Double Fine’s crowd-funded adventure game Broken Age is released to Kickstarter backers today, but they won’t be able to talk about it for another two weeks due to an embargo.
While embargoes to the press are relatively common, it’s an unusual decision to issue one to people who’ve already funded your game. Double Fine spoke to DVG247 about their decision. “Right now we’re working on a press release that will go out tomorrow morning. This will announce the public ship date of the game and a new trailer showing off Vella, the female protagonist!”
They continued, “We’re also preparing to send out review codes to press, who will be under review embargo until January 27. This embargo also applies to any of you backers who are in the press or have blogs—we are requiring all formal reviews be held until January 27 at 10am Pacific time (6pm GMT). The same time limit applies to the press as to backers; everyone is in the same boat! We’re trying to be as fair as possible given that backers will have access to the game before everyone else.”
No idea what the penalties might be when the embargo is inevitably broken, but it’s a strange, standoffish decision to try and stop people who’ve helped fund your project from talking about it. What counts toward the embargo? Does it apply to posts on social media too?
We’ll keep you updated with future developments.