What's going on with Borderlands 2? Steam is giving it for free, but the game has 23% positive recent reviews.
What's going on with Borderlands 2? Steam is giving it for free, but the game has 23% positive recent reviews.
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- Did the EULA change? ✅
- Were all Take Two games automatically updated in secret and now hijack your machine with root access to spy on everything you do? ❌
- Do Take Two games contain code to report telemetry and user information(including application/system activity) to a home server? ✅
- Is this EULA change extraordinary and particularly egregious in comparison to others that most people have probably already agreed to? ❌(IMO)
- Are people riled up because e a YouTube video went a little viral and now they’re all playing telephone to the point where it’s now gotten to the point of random dumdums are review booming a 13 year old game claiming it’s turned into literal spyware? ✅(again, IMO)
- Should you be surprised by any of this if you’ve been even remotely paying attention for any period of the last 30-40 years? ❌
- Do we need more than just angry idiots in the battle against corpatocracy? ✅
We should be done coddling the late comers at this point. Yes welcome them and accept them, but at a certain point your level of ignorance became a detriment to your community and you should be made aware of that fact.
Pretty much nailed it, yep.
A youtuber named Hellfire has been on a spree, basically discovering how fucked up EULAs have been in games for the past 20ish years... well this is all brand new news to him and and his Zoomer / Gen A followers.
There is, as of right now, literally zero evidence that Borderlands 2 has been updated with a rootkit, with kernel level anti cheat, anything like that.
The last update to its game files was 2 years ago.
This is almost certainly them updating the EULA everywhere, the precise timing of this being for some specific arcane legal and business reasons... TakeTwo runs a whole bunch more games than juat Borderlands... namely GTA V...
...
Is this EULA bad? Yes.
Is it much worse than it was before, or what other large gaming companies EULAs have, and have had for... a decade+?
Maybe by a bit, but not really, no.
...
Is Randy Pitchford a dumb idiot asshole?
Oh absolutely yes, but that shouldn't give people the liscense to make completely unevidenced claims about other things.
...
The game does not have a kernel level AC or some kind of rootkit DRM, as many, many people are currently saying it does.
I guess gamer attention span can really hold onto a few keywords and phrases at a time.
... I say this all as person who is vehemently against kernel level AC, who has been pointing out for 4 years, that almost all existing anti cheat systems currently have at least one game that implements their AC, on linux, without using kernel level anything.... it is entirely possible to do AC without kernel level shit, even on linux, and has been for at least 4 years. EAC and BattleEye have supported linux for 4 years, but nearly no game that uses them has actually used this feature/available and offered support.
I am glad that this level of hate is finally being directed at shitty EULAs, but lets at least get our facts straight, or actually provide some hitherto unseen evidence that Borderlands has had some kind of sleeper malware in it for at least the past two years, just waiting to be activated by a TOS update to every single Take Two game.
Its a bit more than that:
Would it shock you to know that ALL of these are in the Steam terms of service also?
The only really sus one to me is the forced arbitration clause, and Steam also had that til they were pressured to remove it by multiple legal cases, including a class action brought to them by Steam users just last September. It is only sus because it's outdated - companies are generally removing them now rather than adding them. https://www.legal.io/articles/5540864/Valve-Removes-Mandatory-Arbitration-from-Steam-Subscriber-Agreement
RE: remaining top 5 bullet points, 3 of the remaining 4 bullet points are uncontroversial bullet points about anticheat. The fourth is banning modding, which is also just a heavy handed anticheat attempt, and not uncommon for online games to add to their ToS to allow banning at their discretion. Either way its clumsy at the least as some mods can be harmless eg HUD mods for colourblind people and deserves some negativity - but not to this level, given everything else is just so boilerplate.
Collected data types: these are all for if you buy stuff with a credit card / paypal / etc off 2k/parent company Take 2. Remember, they sell games with in-game purchases. They also have an app which has location permissions option which is what the precise location is about.
So yes - again, as OP said, this is nothing controversial if you have paid attention to ToS meaning and content over the past 20 years.
Aside from the forced arbitration crap - which Steam, Microsoft, Amazon, Lyft, Uber, Google, AT&T - and hundreds of other major companies all snuck into their ToS over the years, and many have now been legally pressured to remove by consumer rights group. That is stupid because it shows their legal team is behind the times, companies are mostly removing their forced arbitration clauses nowadays because it has been the cause of many lost class actions.
Precise location information? Wtf for?
So that they can have a back door to as many private computers as possible.
Hyper Localized Advertising. Welcome to the future :(
I just saw an advertisement for a custom T-shirt:
"That's right, I'm a December dad, who lives at 62a, with size 10 feet and prescription glasses..."/S
"By scrolling past, you agree to sharing with us (and our affiliates) the following collected data types: ..."
Oh honey, what's any of it for?
They use the same terms of service for mobile games and they just dont bother to change it for pc games.
This mistake makes sense to make as a mistake. But also, that's fuckin asinine
It isn't a mistake. Writing different EULA for each game costs more money than writing an overly aggressive one that covers most cases.
A bit more than what, not really sure what your point here is? All of those bullet points are similar if not identical to terms in other EULAs half the people in this thread have already clicked thru.
I’ll say it again, if you think this is anything new you haven’t been paying attention. I’m all for calling this fuckery out and pushing for something better. But like where yall been?
Still no actual answers from anyone on how this is ‘more’ than what I described in my op. Sure it’s a more detailed list, but it’s really not the “gotcha” everyone seems to think it is. That is, if youve been paying attention.
What point are you trying to make? You say you're "all for calling this kind of fuckery out" but then you're criticizing people for calling it out? And who cares what other EULAs might say? The point is that the license agreement for this game and others owned by this company didn't say this shit before, and now they do. The company is actively making their user agreement more hostile to the users which is what people are pissed about.
That it takes more critical thinking to accomplish the organized action needed for real change than leaving a bunch of negative reviews.
I never once said ‘other company’s do it so just deal with it.’ Fuckawhataboutism. I said “if you think this is new, you haven’t been paying attention.” What I shouldn’t have left unsaid was ‘the review is a nice start and show of intention. but we need a lot more dedicated, well organized action, to actually accomplish any change.’
But people read into things what they want to hear.
Let's ride the wave. Turn this into a huge controversy known industry-wide. Then, next game that comes out with EULA like this, we say "THIS GAME HAS A BORDERLANDS-STYLE EULA". Pretend it's new to exploit the shock value and get the gamers riled up. Then, the industry gets better.
Tell the frog that the pot wasn't always this hot.
Thank you for an actually constructive response. You’ve honestly brought me around a bit with this.
I see this kind of comment before and I will never understand it - "other companies do it so just bend over and let us do it to you too!"
People say this all the time about Denuvo too: "Other games already have Denuvo, why are you crying about it here when you're playing other games?"
And see, that's the problem - we aren't playing those other Denuvo games. And same thing applies here, guess what, a lot of us aren't buying games from gross companies like EA with these shit terms. So when a company we are doing business with suddenly changes their terms to be shit, that's a valid complaint. Some of us have already been boycotting bad business practices in the industry, so the idea of company changing terms towards the boycott after we've already invested in the game feels like a betrayal because it is.
So maybe stop focusing on what you assume the rest of audience is doing and instead go back to focusing on what the people at the goddamn podium are trying to pull?
Why does everyone insist on adding the ‘so just bend over and take’ part whenever someone points out another source of wrongdoing? Like what do yall always take it to mean that the speaker is implying a whataboutism argument? And not maybe as ‘oh shit this has been going on longer than just this maybe we should learn about that too and we might figure out why it hasn’t been stopped yet.’
If "everyone" keeps reading a sentiment you did not intend out of your message, perhaps it is time to consider that you are doing a poor job of communicating your point.
Or you're being disingenuous and just don't like being calling on your hissy fit.
I dunno, take your pick.
It’s the first one, I’m terrible at effectively communicating nuanced points.
And I mean yall could interrogate the statement instead of reaching a conclusion and then responding but I get it.
But also, fuck that. Do more work as the reader.
Also, piss off with your infantilizing ‘hissy fit’ bullshit.
Some people will always find an excuse to change nothing.
It doesn't matter how many similar EULA's people have already accepted. The best moment to not eat it anymore would have been the first time it happened, the second best time is right now.
Also, retroactively amending an EULA is a different quality, since people have already paid for the game and would be locked out after the fact if they didn't accept.
I’m sad you read this as an admission of defeat and an attempt to deter others from fighting. Was hoping for more of a ‘you’re late, you have a bunch of homework to catch up on’ vibe but I’m not great at communicating all the time.
It seems like you're giving of a "victim" vibe with this by stating you wished for only a particular type of "positive response" when you've posted a misleading comment and doubled-down with "EULAs half the people in this thread have already clicked thru" which you have no way of knowing.
Were all Take Two games automatically updated in secret and now hijack your machine with root access to spy on everything you do? ❌
10.2. Updates, Modifications, and Sunset. We may provide patches, updates, or upgrades to the Services, Virtual Items, Content, or your Account that may be required for you to continue using the Services, including automatic or “in the background” updates without notice to you.
"Was hoping for more of a ‘you’re late, you have a bunch of homework to catch up on’" You're expecting others to hold your hand and inform you of every event or action taken by every company. I guess I'll do my part since I have been trying to let other people know for a while now,
StormGate - Privacy Policy and End User Agreement. Is this just the new industry standard to avoid? (post made by me 10 months ago)
Why don't you see it more?
Steam Discussion deleted after questioning the "EULA" of Stormgate, another post by me after I tried to inform others and was suppressed, meaning the reviews is the only course of action that most have at their disposal. Even posting on their official subreddit did no good with the exact same type of response you've presented here,
Why am I consenting to have my "Medical Information", "Browser/Search History", "Social Security/Drivers License number", "Geolocation and movements", and more collected to play Stormgate? (22k members, only 122 upvotes)
(the responses)
- They didn't collect such information (they technically couldn't), they are giving examples of such types of personally identifiable information.
- Yeah, it's excessive, they don't need half of this. However, writing it this way makes it near impossible for them to screw up by accident. If you play games, you probably agreed to a handful of ELUA's like that by now.
- This keeps getting brought up in every controversial game these days and the answer is always the same: They aren't.
- Most of this is not out of the ordinary.
- Imagine thinking all of this information about you isn't already owned by several corporations lol.
- Some of these stuffs are required in X countries not yours, stop thinking the entire world is all about you buddy.
You've officially become part of the problem and an ally to the very same reason why we can't "accomplish the organized action needed for real change (than leaving a bunch of negative reviews.)"
Man I’m tired.
So...if Steam is running in a Flatpak, and Borderlands is launched from Steam, how much can they even see...really?
They know I use Linux and that means they know too much
Not a lot. Even when it isn't a flatpak windows software running on linux won't be able to interact with the system anywhere near as deeply as on windows.
They'll be able to tell it's linux, though.
You can install an application like Flatseal (https://flathub.org/apps/com.github.tchx84.Flatseal) to inspect the permissions for a flatpak.
How locked down a flatpak is depends entirely on the developer and what permissions they request. By default, they can't really see much. For example, they can't even see the processes running on your host or your user and system files.
Flatpak does not do anything about network access though, it can only do no access or full access, no in between. The data they can collect on Linux in a Flatpak is very limited but it does not prevent them from calling home.