Slashdot Mirror
Battlefield 2142 to Bundle Spyware?
An anonymous reader writes "Kotaku reports on a Shacknews Post. Battlefield 2142, the new Electronic Arts game, is expected to include mandatory spyware in the retail package. The software will apparently monitor web browser and other computer usage; this information will be used to deliver targeted in-game advertisements. Other popular game titles have included spyware in the past to aid anti-cheating measures. Is spyware acceptable to the public when it comes with a game, or has EA made a PR misstep?"
and paid for 2142 via EA's downloader - and the EULA made no mention of this.
Now either the kotaku is imagining bits of paper, the online purchased version is magically pure or EA are about to get themselves a huge class-action kicking.
I loved BF2, shelled out for the hit-or-miss expansion packs and already felt slightly narked off. I think this is the final straw - wish me luck on getting a refund.
Interesting to a point - I really could care less about in-game adds, but monitoring all of my internet traffic and placing in-game adds?
3 thoughts on this:
#1 - It probably won't be long before someone develops a web browser wrapper that 'fakes' site visits.
#2 - How explicitly does EA describe what they're collecting and how? If they're scanning my cookies, that's one thing. Directly monitoring packets is another level of bad.
#3 - How long do you think it will be before some adult site that daddy was visiting gets into Jr's game because everyone logs in on one account? I can see the laywers salivating......
What? You can't be serious! Oh wait.... You are?
/.ers, is this the starting of the end of privacy? Whatever happened too good old gaming.
Now really, who will get all this money for advertising? The consummer still needs to buy the game, right? So what, all this spyware and ads revenue is a "bonus" to the game developer? If the game would be offered for free upon installation of this spyware, I would then accept it. I would get myself another HDD with another Windows installation just for that game.
My fellow
The hip way to get your IP. No ads, ever.
Wow...I realize that we are on the slippery slope of losing any semblance of privacy, but I did not realize that gamers were headed toward a cliff.
Spyware to monitor your non-gaming behavior to better target advertising? Can you imagine the other uses for this information? The secondary market for this information may yield a revenue stream that eclipses their software license revenue...especially since this spyware will be, in some perverted sense, legitimate.
Count me out EA. This is one frog that is jumping out of the pot of water.
Is spyware acceptable to the public when it comes with a game, or has EA made a PR misstep?
It's only a big PR misstep if the general public is informed that this is a horrible idea. If it's just a couple of geeks muttering, it's not a problem at all (since most of /. hates EA already).
Therefore, I suggest telling all your friends that EA will be watching their every step online and they'll be open to identity theft. Come to think of it, would EA have pr0n ads in game if that's what your browsing history indicated? Now that would be hilarious.
"Billy! Why is there a naked lady in your game?!? Someone get me Jack Thompson on the phone, because it's time to sue!"
Heck, will the game stop functioning if the spyware server is shut down sometime in the future? What a great way to stop secondhand sales, just remote-disable all copies of the software from your end by not allowing it to authenticate.
The community has already started to lash out at this: http://www.gamersradio.com/games/battlefield_2142/ top_13_reasons_why_i_am_not_buying_battlefield_214 2.html
Firstly, I hate spyware, but don't we all.
It seems to me that this is a bit of a double dip on their end. I could see putting up with this if it was actully financing "free" content that I could receive down the road. Professional caliber add-ons for example.
Some Questions remain
1. Can you turn off the spyware?
2. If so will it still be feature complete with the spyware turned off?
3. Will it uninstall when the game uninstalls?
4. What new security holes does this open?
5. Will the upfront purchase price be subsidized by this spyware?
-Lemur
I stopped buying EA games a few years ago after bizarre experience interviewing with Maxis. I was going for a high end programming job and everyone I interviewed with posed a question that was clearly straight out of their current task list. I gave good answers to everything and everyone seemed happy and impressed. I even exchanged some followup emails with one developer about a particularly odd math algorithm he had been working on. They seemed eager to have me onboard. Then the HR dept stepped in. Clearly they were still chained to EA and disconnected from Maxis. She determined that I was a low level system admin and even though we had discussed salary in the 120-140 range she said because I was just a system admin they could only offer me 40k. Cue twilight-zone music. I tried to explain to her that I was a senior developer and had just spent two days interviewing with all of the other deveopers there. Apparently this pissed her off something awful. I tried to contact some of the people I had interviewed with and she had forbidden them to speak with me. Real nice. So I figured that if HR runs the shop, it must be hell to work for. I have never heard anything positive from any EA owned shop's employee. I joined the developer's boycott of EA at that point and chalked it up as a lesson learned. Despite the fact that the Battlefield series of games looks really pretty, I still won't support EA. They do dirty business and destroy small studios. I wish there were some way to support the developers who bleed for them without contributing the the hateful machine that the conglomerate has become. Just my $0.02
I think a company should release a "game" where the point of the software is to monitor how the computer user, uses their computer. At the end of the day the "game" reports the results to the maker of the software, and gives the user points, based on how much porn, violence, and YouTube the user consumed. Sending emails to family decreases the score, while sending emails to people you meet online increases your score. The user's score could be displayed in the corner of the screen at all times, and the rules of the game wouldn't be made known to them, they could only see the result of the score after they take an action, and thus act how they think the game is supposed to be played.
That wouldn't be spyware, that would be "fun".
Oh You POS
Ahh intersting point you make...if only I had moderator points to rate it so...
So what you are hinting at is that to knowingly put spyware on a game, the end user has to be above 18 years old, and therefore 'legally' able to make such a desicion?
That is a very intersting point...i wonder if it is true though...
if it IS true then EA are cutting out a huge portion of their market sector.
>>>Scanning for I.D.I.O.T.S. >>>
>>>I.D.I.O.T.S. FOUND! >>>
+insightful.
Minors can't enter into contracts, right? So software EULAs should be unenforceable against them, much less this.
Yes Starforce is EVIL, yes unskippable cutscenes are EVIL, yes doctored screenshots are EVIL, yes Ads in agmes are totally EVIL, but this the bullshit you get from what I laughable call the 'triple A' industry.
Most indie games have none of that crap. I am very loud and blatant about not pulling any stunts like those for my games. Plus theres no console approval board between me and my customers, and no console licence fee either.
Dont lump in the good old indie dev with the scum who pull stunts like this.
DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
Companies will scream "free speech" if states try to outlaw "mandatory, up-front-in-your-face-we-told-you-its-here" spyware.
BUT if states use the "minors don't have full rights to engage in contracts" logic, they CAN restrict purchase of such software to people over the age of 18 and withstand court challenge.
THAT is one way to curb such evil.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
I love me some Gmail too - but the key detail is that Gmail is 100% free to me, and is supported by advertising. So is Slashdot, Gamespot, Kotaku, and just about every other website out there. I have no problem with advertising. I have problems with paying the same price for a video game supported by advertising as a game not supported by advertising.
As for the rising costs to develop and publish games, that's not my problem. That's EA's problem. Multi-million dollar budgets and FMVs do not a good game make. Look at Geometry Wars on the Xbox 360, or look at any of the plethora of AAA-quality Nintendo DS games. You do not need huge budgets and FMVs to make a good game which sells well in the market. Thus I have no compassion for EA when they tell me that their prices are skyrocketing.
Make a good game and I'll buy it. That's the only revenue you should need if you're running your business well. And if you're running it poorly, the Free Market will make short work of you.
Now here's one of the reasons I'd like proper security controls and compartmentalization in computers... Wanna access my web traffic? Yeah right, screw you. You're running as a nobody-user with no rights to nothing outside your little program files dir, and you don't come close to any of my data unless I permit it. There's so many applications that do things I don't want them to or never asked them to do, there really should be a way to sandbox "hostile" apps. You might ask why you'd want to run those in the first place, but I really feel that's another discussion. I want to be able to run the apps I want with assurances they won't hose my computer or do anything else I don't want them to. Not too much to ask, if you ask me.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Wonder how much impetus this'll give to piracy?
Letsee I can:
A) Spend $50, and get loaded with spyware reporting my porn habits to the highest bidder.
B) Spend nothing and I don't get infested with spyware.
It's not just about the money anymore... XD
I read about this on some forum, and went and listened to that podcast. What we have here is a case of slashdot linking to kotaku reporting on a shacknews story about a podcast, in which the following happens: They read out loud the relevant disclaimer that comes with the game (as posted earlier here), and then a voice - the voice of a game dev interviewed earlier in the podcast, if I'm not completely mistaken, that is to say a competitor of EA - pipes up saying "THAT MEANS SPYWARE" or something to this effect. And everyone goes crazy. What the actual disclaimer seemed to say to me was that they transmit your ip to the adserver in order to push their "content" to the bf2142 client, and will not transmit any personally identifiable data.
Now, the ad scheme is really despicable IMO, and if I buy the game I will certainly not install that feature if it is optional, and if it is not, I will just block the adserver. But is it spyware? I doubt it. What the hell happened to doing some basic research before posting sensationalist "scoops"?
What happens when one person surfs porn all day, and then the younger teen goes to play the game? Suddenly, EA is distributing porn to minors.
Ol' Jack Thompson better get his guns out again.
Take it to the limit, everybody to the limit, come on, everybody fhqwhgads.
No, what will be illegal is all the people who don't buy it, then download the torrent with the spyware removed/disabled. Way to go EA, encourage people to illegally obtain your product because the legal version sucks...This is like the online music/DRM argument all over again. When are companies going to learn - people will not pay extra (or anything) for software that comes with undesireable features, if they can get the same software elsewhere without said features.
"But this one goes to 11!"
Well, yea, I mean, that's what I do. I mean if they monitor my internet usage off of that machine, they'll only get other games. So all I'll have to worry about is some silly background process eating up cycles. Wonder if I could firewall block the phone home and still play the game?
The thing that leaps to my mind is, with this new revenue stream is the price of the game going to be less? Or is it just there to cover the "free online play"?
I think inevitably people are going to allow an increase in advertising if they get a tangible benefit in return. If not however, they are generally willing to pay more to skip the advertising...Cable TV and Satellite radio prove that people are willing to pay considerably just for a decrease in ads.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
I think he may be refering to a US law that protects minor's information. I'm not sure the details of the law or what this spyware is collecting exactly, but this could be an issue.
Look, BF1942 was the best thing I had ever played. BFV kind paled in comparison-- mostly because I couldn't find any decent mods for it... and frankly there weren't any good maps. Then I went out and bought computer so I could play BF2. I litearally pulled the BF2 specs and made sure they were covered in my purchase. I am very disappointed w/ BF2. Why? Because I had to login to their servers in order to play the full game. I paid full price just so I could play part of a game. That urked me to no end! And they didn't have any good maps... unless you registered. It's only saving grace was the Modding community. They had maps, weapons... and they made the game play a lot better than what EA could do. And now they want to spy on me when I'm not playing the game? I'm already miffed that game play sufferes when the net is down... what the J.H.C. am I supposed to do when I'm waiting on the cable guy?!?!? Now EA expects me to pay to let a third party on to my computer just so I can probably play a half of the game? No thank you! Isn't this like an auto sales man selling you the car and then saying, "Oh, you have to drive my grandmother to work, so we can better serve you". That's CRAP.