The Marvel Rivals closed alpha test has begun. On the surface, things seem to be fine, but creators who are joined into their creator program are signing a contract that forbids them from saying negative things about the game. Below is a portion taken from the contract explaining that Marvel Rivals players will not make negative reviews for their time with the game. From what we have seen, these stipulations are not in place for the general public, only content creators.
Right off the bat, this is an awful first look for Marvel Rivals. For starters, you can’t trust anything positive said about the game from your favorite creator if they are playing early. The closed alpha started a day ago, and we noticed that, at least on TikTok, there seemed to be a lot of good word coming from the game. Unfortunately, it seems a lot of that could be from those content creators being contractually obliged not to criticize any part of it.
Why is the Marvel Rivals closed alpha contract bad?
Usually, content creators will get a contract like the one listed above if they are doing a sponsored stream or video. In that scenario, it makes sense. They would be paid to promote the game. In this case, the Marvel Rivals closed alpha is non-sponsored, so it appears that NetEase is trying to squash any influencers from influencing their audience in a negative sense if they don’t like it. Notably, though, they want those same influencers to talk positively about the game, as there is no NDA on the closed alpha, according to the FAQ.
The wording here is very clear: Marvel Rivals does not want to be compared to games like Overwatch, and any aspect of the game shouldn’t be talked down. In our minds, that is completely wrong. It’s one thing for a company to ask early testers not to make reviews or other content of their game that isn’t finished. It’s completely another story to squash any negative reception and only take in positive word of mouth with no criticism. We have not played Marvel Rivals yet, but we highly recommend you take any positive word surrounding the game with a massive grain of salt.
