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The Daily Grind: When do you break the NDA?
If you're testing an MMO, you're going to have to agree to an NDA, which is essentially a not-even-verbal contract between the tester and the company. As a tester, you agree to not talk about what you're seeing during the testing phase, and in turn the company decides to trust you enough that you can see behind the scenes and into the inner workings of the game. With most testing phases, this is broken within minutes. But not necessarily through a major leak. Many people will break the NDA in private by telling a friend what it's like in the latest Final Fantasy XIV test. Maybe you've been testing Marvel Heroes and you're not posting about it in forums, but your family members are watching you play even though they never agreed to an NDA. At the same time, some people will remain strict to the letter of the NDA until it's lifted, and some others will ignore the whole thing and post whatever they want. So what about you? When do you break the NDA and why? (Or more accurately, when would you, since obviously anything you're testing now you would never break the agreement on.) Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
EVE Online player elected council rep steps down in wake of insider trading
One of the unique aspects of the sci-fi massively multiplayer online game EVE Online is that it has a peer-elected council of players that represents the interests of EVE's subscribers to the title's developer CCP Games, working with them to improve the MMO. This select group of EVE Online players is called the Council of Stellar Management (CSM). No other online game in operation has anything quite like it, but that's because EVE Online is one of the few games where something like this would even work. Given the scope of interactions that happen in EVE's single shard setting of thousands of solar systems where player actions have the potential to affect others in the game, it comes as no surprise that players can take the game very seriously. They form military and political alliances to conquer and hold regions of space. Players even establish financial institutions built upon the game's virtual economy. Any insider knowledge about how the game's New Eden galaxy will change through future development could be valuable. CSM delegates are expressly forbidden from divulging or using insider information for their own advantage, or those of their friends. However, CCP Games revealed today that exactly such a situation has arisen. Larkonis Trassler, a prominent member of the Council of Stellar Management, used insider information to attempt to profit in the game's virtual InterStellar Kredit (ISK) currency. He has stepped down from his position on the council and his accounts have been banned by CCP for Non-disclosure Agreement violations.
