This is a big aspect for hobbyist and small indie developers. In most of our cases, unless our game somehow became a runaway hit overnight, getting an attorney to show up in court with you to enforce any part of an NDA agreement would likely cost 5x more than any judge could ever find you able to collect to damages.

The most valuable part of an NDA that I can think of for a hobbyist or small indie is having some legal ground to send a cease-and-desist letter to anyone posting unfinished images of your game, public bug reports, discussing covered features, etc. Of course, this will be all bark and no bite, and some determined jerks may call you on that if they have an understanding of the size of your operation. Even a small indie could likely blow their entire budget trying to enforce a single infraction of their NDA.

Seems like it would be moot for most hobbyist projects. If someone releases a place holder screenshot, something unfinished, from say the next Bioware MMORPG The Old Republic, you will have a million Star Wars and MMORPG fans screaming Bioware is ruining the game, and they are making a piece of garbage, they won't play if the graphics are gonna lollipop like this, etc., etc. Which is why there is an NDA, and the devs dont' want to release stuff until it's finished.

But if you're NOT bioware and your not making The Old Republic, you're going to be lucky if anyone takes the time to look at the NDA breaking screens of your game someone posted on some random website.

While that is true, you may not want someone posting buggy screenshots of your game to their blog as a joke ("Look at this building coming out of my character's crotch LOL"). That is more likely to be the kind of attention a hobbyist game may get in pre-release, and unfortunately, it could be more damaging than anything a Star Wars fan may post about TOR. What if a particularly comedic pre-release video goes viral on YouTube? The programmers who worked on ZeroWing ("All your base are belong to us") still probably cannot get work in the game industry, even if the translation was not their fault. Just like how every game may have some humorous bugs, and every game starts in a nearly unfinished state, and the public image of your game (even if that image only exists in a small community) could be horribly damaged from some of the things that go on in Alpha.

I see your point, but personally I would be astonished and gratified if my game became as well known as all your base are belong to us. IMO, better that than if 3 people think it's the best ever, but others may feel differently.