With such a broad scope on what counts as “disparagement,” this has caused quite a stir among the community, with some players being banned without realizing the terms of this contract. The developers released a statement addressing these terms, with NetEase saying it is aware of the “inappropriate and misleading terms” regarding the non-disparagement clause to access Marvel Rivals’ closed alpha, and apologized for any miscommunication. The developers state that they are open to both suggestions and criticisms about the game, wishing to make Marvel Rivals better and satisfy gamers.
The conditions of the contract are also going to be revised, with progress being shared with every content creator.
I am surprised it was NetEase, as these kinds of policies are basically always from Japanese companies. Japan’s defamation laws are literal garbage that basically just protect big companies and abusers, so seeing a similar kind of clause from a non-Japanese company is quite strange. I mean, imagine a country whose defamation laws don’t care if something being said is true or not, if it damages the reputation of something even if it is true, then Japan’s law considers it defamation. Garbage.
I play some NetEase games (most notably Super Mecha Champions, its on Steam) and I have honestly been surprised that they are so welcoming of feedback. Most of their games literally have an option in the menus of the games to send feedback to the developers, positive or negative. They are fast to act on reports I have sent, and generally have been vastly less hatable than Tencent. So seeing that this happened was a shock to me. Glad they’re correcting the problem though.