[Destructiod] EA investing heavily in always-on DRM - Page 32

Originally Posted by GrizzleBoy 

Their GAMES.
Their GAMES do not have phenomenal sales.
Also, 49.99 for 20 AAA games? Pretty good. 49.99 for a AAA game or two and 18 extremely low budget titles that didn't cost much in the first place (and of which you would not have purchased had they not been discounted heavily?) Not so much.

Originally Posted by GrizzleBoy 

Rubbish tbh.
Checking what apps you have installed is not the same thing as "following you around and watching everything you do", lest you assert that "everything" you have and do consists of installing and unistalling apps.
Exaggerating reality to have a point to make = no point going any further.
Steam does the same thing, except you can opt out of it. That is the actual difference.
Unless you're trying to say that just because Steam offers an opt out option that many people don't even know about/bother with means you condone people pirating basically everything on Steam, given that you assert previously that checking installed apps is inherently worthy of having your games pirated.

You agree that EA may collect, use, store and transmit technical and related information that identifies your computer (including the Internet Protocol Address), operating system, Application usage (including but not limited to successful installation and/or removal), software, software usage and peripheral hardware

Valve collects personally identifiable information on a voluntary basis...
Valve may allow third parties performing services under contract with Valve to access stored information but such access shall only be to the extent necessary to provide those services...
If an associate of Valve is collecting such personally identifiable information within one of our products or online sites, Valve will make users aware of this at the time the information is gathered

Originally Posted by Art Vanelay 

Origin privacy policy:
They updated it to mention scanning of internet history. That's pretty invasive.
Here's an excerpt from Valve:
A little different, isn't it?

13. TERM AND TERMINATION

Either you or Valve has the right to terminate or cancel your Account or a particular Subscription at any time. You understand and agree that the cancellation of your Account or a particular Subscription is your sole right and remedy with respect to any dispute with Valve.

"Aggregate information" is information that describes the habits, usage patterns, and demographics of users as a group but does not describe or reveal the identity of any particular user.

"Personally identifiable information" consists of a user's name, email address, physical address, or other data about the user that enables the recipient to personally identify the user. While Valve collects personally identifiable information on a voluntary basis, for certain products and online sites, Valve's collection of personally identifiable information may be a requirement for access to the product or site. Personally identifiable information will be processed and stored by Valve in databases situated in the United States. Valve may allow third parties performing services under contract with Valve to access stored information but such access shall only be to the extent necessary to provide those services

Originally Posted by GrizzleBoy 

Again, your argument is exaggerated simply to have a point.
Apart from the opt out I already mentioned, they are practically the same. Valve collects basically all the stuff you mentioned during their surveys, they just don't spell it out.
Before I get into it, you recently stated "valve don't put it into a contract that they can randomly terminate my account".
Exhibit A:
Sure its probably unlikely, but they reserve the right to. Its there in the contract A blade of grass never stays green forever.
You're either being selective with your evidence provision (i.e quoting a line here and a line there, even cutting sentences short) which is dishonest, or you're simply ignorant of the truth while making the statements you make.

I also checked the recent version of what you did quote on EAs website and it read the same with no mention of internet history scanning. Can you show me your source for that?

Now, if we actually quote some MORE of Valves policy, we have:
Cookies and Other Information on a User's Machine
Cookies are bits of electronic information that can be transferred to a user's hard drive to customize a person's usage of a product or online site, keep records of a user's access to an online site or product, or store information needed by the user on a regular basis. Use of cookies is typically associated with websites. Valve does use cookies on their websites. For example, when you sign into Steam, Valve stores your user id and a combination of your ip address and time of login as a cookie on your hard drive.
Now, if you are going to state that the very fact that a company "follows you around" and "watches everything you do" because of what EA does, (when Valve does the same one way or another), not even getting into the same application, hardware, IP, cookie info and whatever it is you'll try to pin EA for means that a customer has the right to pirate their games, you must admit that people also have a right to pirate anything on Steam.
If your reply to that will be related to something along the lines of "but the opt out!", then you must admit that the actual collection of the data in question is not actually in and of itself is not any reason to condone piracy as you asserted earlier, therefore leaving you without an actual point.
So as I said, exaggerating the truth just to have a point = no point going any further.

Originally Posted by Art Vanelay 

That was a problem with Ubisoft, where they deleted one of my games without cause. Steam can do the same thing if they want, but I have never heard of it happening. I've never heard of it happening with Origin either, well there were some really stupid bans.
IIRC it was in the EULA that I accepted when I installed Origin. Don't quote me on that. SandboxIE took care of that, though.
I don't get the point with cookies, everything uses cookies.
I am angry at EA for drafting such a vague privacy policy in their contract that allowed them to take whatever information they wanted from your computer without notice. Steam at least gives notice.
I also did you say that they were justified to pirate games, just that I understand why people would rather pirate the games than use a service like that.

IV. What Is Non-Personal Information and When Does EA Collect It?

Non-personal information, alone, cannot be used to identify or contact you. EA collects non-personal information about your use of our online and mobile products and services both on our website and in the course of game play and software usage (on PC, mobile and game system platforms).

We will retain your information for as long as your account is active or as needed to provide you services. If you wish to cancel your account or request that we no longer use your information contact the Privacy Policy Administrator in your country listed on our site at privacyadmin.ea.com, or if your country is not listed, by contacting the Privacy Policy Administrator in the United States. There may be instances where we are legally required to retain your information.

A. What Types of Non-Personal Information Does EA Collect?

When you use EA online and mobile products and services or you play our games on your PC or game system, we may collect certain non-personally identifiable information for purposes including improving our products and services, troubleshooting bugs, providing services to you, facilitating the provision of software updates, dynamically served content and product support as well as communicating with you. The non-personal information collected may include demographic information including gender, age, zip code, information about your computer, hardware, software, platform, game system, media, mobile device, including unique device IDs or other device identifiers, incident data, Internet Protocol (IP) address, network Media Access Control (MAC) address and connection. We also collect other non-personal information such as username, user ID or persona, feature usage, game play statistics, scores and achievements, user rankings and click paths as well as other data that you may provide in surveys, via your account preferences and online profiles such as friends lists or purchases, for instance. We may also receive either non-personal or public information from third parties in connection with market and demographic studies and/or other data that we use to supplement personal information provided directly by you.

The reason I have been constantly stating that exaggerating the truth just to have a point is meaningless, is because when people do it, they can only backtrack or spin in circles till they're either up against a wall and they can't back track any more or they get confused by their own spinning and trip over their own feet at some point.

Originally Posted by GrizzleBoy 

Whether you've heard of it happening or not doesn't matter. Fact is you said it wasn't in the contract and it is.

You also specifically said that the EULA has been updated to check internet history, but now I shouldn't take your word for it?

You're angry at them for drafting a vague privacy policy that allows them to take "whatever" information they want from our computers without notice? Can you show me which part of the EULA or privacy policy where this loophole is that they can literally take "any" info from your computer that they feel?
The problem with your last sentence as well as you saying "Steam at least gives notice" regarding them taking "whatever info they want", is that you basically end up criminalizing Steam in the process due to your ignorance on the matter.

You agree that EA may collect, use, store and transmit technical and related information that identifies your computer (including the Internet Protocol Address), operating system, Application usage (including but not limited to successful installation and/or removal), software, software usage and peripheral hardware

Originally Posted by philhalo66 

it's the valve complete thing it was only 49.99 for every valve game ever released because of the summer sale. and if i had the money I'd pay full price for it even though i have most of them.