Battlefield 2141 comes with spyware
The game is being released with built in spyware that will gather information about you for advertising/marketing sites to tailor adverts on what you like. This spyware will track your on-line activities.
They don't only charge a arm and a leg for the game but they get paid for giving information to ad sites about you.
Thats breaking our privacy, and is breaking some law, im sure!
Damn... Im almost regretting my £20 pre-order for it :-/
Yet another sign of EA caring ONLY about money. With a stunt like this they obviously dont give a damn about the people who PAY for their games. Without us they wouldnt exist and now they have the cheek to milk us for more?
Lets all complain to the (umm... who should be complain to?)
And it will give discrete in game adverts as well while playing. EA reason for this it helps cover support cost. Well isn't that already factored into the price of the game.
EA... Support costs? Well they are blatantly lying there. They have a 1 man support team. And it's not really a man but more a banana chomping monkey.
Who are EA kidding? They give support...yeah right.
From what i read its been blown out of proportion...
I read the article on The Register yesterday.
And everyones making a fuss about the line \"may record your Internet Protocol address and other anonymous information\"... which is no different than what every single website does when you visit them, your IP, browser, operating system is stored in the web logs every time you view a page... EA is simply doing the exact same thing, using the same details, your IP address (which you freely give any website you visit), and game-related information that does not invade your privacy.
People just throw around the terms spyware/adware around too easily, and get all flustered because they think their privacy is being invaded, when its not.
Feel free to link to something from EA that states otherwise, and ill eat my words, ive only read the above article on the matter.Electronic Arts statement (unedited):
The advertising program in Battlefield 2142 does not access any files which are not directly related to the game. It does not capture personal data such as cookies, account login detail, or surfing history.
BF 2142 delivers ads by region. The advertising system uses a player's IP address to determine the region of the player, assisting to serve the appropriate ads by region and language. For instance, a player in Paris might be presented with ads in French. The information collected will not be repurposed for other uses.
Battlefield 2142 also tracks \"impression data\" related to in-game advertisements: location of a billboard in the game, brand advertised, duration of advertisement impression, etc. This information is used to help advertisers qualify the reach of a given advertisement.
Si vis Pacem, Para bellum...
Yeah after reading more it does seem like its been magnified a bit... But elrobin is right - EA charge us a hefty price to play their games, and yet they are throwing ads at us and getting a large advertisement revenue... Like they dont get enough money by ripping us gamers off, they have the cheek to milk us for money beyond the grave.
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[quote:7b2a2fcc10=\"ÈL ® ö B ì Ñ\"]ye but look, they use your IP to determin your location....so they can throw adds at you, they get paid for doing that.[/quote:7b2a2fcc10]
Determining your location (thats not your address, but the location of your ISP) based on your IP is something any website can do, and many website banner systems do that already, this is no different.
[quote:7b2a2fcc10=\"ÈL ® ö B ì Ñ\"]
We should be paid or discounted for having to view that crap.
Won't be putting a single EA game on my PC untill they remove this.
Thank god I pirate their NFS games, makes me feel better.[/quote:7b2a2fcc10]
You pay full price a ticket to go see a football match, and still have to view the sponsors/advertising/etc plastered everywhere.
You pay full price for a cinema ticket or movie, and still have to view product placement within it, and theres the adverts at the beginning.
Its something thats all around us already, people already accept it, why should games be any different? The only difference is that EA has told everyone about it, instead of just including it and not considering it worth mentioning, where people would barely have noticed it.
If you expect to be paid anything, then you're living in a dream world lol. If you expect to get a discount, then unfortunately that is not how the world works, you'll get no discount of any kind, and that will not change anytime soon.
Banners in a game are nothing, they dont impact on your ability to enjoy the game, you'll barely notice them, so i really dont see what the fuss is about, all i see is ignorance.
If you want to spit the dummy over something so trivial and harmless, then so be it, nobody will stop you, and i doubt EA, or any other company who chooses to do the same, will notice, there will be enough people that'll buy it regardless.
[quote:7b2a2fcc10=\"kristoficus\"]Yeah after reading more it does seem like its been magnified a bit... But elrobin is right - EA charge us a hefty price to play their games, and yet they are throwing ads at us and getting a large advertisement revenue... Like they dont get enough money by ripping us gamers off, they have the cheek to milk us for money beyond the grave.[/quote:7b2a2fcc10]
Uh.. its not quite nearly that bad, if they were charging the gamers extra for the banners, then id see your point, but the price wont change from the standard, you lose nothing from the enjoyment of the game, so its still worth the same amount of money, so they aren't milking more money out of you in the slightest, the price has not increased.
Si vis Pacem, Para bellum...
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To come back to the point of not noticing the banners, if anything this is the main flaw in EA's plans.. as gamers in a FPS game such as this, would be far too focused on whats down their sights than whats on the banner on a far off wall... how many times do you stop for a second to see what that text on the wall is in the middle of a battle?
Imagine, you stop to have a look at a banner and think... Mmm... i fancy a McDonalds now... *BLAM*... damn it!!
People would be far too busy playing and enjoying the game to care about any adverts...
Si vis Pacem, Para bellum...
The point is if somebody pays for a game it should come clean without any in game advertising. Its said that many web sites visited use banner ads and that is true, but thats how they raise revenue and they don't receive revenue direct from the person who clicks on the site. EA are getting revenue direct from the end user by the way of charging for a licence and then they want more with putting adverts into the game somebody has paid to play.
I always look at things in a different way. If they EA get away with doing what they are doing what will EA come up with next. How far will this advertising progress slowly grow. Its certain that it will cause a slow loss of our privacy until its too late to do anything about.
I take it the people who say its ignorance are young and don't really understand how these companies work. The public image is of a caring company, but behind the scenes its very different.
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[quote:f396240171=\"Devils-Blood\"]The point is if somebody pays for a game it should come clean without any in game advertising. Its said that many web sites visited use banner ads and that is true, but thats how they raise revenue and they don't receive revenue direct from the person who clicks on the site. EA are getting revenue direct from the end user by the way of charging for a licence and then they want more with putting adverts into the game somebody has paid to play.[/quote:f396240171]
What about the example of sports matches where you've paid a lot of money for a ticket, or movies you've paid full price for that have product placements throughout? However wrong you may think this development is.. its not really anything new at all, its already common place, merely becoming more so.
[quote:f396240171=\"Devils-Blood\"]I always look at things in a different way. If they EA get away with doing what they are doing what will EA come up with next. How far will this advertising progress slowly grow. Its certain that it will cause a slow loss of our privacy until its too late to do anything about.[/quote:f396240171]
\"if they get away with\"... what they are doing is not \"wrong\", so they aren't going to be \"getting away with\" anything, otherwise they could be brought before the relevant regulatory body and stopped.
In regard to loss of privacy... what thinks you have privacy to begin with? Its all an illusion anyway. The difference here, is that EA has been good enough to tell you what they are doing, many games, especially MMO's etc have already been being far more invasive to your privacy, without anyone really taking any notice, nor seeming to care. Suddenly a company is honest about what it wants to do, instead of not telling you, and people suddenly get irate.
[quote:f396240171=\"Devils-Blood\"]I take it the people who say its ignorance are young and don't really understand how these companies work. The public image is of a caring company, but behind the scenes its very different.[/quote:f396240171]
They are not the Devil. They wont eat your babies. They dont sacrifice goats in order to have a profitable year.
People always like to paint big companies as the \"bad guys\"... but its simply business... they do what they can to make a profit, every new idea is researched and thought about before going into action, in such examples as this, im sure they would've been careful to look into what they legally can and cant do, what would be likely to get them into trouble, doing otherwise would only jeopardize the company, which means risking the amount of money they bring in, which is against their \"evil money making\" mentality. :roll:
The introduction of real billboards within games, is progress in my opinon, apply it to the prospect of a virtual online world, with real billboards, virtual shops you can go into a browse virtual representations of real products... realistic virtual representations of ourselves... i see that as progress.
To end, i gladly welcome real billboard advertising within appropriate games! bring it on i say! But it would have to be a suitable type of game, where advertising billboards would reasonably exist... seeing billboards in a fantasy setting with Elves and Dragons would be simply silly.
Si vis Pacem, Para bellum...
Oh adverts while you watch a film I think not. Maybe the bit before the film. You are not paying for the adverts and you can enter when they have finished if you want to, you are not forced to watch the adverts, With the game they are there while you are playing. The next is like US tv where the programme stops for the advert, but within the game. With tv the adverts pay for the programmes.
And age has a lot to do with life experince, when some of you are older you will suddenly realise what I mean.
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