About the Testers being sued..

[FrostyBoy]

What's the story here? Who are the "testers", all of them or just the people who posted the images? And what images are they? Where were they posted?

I'm worried, because I am a tester, I don't want to be accused or anything like that... I better check my emails just in case I am being sued! LOL

[FrostyBoy]

Oh wait, is this just a warning from Firaxis? Damn, subheadings, always so vague and misleading

[vmxa1]

They would make of lot of mad if they come after you and that is not good for business.

[Master Zen]

Just a warning.

I'm not so worried about getting sued, but about the damage this has done to public beta testing. It is perfectly understandable why they would be reluctant to allow such a huge amount of testers next time.

I know it is bad to judge on a whim but I suspect it was one of the younger testers who probably didn't care about the consequences of such a thing. Oh well, we might never know. What I did now is that our chances as fan site members of beta testing Civ4 have now dropped very close to 0%.

To whoever was the "leaker": thank you for not thinking about things before acting like an idiot. May your copy of C3C crash with your hardware you little ****-fer-brains.

[Vince278]

Originally posted by vmxa1
They would make of lot of mad if they come after you and that is not good for business.

Yes, shame on them. If they had an issue with a tester they should have handled it privately. Its very unprofessional to publicly threaten a group that is working for you. And to say they will be less likely to offer public tests puts the rest of us down and is self-defeating because some people would be less likely to volunteer to help them.

Certainly, if someone screwed up then they should answer for it, there are reasons for the non-disclosure statements. They really should lay some of the blame on how they selected the testers. Sometimes you get what you get.

[Gramphos]

It's really bad that there will be no more public Firaxis beta tests .

What were the images that caused this to happen?

[FrustratedPoet]

Where on earth are these images of which they speak? It seems to me that announcing that there are a bunch of illegal images out there will only encourage people to go looking for them who otherwise would never have known of their existence.

[Asmodean]

And so what if they see them.

Firaxis is clearly making a statement here. One that says "If you do this, your ass is toast".

To assume that this is about the pictures is simply ignorant. This is about the broader issue, and about preventing other, potentially more damaging things to leak.

Asmodean

[WackenOpenAir]

Dunno if i am missing something, but as far as i understand public beta testers have posted screenshots of the game they are testing.

Firaxis shouldnt make a deal out of that, they should accept it.

I also play Blizzard games a lot (Diablo + warcraft/starcraft) when they do public beta tests, the whole world downloads illegal copies and plays it on private servers.

Battle reports and strategy guides apear on the net very long before the game is realeased.

Blizzard doesn't really do too much about it.
If it affects their sales, it is most likely in a positive way. All the games they released have been number 1 selling games with many best of the year awards.

just make quality games and don't bother about things like that.

[Datajack Franit]

Who cares? If they want to release a crash-plagued product, let them do so

[WarpStorm]

I'm guessing they will probably hire companies (like Absolute Quality) to test their products from here on out, rather than trusting people from here ever again.

[CiverDan]

I agree Firaxis/Atari should have handled the issue privately with the individual(s) posting the info, while issuing a general release stating that the testers are not allowed to post such images.

The vast majority of testers, I believe, do honor NDA's and most people familiar with the Civ community and Atari/Infrogrames from this Site and others would be very familiar with Legal actions Infrogrames has taken in the past against people in the Civ community, such as with the original German translation debacle, and would understand the consequences to themselves and the community as a whole of posting such info.

Its sad when I couple lone people have to ruin it for the rest of us. Those that did this (if they in fact did) do not represent the civ community as a whole.

[WackenOpenAir]

beta tests internally or by a hired company are by far not enuogh to ensure a decent quality level.

The more people play the beta and discuss about it the better, it will solve both bugs, and game balance. if many people play the beta on servers, they will al be trying to find and abuse exploits in the game, which is exactly what you want in a beta test.

[Master Zen]

Originally posted by WackenOpenAir
Dunno if i am missing something, but as far as i understand public beta testers have posted screenshots of the game they are testing.

Unless they obtained explicit permission, then it is illegal.

Here's a direct quote from the NDA:

5. Protection of Confidential Information. During the course of performing your obligations under this Agreement, you may have access to computer software, business methods or other technical or business information which is not generally known and which is proprietary to BreakAway and/or Firaxis and/or Atari and/or to parties affiliated with Atari (“Confidential Information”). Specifically, you agree to treat as Confidential Information all information concerning the Game or of which you are otherwise made aware in connection with performing your obligations under this Agreement, including without limitation, the Feedback, any technical or business information Atari provides to you in connection with this Agreement, regardless of whether it is specifically designated as confidential and regardless of whether it is in written, oral, electronic, or other form. The Confidential Information may include, without limitation, trade secrets, know-how, inventions, game interfaces, technical data or specifications, testing methods, business or financial information, research and development activities, product and marketing plans, and customer and supplier information. You agree that you shall maintain all Confidential Information in strict confidence; and will use all Confidential Information only for the purposes stated in this Agreement. You agree to maintain all the Confidential Information in confidence during the term and after termination of this Agreement, and agree not to disclose or permit access by any third party to any Confidential Information, unless BreakAway expressly permits you to do so in writing.

That should pretty much give you an idea of what can't be leaked (everything that isn't an general impression of the game)

[Swissy]

Remember, Firaxis did not run the public beta test, Breakaway Games did, so Firaxis had no direct contact with the beta testers ouside of a few people to relay info about what got fixed each week. And the Breakaway beta tester forum closed friday night limiting the ability to contact beta testers. So this is just Firaxis way oftelling everyone, watch it. Most likely some Atari exec called Firaxis and asked how the public beta test went and reminded them that he didn't want to see any negative info pop up on the net before the game was released.