Bethesda and Xbox Ban User for Breaking Stress Test NDA

Hey folks, when you play a video game, you should probably follow the rules the publishers set in place for the game. While this shouldn't need to be said, apparently the idea is lost on people. Users are reportedly being banned from Xbox and Fallout 76 for breaking NDA from the recent stress test.

A Non Disclosure Agreement, or NDA, is agreement commonly used in the media industry with unpublished projects. It's a legal agreement that you won't go telling everyone all of the juicy details about something in exchange for access to the item in question. In this particular case, the upcoming post-apocalyptic RPG held a private stress test on the Xbox One. Everyone participating had to agree to an NDA. They were not allowed to take or share photos, videos, describe the game in detail, allow others to watch them play, or leave the game running unattended.

As you may have expected, not everyone followed those rules. As a result, one user has been banned not only on Xbox but by Bethesda as well. Reported by Forbes, the user in question had posted a 90-second video of gameplay to their Twitter account. When the user opened up the friend invite menu, they revealed their own username, which the two companies used to issued the ban.

The offender had initially posted a follow up to the ban on Reddit, stating that the user's Twitter account was suspended. They had contacted Bethesda to ask for the suspension to be revoked. The post was eventually deleted. A wise choice. It's best to stay quiet when breaking legal agreements. But had they done that, they wouldn't have been banned the first time.

The punishment isn't as severe as one would think, however. Depending on the circumstances, breaking NDA can lead to massive legal fees and a lawsuit. In this case, the offender is just banned from future stress tests, and their Xbox Gold, Game Pass, and Xbox Insider accounts have been suspended until January 1. Since Fallout 76 is an entirely online game, they won't be playing it at launch, at least not on their Xbox.

Don't break NDA, kids.