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Data Harvesting From a Developer's Perspective
cliffski raises some questions about the need for game developers to have some amount of data from the users who play their games. He says,
"PC Games connecting to a central server to send information (outside of MMOs) have gotten a (deserved) bad reputation in recent years. The huge outcry about Mass Effect and Spore are evidence enough of that. But in gamers' hurry to prevent intrusive DRM systems and dubious privacy-breaking data harvesting, are we throwing out the good with the bad?"
Clearly, some aspects of games could be improved by having a better knowledge of average PC specs or knowing which parts of the games are more entertaining to the users. Input from customers helps to improve almost any product, as indicated by the usage of countless surveys and focus groups. But where do we draw the line between being inquisitive and being intrusive? What can game developers do to prove that the collection techniques or the data themselves wouldn't be abused?
I recall seeing detailed info collected from the new Team Fortress on what classes were selected, "heat maps" of death locations, etc. Looked to me like it was all valuable info, especially for the game and map developers. I know Steam keeps a backend connection going, and it seems like this data could be really useful. While I'm definitely against collecting personal data, the aggregate stuff should be just fine from a privacy standpoint.
Jonah HEX
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I agree with this sentiment. Set up an opt-in program that allows gamers to share their information with game companies. If a player is truly invested in the game, they will share their data to support further improvements in the game. The players that are most invested are the ones for whom you want to tailor your games, no? Sounds like a win-win to me.
Seriously? Ask us first. Tell your users exactly - EXACTLY - what's being monitored, and 98% of the problem goes away. Users are sick and damn tired of being misled and lied to about stuff like this for our own good.
Maybe from the Developer's perspective having an intrusive all-seeing eye installed on everyone's computer which either can't be turned off or only via a default-selected checkbox in the disused lavatory tab of the options menu sounds like a good idea, but to anyone else it really doesn't. Don't do it.
Be honest with your users or they'll hate you whatever you do.
I hate to say anything good about Steam, but this is one thing they get right - they simply ask.
todo - The developer's equivalent of confession: "Forgive me Father, for I have sinned..."
They usually mention such things in the license agreement. Do you read the license agreement?
That's not asking is it? That's telling someone after they've purchased the product that aspects of their system will be monitored. Of course you can take the product back but that's inconvenient. Technically everyone should read the licence agreement but the plain fact is that nobody does, and while that's obviously got no legal standing, if the developers don't want to be hated by everyone using their product they should cut out the sly bullshit and ask in plain and simple English. If the developers really do just want certain info regarding gameplay or system specs I'm sure that enough people would say yes to get a representative sample of users.
Spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, and stupid comments are intentional.
You know, I'm not a big fan of cops, but it never ceases to amaze me, how software engineers on ./ rant and rave about everyone collecting information on other people, but make every exception for themselves.
IF civil rights is that important, that you want to go on and rail about Obama's FISA betrayal and horridly fill out online donations to the ACLU over the idea of your government collecting information to aid in counter-intelligence against not only the "terrohistas", but also the Chinese, Europeans and anyone else who might have their information collected by their governments, then that's worthy.
But, I would like to know, what exactly about a video game, shopping experience or some other fluffy adventure that entitles you as a software developer to violate people's rights to privacy, for your own ends, when you would deny that same efficiency to everyone else? You aren't elected to represent anyone, but our government is.
This is my sig.
the problem with relying on people to make decisions is that people might not do what I want them to.
There. Fixed that for you.
And I don't consider that a problem. If such a small amount of people do say yes then all that's doing is clarifying how many people you're potentially pissing off by forcing such decisions on users. And to be perfectly honest if you word the question correctly and explain how it can help development I think you could get considerably more than 1% of users to accept. It would still probably be a very small proportion of users, but it should be enough to gather useful stats on the kind of information TFA claims developers want.
Spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, and stupid comments are intentional.
Remedy:
Promise that amongst everyone who shares their system info, once a week/month/year someone wins a prize (no need to ask delivery info in advance, just that "If you win, you'll be notified via this program and then asked to enter delivery address"). The price can be anything cheap and token-ish (eg. in games, some bonus freebie item), as long as there's something.
Valve already does monitoring with their games, and I don't think anyone complains about it. For example, I know in Team Fortress 2 they keep track of which team wins the most, where people die the most, how heavily certain classes are used, etc.
Clearly, some aspects of games could be improved by having a better knowledge of average PC specs
PopCap's tracking of casual gamers says the average system has a fourteen year old Intel integrated graphic chipset and runs Windows 3.1. This completely confirm's PopCap's choice to go after low end systems.
Crytek's tracking of Crysis players says the average system has eleventy billion GeForce 14000s in SLi mode and eight quad core processors, running 64bit Vista. This completely confirm's Crytek's choice to only worry about high end systems.
Alternatively, when you're testing something that your product already has a barrier of entry for (or targets people who can't make any other barrier of entry), you're going to get people who match the choice you made as opposed to any legitimate indicator of average specs.
Much as I appreciate their doing it, w3schools have the same issue with their browser specs... If you target the dev community, your logs are generally going to show a significant swaying towards newer, more interesting browsers. That you find there aren't many sheep still on whatever Microsoft gives them tells you more about your own users than the "average" web user.
In other news, the Republicans asked everone attending their national conference if global warming mattered and discovered the average American really didn't care that much if it interfered with business. This was a shock to the Green Party who sampled their audience attendees and discovered there was nothing more important to the average American.
What can game developers do to prove that the collection techniques or the data themselves wouldn't be abused?
That's easy. Just give me a checkboxed list of all the data items from my computer that you propose to send to your server. Then provide an "UNCHECK ALL" button so I can still maintain my privacy.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Maybe that should tell you that most people *don't* want to share with you with no compensation?
a handful of selfish greedy people are no match for millions of selfish, greedy people -u4ya
That game developer has no clue about privacy.
First, if the game has online registration, that's the one time to collect, with the user's permission and knowledge, basic system configuration info. That's useful to have if they call for support. It doesn't require a continuous connection to a server.
Second, if more data is required for game tuning, that's what play testers are for. Or free beta users. It's reasonable to have a free beta that sends back play data, if the developer is up front about it. It's not reasonable to have it in a paid product.
Third, if you can't meet basic EU privacy regulations, your market is much smaller.
The problem with an opt-in approach is that you'll only hear from the vocal minority. Most of the time, that's the *worst* demographic to make decisions based on. Blizzard has done an excellent job of not falling into that trap as compared to, say, SOE.
Interested in open source engine management for your Subaru?
That's what he said. He meant that developers should respect that people are capable of making their own decisions and offer them the chance to do so.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Companies like Valve and Microsoft have already adopted this mentality — they don't just capture information about how you play the game, they store it in an online profile, and let you unlock achievements, compare your data with others, or view a chart of your own scores to monitor your improvement.
Ironically, by making this kind of data public, you'll cause players to start putting less value on their own privacy. It's the Alcoholics Anonymous effect in action — when other people disclose private information, you're more likely to disclose private information too.
Of course, this doesn't mean that you as a developer should be collecting any sort of truly private data. If you can't explain to players in detail what data you're getting and why you want it, you shouldn't be collecting it.
Also, provide a simple way for players to provide spur-of-the-moment feedback on your game. For example, add a simple text box to the game's pause screen that lets users zip off a note to the game developers, along with data about where they are in the game and their current status. I can think of a hundred times when I would have given the developer feedback but was stymied by the hassle of finding the proper web site, setting up an account, explaining the situation in detail and not even knowing that anyone on the development team actually read the message boards. A quick message system built in to the game would be much handier to players, would collect raw off-the-cuff impressions, and best of all, would be entirely opt-in.
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
Instead of trying to transform the gamers community into labs rats in order to find new ways of selling us more crappy half finished entertainment (games in this case), try to focus on creativity and innovation.
... Make more money with lower costs and very little concern about your product other than if it will sell.
How many crappy games are released today because they are unfinished, bugged and unplayable? Of course data mining is the better economic plan since it allows to collect money by releasing the game early and pretend you care about your customer base instead of beta testing your product (This actually cost more money and delays the production cycle).
Data mining is flawed: It collects data about what we like. The result is a massive amoung of clone games with very little creativity other than mind blowing GFX. Focus on something new instead, something we havent seen yet, something original, something that will be a surprise instead of the version 65 of a "well selling title".
Beta test your product, (data mining isnt a cheap way of doing it) Ask for feedback if you like (There is plenty of discution forums the gamers will be happy to contribute). Funny part about this, most gamers have the impression you never read those since you rarely answer them, yet you pretend you want to collect data using a sneaky method while you ignoring most of our suggestions/feedback on discussion boards. Makes me wonder about your real motives
We have lots of cases where companies have collected this information and then done Evil Things with it, so people are reluctant to provide it.
So --
-- stop being evil. Start using information only for benign purposes, and then people will trust you in time. ... in time. You screw people over, you have to *stop* screwing them over first, and only then figure out how to regain their trust.
It is reasonable to have it in a multi-player game where players are logged into a central online service. Ladders and ranked play require some transmission of game statistics to function at all. Since we require a mechanism to transmit that data, we can gain a lot by extending it to capture detailed game statistics as well. The types of games that require public betas are usually online multi-player games that fit the above criteria, and the need to continue monitoring that data won't go away once the game ships. I'm not sure of a scenario where a developer would publicly beta a game that wasn't an online title, so I'm not sure where your above mentioned scenario fits in the real world.
1. Ask. Simple as that. Ask. Don't just go "and now we'll transfer your demographics to our maker, hit ok", or don't say a thing altogether. People love the feeling of being in control. And they will much more readily provide you with information if you take the time to tell them what you need it for, i.e. making the product more suitable for your customers.
2. Let me review the information before it is sent. Let me see just what information you want from me. I'm uneasy when I'm asked to let a program gather information from my computer and send it to you. Let me see what information you want, if you want to be sure I let it pass, give me a reason why you want information aside of my hardware specs, because I can't see how my name, the number or ID of connected machines or the directory structure of my hard drive(s) could possibly help you develop a better game.
3. Don't wrap it in legalese junk. KISS is the key here. If you want to cram license agreements down my throat that require me to get a law degree and read for three hours, I will not send you any information whatsoever. State that the information is going to be used anonymously, that you will not store the IP address it was sent from, that you won't bombard my mailbox with junkmail and that you will not distribute the information. After all, you only want it to improve the games you make, right? So it should be no problem for you.
You can without a problem do all this as part of your installation routine, completely automatized, and if someone doesn't care about any of those things he can easily bypass the agreement, the list of information gathered and the terms of usage for the data collected. If he cares about it, he can read it.
Where's the problem with that?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
if it worked along the lines of Microsoft's 'customer improvement program' or whatever it is called for office and stuff it would probably work
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