Waller]

An NDA is an agreement between two parties. Presumably these influencers agreed to it, in exchange for free merch? You can’t unilaterally force somebody to agree to an NDA. So I assume they could just not sign if they didn’t agree. Or am I missing a nuance here?

 

[Yora]

Sure, but then they don't get privileged access to new material and have to buy it when it's released.
Not that much of an issue with RPG books, but with videogames and movies, it's the first two or three days that count.

 

[Rikka66]

I'm in no way experienced in the legal or marketing fields, so maybe I'm about to sound very naive. I mostly think of NDA's in this context in terms of keeping people quiet about material you give them early access to see until a certain date as to not screw up marketing campaigns. I wouldn't send an influencer inexperienced in the industry product so early you need an NDA to keep their mouths shut. Just wait until you're ok with them talking about it the instant it arrives on their doorstep. Edit: If we're talking about review copies, even with a lowest on the totem pole influencer so you probably want some way to keep them from putting up early access behind a paywall of some kind.

Now once it gets deeper then that, hey, NDA is understandable. Depending on the contents, of course.

Edit: After spending a little time thinking over basically any scenario besides the one I mentioned above, I'll answer the actual question of the topic with "yes". But some NDAs are fairer than others.

 

[MGibster]

Is that close to what you're describing?

Well, pretty close. The NDA agreement GW put out includes a very broad non-competition clause and the agreement lasts for three years from the last date GW sent the influencer a product of some kind. Effectively this means GW can keep the NDA in effect forever and there's no provision for the influencer to leave on their own terms.

Also, seems like Games Workshop decided that they wanted their community to hate them this year. Must be like the fifth or sixth situation I hear of in 2021.

Over the last few years GW really made some strides in generating some goodwill with their customers but more recently they seem hellbent on pissing that away.

An NDA is an agreement between two parties. Presumably these influencers agreed to it, in exchange for free merch? You can’t unilaterally force somebody to agree to an NDA. So I assume they could just not sign if they didn’t agree. Or am I missing a nuance here?

I think the nuance you're missing is that the two parties involved aren't on equal footing. GW has a team of experts who drafted an agreement that is entirely lopsided in their favor and send them to people who are unlikely to have a solid understanding of contracts or a team of experts to support them. And, yes, we can argue that people shouldn't sign things they don't really understand. But in cases like this I'm going to reserve my frowns for the large company with many resources rather than the little guy.

I mostly think of NDA's in this context in terms of keeping people quiet about material you give them early access to see until a certain date as to not screw up marketing campaigns. I wouldn't send an influencer inexperienced in the industry product so early you need an NDA to keep their mouths shut.

That's how I always thought of them. I remember signing up to playtest an RPG a few years ago and they asked me to sign an NDA saying I wouldn't talk about the system for a certain period of time. I thought this was completely reasonable but decided I didn't want to playtest for other reasons. When the GW NDA form was made public, I saw several people saying it was completely normal. But I've never seen an NDA with a non-compete and which seemed abnormal to me. At least here in the United States, non-compete clauses are very, very difficult to enforce. Judges are hesitant to enforce clauses that prevent someone from making a living in their profession.

 

[MarkB]

Well, pretty close. The NDA agreement GW put out includes a very broad non-competition clause and the agreement lasts for three years from the last date GW sent the influencer a product of some kind. Effectively this means GW can keep the NDA in effect forever and there's no provision for the influencer to leave on their own terms.

Sure there is. They can instruct GW to remove them from its marketing list and never send them anymore products.