Curse

Esprit · Oct 14, 2005, 01:12 AM // 01:12

How do we know other games don't do it? WoW is just the 1st major game that someone has said this about.

Sanji · Oct 14, 2005, 01:15 AM // 01:15

How does that even freaking matter?

This is less of a "Let's slander WoW" thing, being more of an issue of "We should probably do something about Software companies pubically shoving spyware up our computer's ass and getting away with it".

I mean, I don't know about you, but I kind of want a couple of generations between me and things turning anything at all like 1984 or A Brave New World.

KvanCetre · Oct 14, 2005, 01:41 AM // 01:41

In section 13, I didn't see anything that said it would open up programs that aren't already running.

Aracos79 · Oct 14, 2005, 03:01 AM // 03:01

I agree 100000000% with Sanji. How can you people NOT be concerned about this? Publishers are now trying to actively (and legally!) access personal information on your computers. If nothing is done about this from a legal perspective, as it is a blatant violation of our rights, it'll just be the first domino. Eventually to play any game you'll have to ALLOW the publisher access to whatever information is on your computer.

And it doesn't matter what the purpose behind the information gathering is. It's intrusive, it violates our privacy, and that be itself is more than enough. Besides... what's to stop a Blizzard employee from eventually finding out a way to access and take advantage of the information their little worm digs up?

I find this whole concept highly offensive, and if I ever found any other game that did the same... I'd delete it and reformat my drives. My life is my business... not Blizzard's, not ANet's, or anyone else's.

Mercury Angel · Oct 14, 2005, 03:29 AM // 03:29

From what I hear, Punkbuster actually runs a scan through your hard drive to find 3rd party software that isn't allowed.

Really, one of the most important issues, I think, is that people don't even realize just how much access to their systems they're giving these companies;

You want intrusive and possibly dangerous?
How about letting a company actively stream information in the background without any indication of what they're streaming to you, without the need of any form of future consent?

Arenanet could potentially stream us some brand new virus, whether intentional or accidental, and fry all window users' PC's.

It's incredibly easy to settle into an "Out of sight, out of mind" mentality, so it's hardly surprising most people don't really care about what Blizzard, or ArenaNet, for that matter could possibly do.

What Blizzard and many of these other companies are doing are certainly more invasive than they have to be, but these games are not necessities, and do not have to be purchased, installed, or played.
However, in my opinion, the information of what they're doing should be far more prominent and informative, as it's like slipping a one liner into a contract saying,
"Oh, and we'll slip a camera into your home" [Not a fair parallel, seeing as a camera would record and send anything, while Warden only looks for certain things, and only replies whether it is present or not.], but in fine print lawyer-ese, which would most likely quadruple the length of that line with nice big words.

Whether you're giving permission to a company to download things for you, or to spy on you, you're still the one giving them permission to do it. At no point are you required to. It's all a matter of trust. (And if you don't want to blindly place trust in an unfeeling corporation whose primary objective is generally to make money, then more power to you.)

Aside from disliking WoW, what I really hate about Blizzard is when they shut down bnetd, but I suppose that's totally off-topic.