The crux of the issue for me is *not* in game ads. They are not my favorite things on Earth to be certain. I think that in game ads are tantamount to commercials on Satellite TV; we have already paid once, why are we paying twice? The advertising in games, like on TV, is here to stay. We must choose our battles and that is one battle I don't see us winning.
The issue for me is the invasiveness of the EULA. Gathering information about other applications installed? No reporting to the user as to what is being gathered? Sharing information with whom?
I am not saying FSS or EA would do something nefarious with the information gathered. But agreeing to the EULA would give them carte blanche to do so. What information I store on my PCs is my business and no one else's. If you need to profile/demo someone to feed them targeted ads, then please consider taking a survey at regular intervals. This EULA has stepped over a line. Giving someone unrestricted rights to gather data not pertinent to the running of their application, warehousing and sharing that data with God only knows who is not going to happen here.
At one point the Community Manager for Ping0 (partner of FSS) began locking threads on the subject and copy/pasted a response to the issue that I felt was uninformed and insulting:
"We all agree in one form or another for what we feel is our private information to be retrieved in many different venues. Do we like big brother breathing down our necks? Probably not as much as it happens. But our lives and lifestyles have all evolved to this. We agree to it at the foodstore when we swipe our discount cards, we agree to it everytime we use our bankcard and we agree to it almost every webpage we hit.
So you can either shut yourself in and become a hermit or adapt and move on. This is life and so be it until... I will refrain from this becoming a political statement."
I found this the "official" response to be insulting and really bad form for a CM during what could be termed a PR issue. Once you get passed the insult and slant, there is the uninformed nature of the post. Cookies do *NOT* peruse ones hard drive and gather data about applications and peripherals installed. They share information about your web visits with other websites. The grocery card analogy is even more flawed. The grocery card gathers information about what is purchased at the times of sale. The card, store, or their partners do not enter my home and inventory my refrigerator and pantry under the premise of providing me a better shopping experience.
Based on the invasiveness of the EULA which grants unknown entities the right to inventory my PC and data and the very uninformed and insulting tact taken by Ping0's community management I will be skipping HGL. The beta was enjoyable. The ads themselves were tastefully executed and not out of place. I simply do not need the baggage or exposure that comes with it.
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The crux of the issue for me is *not* in game ads. They are not my favorite things on Earth to be certain. I think that in game ads are tantamount to commercials on Satellite TV; we have already paid once, why are we paying twice? The advertising in games, like on TV, is here to stay. We must choose our battles and that is one battle I don't see us winning.
The issue for me is the invasiveness of the EULA. Gathering information about other applications installed? No reporting to the user as to what is being gathered? Sharing information with whom?
I am not saying FSS or EA would do something nefarious with the information gathered. But agreeing to the EULA would give them
carte blanche to do so. What information I store on my PCs is my business and no one else's. If you need to profile/demo someone to feed them targeted ads, then please consider taking a survey at regular intervals. This EULA has stepped over a line. Giving someone unrestricted rights to gather data not pertinent to the running of their application, warehousing and sharing that data with God only knows who is not going to happen here.
At one point the Community Manager for Ping0 (partner of FSS) began locking threads on the subject and copy/pasted a response to the issue that I felt was uninformed and insulting:
"We all agree in one form or another for what we feel is our private information to be retrieved in many different venues. Do we like big brother breathing down our necks? Probably not as much as it happens. But our lives and lifestyles have all evolved to this. We agree to it at the foodstore when we swipe our discount cards, we agree to it everytime we use our bankcard and we agree to it almost every webpage we hit.
So you can either shut yourself in and become a hermit or adapt and move on. This is life and so be it until... I will refrain from this becoming a political statement."
I found this the "official" response to be insulting and really bad form for a CM during what could be termed a PR issue. Once you get passed the insult and slant, there is the uninformed nature of the post. Cookies do *NOT* peruse ones hard drive and gather data about applications and peripherals installed. They share information about your web visits with other websites. The grocery card analogy is even more flawed. The grocery card gathers information about what is purchased at the times of sale. The card, store, or their partners do not enter my home and inventory my refrigerator and pantry under the premise of providing me a better shopping experience.
Based on the invasiveness of the EULA which grants unknown entities the right to inventory my PC and data and the very uninformed and insulting tact taken by Ping0's community management I will be skipping HGL. The beta was enjoyable. The ads themselves were tastefully executed and not out of place. I simply do not need the baggage or exposure that comes with it.