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.
118 comments
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Doesn’t the screenshot you posted explain what’s going on?
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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.
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Its a bit more than that:
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Precise location information? Wtf for?
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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.
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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.
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So...if Steam is running in a Flatpak, and Borderlands is launched from Steam, how much can they even see...really?
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They know I use Linux and that means they know too much
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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.
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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.
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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...
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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.
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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.
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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.
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That. The content of the screenshot you posted. That is what's going on.
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I apparently love downvotes but here goes: All the Borderlands games (annoying childish cell-shaded skinner-box) and everything Gearbox is and has ever created it utter shit. The CEO is a garbage person, and thier dealings with Epic is Capitalist-Oink-Piggy shite! ""FUCK YOU 2K & GEARBOX, AND FUCK YOU BORDERLANDS!"
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Apart from the politics, the Borderlands games themselves are hardly utter shit for the most part.
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everything Gearbox is and has ever created it utter shit
OpFor was good, Blue Shift was alright too.
Everything since they stole the whole idea of Borderlands has been bad though.
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Yes, but it should still be illegal for a company to do this. Don't let them blame the users for accepting this bullshit. As Louis Rossmann would say, they have the mentality of a rapist.
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Yep, I am jumping in with you on this one.
The cell-shaded art style? Not the problem, imo.
The problem is the just astoundingly terrible writing, immensely insufferable characters, and astonishingly brain dead gameplay.
Why have weapon balance ortactically interesting scenarios or any real sense of progression in gameplay when we can just procedurally generate guns and do everything we can to make everything into roughly the same level of bullet sponge with auto levelling?
They are the lowest common denominator of co-op shooter games, made for people who enjoy bombastic sensory overload and near zero prefrontal cortex brain activity while gaming.
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Except lawbreakers but he tainted it by supporting it and made ppl against it
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Bro thank you for mentioning Lawbreakers. Such a fun game that was cut short.
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I'm sorry, but Battleborn was brilliant. Deadlock is the first game to re-capture (and expand on) the mix of mechanics Battleborn put together.
Didn't stop Gearbox from shutting it down so that no-one who bought it could ever play again. Not even the story campaign.
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I just don't understand anticheat or copy protection on PvE games. I can understand it if you don't want to play against a cheater, but this is a cooperative shooter.
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It's for precedent on future games and to sneak in shit for later. Wittle down your expectations and privacy, make it "normal".
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IIRC Borderlands 3 scales the value of loot to the game's difficulty setting, with some mechanics aimed at encouraging players to join online coops at high difficulties in order to earn more valuable loot. I imagine cheats undermine that intent, and I also imagine borderlands 4 might be aiming at a pay to play scheme.
I'm guessing this EULA is being used for all their IP with the intent of taking advantage of it in the future.
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Need to protect those purchasing opportunities from cheaters.
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Crowdstrike 2.0
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A government that cares for is people would ban this shit and procecute any company trying to find ways around it.
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I checked the Steam depots. It seems the game files haven’t been updated since 2022. All that seems to have changed is some license agreement in February. Seems to be a thing across take two games, and not specific to borderlands 2.
Basically nothing has changed in real terms for this game. Maybe borderlands 4 might have draconian DRM, who knows.
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Is this because Embracer sold Borderlands to Take-Two last year?
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Maybe it's hidden in the in-game eula and they're using their launcher to collect all that info before we even get to agree or disagree.
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I only play AAA games on GeForce Now (cloud). If the game can't run on my Linux system or on the cloud, I ain't touching it. Also, there are so many wonderful games that do not require a colonoscopy into your personal data to be played.
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They added spyware to it.
Here is excerpt from the tos, shared by user in steam reviews of the game.
I wouldnt touch anything this company has produced.
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Ok so that explains the bad reviews, but why is steam giving the game away for free? Also BL3 is heavily discounted
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I think it's up to the publisher, and not steam, to give the game away for free.
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Probably because borderlands 4 is on the horizon and sweat-gland randy caught some flag for tweets.
My guess is that it was planed to be good PR.
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I'm assuming the post is actually about DRM operating at ring 0. That's not really root level though. That's kernel level. Root is still operating in user-mode and politely asking the kernel to interact with hardware.
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But it doesn't have the mandatory kernel level disclaimer either.
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LOL. I loved the Borderlands franchise, until Epic made their evil dog shit app store and the Borderlands devs sold out to them. Motherfuck Borderlands forever now. Thanks for the warning so I don't accidentally reinstall any of it from Steam.
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I noticed too.
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If a game, application, device or EULA changes in a way you find unacceptable, after you've purchased it, you should be able to get your initial purchase price back. And if you paid with your data, you need to be able to demand they delete all your data. I think that law would be entirely reasonable and would do a lot of good.
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On one side of the ring, greedy corps which want to profile you better than the NSA does. On the other, drama-hungry and social networks-fueled outrage culture.
That's how an old game giveaway backfires and becomes the scandal of the day.
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Is the EULA also applicable to the Linux version, assuming that Aspyr did actually port the game to Linux and not just use Wine or something?
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The Linux version is utter dog shit. It's native but it's really terrible looking.
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Is it not fully compatible with newer versions of Linux? All the gameplay and comparison videos I've seen look identical to the Windows version. I'd test it myself but I'm pretty sure my computer doesn't have the hardware to run it even on low settings.
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It's also not been updated for a long time. You can't play with the windows version anymore.
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I didn't enjoy the Handsome Collection but free is free. Thanks for sharing.
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Why isnt Steam banning them? Munny?
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lemmy yet again falls for the ragebait hook line and sinker
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So 50% score loss because of a permissive EULA, got it ...
I'll just leave this in the "Pitchforks against Pitchford" and "Woke, must hate" folder. Call me back when they do actually include a rootkit in their games instead of jumping the gun because loud feelings say loud things. If only there was some way to get statistics of the people getting outraged because of posts in a subreddit community and the people who don't have a problem with rootkits installed by their favorite MMOs...
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Let's try this logic on other things. Their EULA says they can cut off a finger whenever they want. They haven't cut off my finger for my purchase of this game, call me back when they cut it off.
If you're someone that doesn't want companies to have root level access to your computer, waiting until it happens is silly when they're telling you it's gonna happen. It is every reason to complain and be concerned.
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It's probably a common EULA for all games, so they probably added it to carify the terms for some other game that includes it.
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No offense, but have you ever read EULAs? Even Windows EULA has a lot of "cut off a finger" provisions. It's invasive, and people are right to complain. People might cry Linux, but when their job requires them to use Windows and abide by that EULA, most will crumble.
Like it or not, most EULAs are legally binding bullshit that more often than not has to be ignored or bypassed outside of it if necessary. How many people are watching YouTube and ignoring their Terms of Service while using adblockers?
This is nothing new in the world of gaming, and to the scale of affecting over 50% of the score of a game for a provision that is often included in other games they have no problem with is what's revealing. A lot of MMOs and many multiplayer games do, but people haven't cried wolf outside of a minority of their community. Pitchford has given his explanation, that it is a matter of the 2K EULA Gearbox has to adopt.
Let’s try this logic on other things. Are all 2K games that have this in their newly updated EULA's being boycotted? Hint: Civilization is a 2K game.
Some things are just obvious when your head is not stuck inside the ass of a circlejerk bandwagon. It's just sad that some people aren't honest with themselves and and are not willing to recognize how easily they are influenced by people who are holding hidden grudges. Too many games are getting shit on because of this, and I say this as someone who is not looking forward to the next Borderlands game until the discounts drop it well below its 80 dollar price tag several years from now while plenty of loud people in this thread will go out to buy it on day one.
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You should hold a class on how to insert "woke" into every conversation.
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Because of a single comment? No need to hold a class about your criteria.
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Lol go home Randy, you're drunk.
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... Do you really believe I am Randy Pitchford? Whow, so that's the bar for IQ around these parts ...
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Y'all really going to freak out over the new paralegal being told to update the EULAs and lazily hitting the update all button?
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I’ll just stick to playing my console copy
118 comments
You literally posted the answer to your question. Here is an expansion of the details.
I haven't read the new TOS but if this review is correct it looks like a GDPR nightmare for them. Good luck to them explaining why they need to collect all that personal data.
The "collected data types" in that comment seems to be copy/pasted from the privacy policy
https://www.take2games.com/privacy/en-US/
That might be US only, where the companies have freedom to get all the customer's data and do with it as they will.
Do we know this is a thing in the EU?
Due to Steam's tos updates a few months ago, isn't take-two opening itself up to a massive lawsuit?
No idea, but I think it would be funny, so I'm all for it and hope you are right.
Hm... Ok. Thats crazy. Someone wants to create a new branch of income it seems.
Thats a fucking shame. Now I need to reconsider my plans to buy Borderlands4.
But how will they do it? Which information is gathered from which source? Most of my accounts only hold as little informations as possible. Also my Os knows nothing about me. My MS account neither.
On the other hand my steam 2FA need some mobile information.
Unless you use Linux, your OS knows a ton about you. On top of that, with root access to your computer they can do whatever they want and if their system gets hacked you become a member of a bot farm or crypto mine.