The game I've been waiting for.... Now has a Microsoft Stink O.o

[WinterWeaver]

From here:
http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/news/34926/Hellgate-London-Includes-Adware


Several angry emails have entered my inbox because people installing the newly released Hellgate: London demo have noticed that the game includes adware, advertising that is integrated into software. Here's the pertinent section of the license you have to agree to abide by once Hellgate is installed onto your system:

The Software incorporates technology of Massive Incorporated ("Massive") that enables in-game advertising, and the display of other similar in-game objects, which are uploaded temporarily to your personal computer or game console and replaced during online game play. As part of this process, Massive may collect your Internet protocol address and other basic anonymous information, and will use this information for the general purposes of transmitting and measuring in-game advertising. Massive does not store or use any of this information for the purpose of discovering your personal identity. For additional details regarding Massive’s in-game advertising practices, and to understand your options with respect to in-game advertising and data collection, please see Massive's privacy policy. The trademarks and copyrighted material contained in all in-game advertising are the property of the respective owners. Portions of this product are © 2007 Massive Incorporated. All rights reserved.

Consent to Use of Data. You agree that EA, its affiliates, and each Related Party may collect, use, store and transmit technical and related information that identifies your computer, including without limitation your Internet Protocol address, operating system, application software and peripheral hardware, that may be gathered periodically to facilitate the provision of software updates, dynamically served content, product support and other services to you, including online play. EA and/or the Related Parties may also use this information in the aggregate and, in a form which does not personally identify you, to improve our products and services and we may share that aggregate data with our third party service providers.

For the time being the only adverts are posters on walls in certain areas, though with the adware fully integrated into the game you could soon be beating back Zombie Summoners with the Sword of Soft Drinks, 6-15 Coke splash damage per successful hit. Or perhaps the Gun of Crashing, Vista Edition, as Massive are owned by Microsoft.

What are your thoughts? Should this technology be included with a free demo product? Should it even be included with a game you're paying full price for and then potentially subscribing to for 10 bucks a month? Has EA's money-grabbing gone too far? Let us know via the comments!

Personally... I'm very disappointed. I've been waiting for this game for aaages now, started downloading the demo today, and then stumbled upon this article. All my excitement shattered, download stopped.

/discuss

[graabein]

Interesting topic. I've been reading the comments on the linked page...

I agree with what Kayden3 said on page 5:



Best way I can describe my frustration is that I paid well over $50 for a pc game and if I subscribe to showtime or hbo there are no commercials in the movie nor should there be any in a game you pay through the roof for!

This nickle and diming gamers is really starting to become a very very sore point for me and I will not be purchasing this game because they treat us like second rate citizen's always wanting more but never giving anything back.

I will only support ad based games if THEY relase the game for LITTLE TO NO COST TO ME or any one else, such as free or at the max $10 than it's more than fair for that kind of content to be included though not when I pay $50+ for a game and they are the only ones recieving more money from me to see more crap that doesn't need to be there in the first place!

This should NEVER be included in a demo either!

[original_jamingrit]

Has EA's money-grabbing gone too far?
I lol'd when I read through most of that quote and then realized it was an EA game.

I'm already pretty sure most EA game ever made suck, big time. They love to take popular ideas and turn them into unpopular games. Or take a re-hash of old ideas and DO THEM AGAIN with nothing new about them in particular. Plus they've almost ruined hockey and hunting for me.

So the advert bit doesn't surprise me at all.

[WinterWeaver]

I partially agree with that comment. I say partially, because I dont have too much problems with advertising in games (I had this idea myself once, for creating Free Open Source games).

What I do have problems with, is based on the following:

As part of this process, Massive may collect your Internet protocol address and other basic anonymous information, and will use this information for the general purposes of transmitting and measuring in-game advertising. Massive does not store or use any of this information for the purpose of discovering your personal identity.

and then later they go on to say:

Consent to Use of Data. You agree that EA, its affiliates, and each Related Party may collect, use, store and transmit technical and related information that identifies your computer, including without limitation your Internet Protocol address, operating system, application software and peripheral hardware, that may be gathered periodically to facilitate the provision of software updates, dynamically served content, product support and other services to you, including online play. EA and/or the Related Parties may also use this information in the aggregate and, in a form which does not personally identify you, to improve our products and services and we may share that aggregate data with our third party service providers.

basically, they may collect all our personal info. However they say that they wont use it to identify your personal Identity etc. They also state that they may transmit this information to other parties. What exactly stops this other party from getting our personal identity, where we live etc?

Or am I just overreacting ?

[Wiebelhaus]

Commercial Suicide , Insulting and despicable.

[graabein]

basically, they may collect all our personal info. However they say that they wont use it to identify your personal Identity etc. They also state that they may transmit this information to other parties. What exactly stops this other party from getting our personal identity, where we live etc?

Or am I just overreacting ?

I read that and it worries me also but they say it's common practice for online games to work (combat cheating, customer support, updates etc) so if you get the game you just have to trust them I suppose... I'm not going to buy it anyhow.

I do however play City of Heroes (http://www.cityofheroes.com/) and have been for many months. It's a monthly fee and I'm not quite sure what information is collected and what it is used for so it's definitely something to think about. Guess I'll have to read the EULA.

[ComplexNumber]

advertising within games is the way that things are going, apparently. there will be more and more like that.

[WinterWeaver]

I dont have a problem with advertising in games, so long as it's unobtrusive and not in your face.

One of my friends says that they have a little program that logs the duration that you would look at a add in the game. Dont know if it's true, but it's interesting.

I just dont like that they can take my personal info and just use it anywhere they want. Makes me wonder what else they can do with info like that.

[Lster]

Well I wouldn't of bought. But I definitely won't now!

[argie]

Well, I'm okay with ads that stay in context, so long as there isn't any connection to some random server that then chooses what ads to display. I mean, like some companies play for product placement in movies. So long as it's not too ridiculous, it could be rather nice, realistic sort of.

[eljoeb]

advertising within games is the way that things are going, apparently. there will be more and more like that.

Yes. "Next gen" games are increasingly expensive and something has to pay for it. As gaming has become bigger business, this is the logical extension. It can be done pretty tastefully, in say, a sports game. Battlefield 2142's ads weren't that bad, but I didn't play for very long. Done right, it can increase immersion. At its worst it becomes a sick joke.


Consent to Use of Data. You agree that EA, its affiliates, and each Related Party may collect, use, store and transmit technical and related information that identifies your computer, including without limitation your Internet Protocol address, operating system, application software and peripheral hardware, that may be gathered periodically to facilitate the provision of software updates, dynamically served content, product support and other services to you, including online play. EA and/or the Related Parties may also use this information in the aggregate and, in a form which does not personally identify you, to improve our products and services and we may share that aggregate data with our third party service providers.

They do say that they won't personally identify you when sharing with 3rd parties, so there is that. Some of this information is relevant to game developers. They can see what sort of hardware you are running, so they know what kind of hardware to cater toward in technical requirements. Come to think of it, their other reasons are pretty valid too. I guess I don't think its a big deal. What's MS going to do? I'm sure the video card you're using is pretty incriminating of... something.

[forrestcupp]

Having posters on a 3D wall wouldn't bother me if it is a logical place to put a poster. If game play is interrupted, that is when it becomes unacceptable.

[TeraDyne]

Seeing as the only decent game EA has ever put out is Ty the Tasmanian Tiger, this action doesn't surprise me. They just keep getting bigger, and yet they release nothing but bad games. When they do release a good game though, they ruin it in some way, like with Hellgate.

[FranMichaels]

advertising within games is the way that things are going, apparently. there will be more and more like that.

Will it really take off...
Anyone remember this game?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yo!_Noid

Solid gameplay from Capcom as usual, but serious commercial advertising for the US release. My neighbor had it, fun game, but has any other game had advertising so blatant?

:lolflag:

[maniac_X]

Thank you EA! You just saved me about $50. :)

[TeraDyne]

Will it really take off...
Anyone remember this game?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yo!_Noid

Solid gameplay from Capcom as usual, but serious commercial advertising for the US release. My neighbor had it, fun game, but has any other game had advertising so blatant?

:lolflag:

How about Cool Spot, with the 7up spot? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cool_Spot

[eljoeb]

Seeing as the only decent game EA has ever put out is Ty the Tasmanian Tiger, this action doesn't surprise me. They just keep getting bigger, and yet they release nothing but bad games. When they do release a good game though, they ruin it in some way, like with Hellgate.

The Battlefield series, Alice, their sports games, and last time I checked they had Maxis and Westwood, who lay pretty good claims at making good games.

Just because you don't like them doesn't mean they're bad.

[FranMichaels]

How about Cool Spot, with the 7up spot? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cool_Spot

:)

Well if this becomes some sort of trend again, something tells me "AdBlocker" for games will start appearing, if they haven't already.

:popcorn:

[igknighted]

Seeing as the only decent game EA has ever put out is Ty the Tasmanian Tiger, this action doesn't surprise me. They just keep getting bigger, and yet they release nothing but bad games. When they do release a good game though, they ruin it in some way, like with Hellgate.

It's not out yet, but I've been playing the Crysis demo they released... and it seems like a really good game.

[iPower]

waiting for the ****** adds

[forrestcupp]

Solid gameplay from Capcom as usual, but serious commercial advertising for the US release. My neighbor had it, fun game, but has any other game had advertising so blatant?

:lolflag:

Burger King has recently had some XBox games.

[Paul820]

Everything seems to be getting the microsoft stink....

[TeaSwigger]

Well, I'm okay with ads that stay in context, so long as there isn't any connection to some random server that then chooses what ads to display. I mean, like some companies play for product placement in movies. So long as it's not too ridiculous, it could be rather nice, realistic sort of.

Let's suppose the point of product placement in TV series; if an amount of revenues and interests concern placements or partnerships, might that not lead the productions to make say, a gazillion contemporary urban law/crime shows and make it harder to impossible to get much of anything else created if it doesn't have the abstract revenue potentials, like say a creative sci-fi or historical drama or...

Y'know come to think of it, looking at the TV Guide... ;)

On the other hand, if Brian Henson would (pretty please?) make a wonderful series around the wonderful hit-waiting-to-happen Farscape character Chiana, maybe he can talk turkey for a new trend with Clairol. No nevermind that hair color idea, we'd just get more Jool.

'scuse the Farscape geeking where were we... ah yes. Would I have to pay more for my car if I refused to flash its branding tags everywhere I go? In fact why doesn't the dealer pay me for driving their advertisement plate frames around for them? But then I have a choice. I can remove them. But the Coke in the movie and the Shick Shaver banner on the wall in the game are in there like it or not, like the roadside sign blocking the view and the audible image to attract buyers to commercials blasting from the car I pass...

The good bad and ugly of commercialism dese daze.

[Sunnz]

basically, they may collect all our personal info. However they say that they wont use it to identify your personal Identity etc. They also state that they may transmit this information to other parties. What exactly stops this other party from getting our personal identity, where we live etc?

Or am I just overreacting ?

We really do need 3D support for Virtual Machines now - then you can have Virtual Machines dedicated for games and all the info they'll ever get is your IP address, your games and stuff that's needed for online gaming.

[eljoeb]

Let's suppose the point of product placement in TV series; if an amount of revenues and interests concern placements or partnerships, might that not lead the productions to make say, a gazillion contemporary urban law/crime shows and make it harder to impossible to get much of anything else created if it doesn't have the abstract revenue potentials, like say a creative sci-fi or historical drama or...

Y'know come to think of it, looking at the TV Guide... ;)

On the other hand, if Brian Henson would (pretty please?) make a wonderful series around the wonderful hit-waiting-to-happen Farscape character Chiana, maybe he can talk turkey for a new trend with Clairol. No nevermind that hair color idea, we'd just get more Jool.

'scuse the Farscape geeking where were we... ah yes. Would I have to pay more for my car if I refused to flash its branding tags everywhere I go? In fact why doesn't the dealer pay me for driving their advertisement plate frames around for them? But then I have a choice. I can remove them. But the Coke in the movie and the Shick Shaver banner on the wall in the game are in there like it or not, like the roadside sign blocking the view and the audible image to attract buyers to commercials blasting from the car I pass...

The good bad and ugly of commercialism dese daze.

To a degree. It really only matters if you like big budget games (and isn't that inconsistent with the anti corporate vibe here? Just wondering). Smaller companies haven't been affected by the costs of development because they aren't spending so much time trying to realistically render some character's sweat. Again, most of this has been implemented in sports games, mainly because they sell so well and advertisements fit very well. Last time I checked, we still have other games.

And last time I checked on WineHQ, Hellgate doesn't even work in wine.

To a degree, advertising could work in the consumer's favor. Possibly a massive online game without monthly fees, with updates paid for by advertisements. There are possibilities that aren't evil. The reasons listed in the eula posted above seem harmless enough, and it could be argued that it lets them produce a better product designed to work better for their customers. Which, by the inexplicable interest in getting big budget games working on forums for an "independent" OS, might be what people want.

[suupaabaka]

Ah, the joys of aggressive capitalism.

Philip K. **** mightn't have been too far off the mark...

[argie]

Will it really take off...
Anyone remember this game?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yo!_Noid

Solid gameplay from Capcom as usual, but serious commercial advertising for the US release. My neighbor had it, fun game, but has any other game had advertising so blatant?

:lolflag:

Ah, so he got a noid. That makes sense :)

[ReconIsense]

seeing as this is EA are they doing the same thing in Crysis. As I am considering purchasing it. I usually don't buy EA games.