Last year around the time of Star Wars Jedi: Survivor's release, there was an influx of edits on the wiki prior to the game's release date containing a significant number of spoilers, both minor and major—including late-game events. The vast majority of these edits were attributed to pre-release reviews or gameplay videos released to websites such as YouTube, which often contained significant gameplay footage with very little spoiler prevention. The following Senate Hall was written with the intention of addressing the problem at the time, but it was never finished. We have brought the topic of discussion back, however, due to the now-impending release of Star Wars Outlaws, as we believe that clarifications regarding what content is permitted to be on the wiki prior to the release of the game, as presently Wookieepedia:Spoilers largely fails to account for pre-release content not provided by Lucasfilm itself.
IGN's Relationship with AAA Studios
On the Editorial Standards page of IGN's website, the section NDA and Embargoes states the following regarding IGN's legal relationships with corporate AAA game developers and publishers in regards to pre-release game information: "IGN aims to provide you with content that's timely, comprehensive, and reliable. In order to do that prior to the public release of the game, movie, technology, or other entertainment we're covering, we often have to agree to non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) and embargoes with the creators of the projects and products we cover. It's a very common practice that allows us to have better content prepped in advance of a game or movie's announcement or release."[1] While we can't be sure of exactly what such NDAs entail, it would by definition limit IGN's ability to state certain information—likely major game spoilers—prior to the release of a given game.
IGN also notably does not allow the open posting of spoilers in their article's comments until six months after a game's release. "When a game, movie or book is released, please wait six months before openly discussing spoiler content in article comments. You can post spoilers in spoiler-threads on the message boards or use visible spoiler warnings in comments and avoid openly posting major plot points that could ruin the experience for those who aren't yet in the know. Posting information with the intent to spoil the experience for others will result in a deletion on your first offense. Continue to post spoilers and you will not be allowed to comment on IGN."[2]
On the topic of early access copies for individual reviewers (Youtube, Twitch, etc...)
From what is publicly available, there is little to no evidence that YouTubers who receive early access to video games are under any legal agreement prohibiting them from spreading any spoilers on their YouTube page or in any video. While some may receive review copies, there are also instances where some manage to somehow receive the game incredibly early or receive a copy that broke street date—sometimes weeks in advance. This is not always a problem, as some content creators choose to abstain from spoilers, focusing only on gameplay and vague story details. Some may also have a publicly noted embargo of gameplay the developer did allow them to show. However, some videos might lack such notices or upload significant swathes of the game's content a good amount of time prior to release. While others do provide spoiler warnings, this does not always prohibit said information from finding its way onto the Wook prior to game release, such as when a spoiler about Bode from a video by Skill Games was posted to Bode's page prior to Survivor's release. Similarly, spoilers containing info such as Dagan Gera's death were added to his page days before the game's release, despite no official early release as described in the below section.
Early access
There are some titles—including the upcoming Star Wars Outlaws—that provide a certain number of days' early access to a title prior to its more widespread release. This is not to be confused with review copies or the aforementioned broken street date copies that some content creators or individuals somehow receive. Instead, this is an explicitly defined promotion meant to entice players to pre-order certain editions of the games. For example, pre-ordering the Gold Edition or more expensive editions of Star Wars Outlaws will allow players to access the game as early as August 27th–29th rather than August 30th. This is technically an official release, but as it is not the day the majority of players may access the game, it is important to define precisely what Wookieepedia's stance on the matter shall be.
Notes and references
Senate Hall co-written by AmazinglyCool and DFaceG.
- ↑
Editorial Standards on corp.ign.com (August 24, 2021) (backup link archived on September 1, 2023)
- ↑ Comment Culture and Moderation on IGN (April 20, 2023) (backup link archived on August 31, 2023)
Discuss
- I think information given from a source like IGN is fair (given the points above) however when it comes to stuff like early YouTube reviews, I don't think those should count. I am not a fan of how we handled Survivor, having major spoilers on articles (Bode and Dagan) just because some YouTubers had early access. Per the spoiler policy, "In-universe information from future Star Wars products may only be added to articles once the information is released through official outlets," and I don't think those should qualify. Rsand 30 (talk) 21:38, 19 July 2024 (UTC)
- Regarding the other question (August 27 for expanded editions, August 30 for standard), since the 27th would be considered a public release, it makes sense to use that one. But I'm curious about precedent, Star Wars Battlefront II had an early release for EA and Origin access, so anyone active in 2017, did editors use that date or wait for the global release? Rsand 30 (talk) 15:03, 22 July 2024 (UTC)
- Agreed with above; to me official outlet reads like the developer's YT channel or sw.com; not so much just influencers, so we should avoid spoilers early based on only those.—spookywillowwtalk 22:46, 19 July 2024 (UTC)
- Not sure why make this SH is IGN-centric... I guess it's because they provide more information on the topic at hand than other outlets. Still, let's recenter around the game press in general. So, to make clear on what's a NDA and how it is used in the game industry: an NDA is basically an legal agreement/contract between a game studio and others parties that boil down to WHAT and WHEN you can talk about specific information. It can be used as various stage of development, like an employee or contractor would sign such agreement to preserve the secrecy around a project and/or preserve trade secret (something that has been subject to renewed legal discussion recently if I recall correctly). It can also applies to player beta testers. Later in a project, when external reviewers like professional journalists and influencers get offered by the studio media contact/press representative/community managers/etc access to the game, they also enter an NDA with the studio, which is kind of more fiduciary (based on trust) in nature, as a breach would rather result in losing contact (black listing) than real legal threat. Anyway, that kind of NDA has more to do with WHEN than with WHAT, and thus are more like embargoes defining when those reviews can go online, even if I can see NDA existing with closes like "don't reveal the endgame twist" or something similar. For example, SWTOR had an NDA (or GTA, for Game Testing Agreement) for beta testers which enforced people involved should not talk about it or make video and screenshots of it. It was even the subject of a CT. And myself signed another NDA with Bioware for the European Fan Site Summit in Galway, Ireland in 2011 (even if I would be damned to recall the details...).
Ultimately, I think that no matters what type of media we deal with, be it professional or not, what really matters is that if it's part of an official communication effort. For example, we would allow edit sourced to any outlet reporting on developers's reveals (the most obvious would be an interview, but that's also true for a fan live tweeting a conference for example, like I've seen us referencing Star Wars Explained's tweets), or experiencing the game through hand-on events (like last month with Outlaws). But we wouldn't allow any kind of outlet publishing anything that isn't part of a official communication effort, which includes leak, anonymous sources, or grabbing an early copy... even if I would admit, identifying outlet publishing anything based on the last possibility would be hard to identify.
However, when approaching the moment of a game release, we might want to simply impose a strict ban on anything related to reviews published prior to the release of a game, as at this point, it's not really a controlled official communication, since the entirety of the product can be accessed by reviewers and it would be best for edits on the topic to be made using the primary source (the product itself) rather than a secondary source (a review), and thus enforcing this limitation would allow us to remove the threat of spoilers before the public release date.
Which lead us to early release, and I think those should be considered the baseline going further, with the spoiler policy updated to reflect this. I am also curious about precedent, as SWTOR also had several early access for the main release and expansions. But I could not find anything in this regard in the SH and CT archives after a quick key-word search. NanoLuukeCloning Facility 15:40, 23 July 2024 (UTC)