I got home from work last Friday with every intention of trying APB when the servers went live. The clock hit 8:30 pm, it had slipped my mind that the server went live at 7:00 pm and I had to watch Caprica on SyFy at 9, so that didn’t give me much time. I go to my computer and ran the game (that took forever to download in their shitty downloader), login, and bam some bullshit about my account being blocked. For those of you that missed it, I announced on Thursday that I had been invited to join the closed beta for APB. (Click here if you want to check it out).
I'm usually not that lucky and was somewhat excited, but there are about 10 other games that came out or are coming out so I wasn’t really sure how I was going to fit in APB. In the end, I’m not really too bothered that I won’t be getting to play. The thing that really kind of irritates me (and why I ultimately decided to write this article) is not that I won’t get to play APB, is how it was handled by Realtime Worlds. I’ve been keeping up with the APB podcasts, and they really seem like a nice group of people, so it doesn’t really make sense to me why they wouldn’t want people talking about their game.
I
n the comments on the previous post “Andrew” had linked to a non disclosure agreement on the European closed beta server. I found the one on the north american server and read through it. I still can't find where it says that what was posted violated their NDA. I even went to the beta application page and checked out the TOS they have you agree to upon applying (that can be found here http://www.realtimeworlds.com/privacy-policy/) and that also did not explain why that post violated the NDA. On top that, Realtime Worlds never contacted me asking me to take down the post or my closed beta invite would be revoked.
When I signed up for their beta, after filling out their 50 minute ridiculously personal beta application (see pic to the left, it is crazy intrusive), I had written the answer to the question “Why do you want to be a beta tester for APB?” that I would like to report about the goings on in the APB beta to Grunge Gamer. I wasn’t even hiding the fact I was going to write about my experiences and yet they sent me a beta invite. If they thought that violated their NDA, why send me the invite in the first place?
What my guess would be, some angry Europeans got jealous for some reason. So they started bitching and moaning on the European closed beta forum (I can’t login there so I’m not 100% sure, but I know that I was getting a bunch of referrals from there). With those crazy jealous European APB beta players setting flame to their own forum and even flowing onto the comments of Grunge Gamer, I guess Realtime Worlds thought if they just blocked me that would quiet down the masses.
I’m still at a loss as to why someone wouldn’t want publicity, even if it is from a shitty site like Grunge Gamer. Even though we're a pretty small site, massivley.com pick up the article which is pretty cool and then I just joystiq.com picked it up from them. There are now hundreds (give or take 10) of social networking links out there regarding APB and their closed beta. It’s kind of cool to know that even though Grunge Gamer is a pretty small site, we can still make a ripple in a very large ocean.
That frees up my alone time, I was really worried about that, but now, I’m good; so I would like to say, "You’re welcome Realtime Worlds, what a dick move."
Oh and the European APB beta players can put some babby powder on your quaint little buttholes and stop telling me you're going to report me.
Bob, but they could have atleast sent out an email informing him of the "ban". I am sure they have a "template" email for that sort of thing.
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They don't want to show it to the public until it's ready, if you talk about problems in beta in public, it might make people think the game isn't good because of problems they subsequently fix.
Beta is a time to work out problems with a small number of people before you go large. You get priviliged acess in return for keeping quiet about it and giving feedback through their forums.
Lastly, are you sure you account being blocked isn't a bug? It is a beta after all! Have you mailed them about it?
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