This is the worst idea I have ever heard. I don’t mean its a bad idea. I mean that some game company will actually try to do it, and that would be very bad. It does make a certain sense from where he is approaching it, but the execution of the idea would never work. When it comes to a game beta, they just punish you by banning you from the game (if they can even prove it it was you), and that’s it. Now there is the option for sueing someone for damages by breaking the NDA, but you would be hard pressed to get a court to decide to hear the case because the person did not have direct access to the code, just to the game itself.
Now let’s say game company X has decided to do this. In order to play the game you have to sign and NDA, and you can’t talk about the game unless you are using the official forums. If they just boot you from the game if you talk about it somewhere else or share information, then no one will buy it (Unless it is a huge franchise or a blizzard game, even then few people will buy it.).
He also mentions that they could use that as a way to prevent game guides from being sold. Guess what, unless they sue gamefaqs and all of the other gamesites out there, the guides will still exist. And as long as the information they get is anonymous any site could post the information because the information is not a trade secret or copyright-able. This would be the same problem with the NDA idea if they tried to sue a user over revealing information, the information is not a trade secret and is available to anyone. Because anyone can buy the game and get access.
