EA reputation (bf2142)

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Original post by Riviera Kid Ok there are lots of bugs BUT there work doesnt stop after release, they work on patches indefinitely. They also listen to the forums and all they get in return is whiny kids.

I'd say that everyone that played Ultima Online a few years back (I quit 2003 or so, so dunno after that), would laugh at that statement. EA did nothing but disappoint, not listen and/or mess up both support and relations to their customers.

I'll answer in impropper hiaku:

Ion Storm.
Look at Diakatana.
Where now?

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Original post by Riviera Kid Hi, EA get alot of flack, too many sequals would be there main weakness but alot of what is currently being said about them is nonsense. Having followed bf since 1942 i must say they give the best support i have ever seen. Ok there are lots of bugs BUT there work doesnt stop after release, they work on patches indefinitely. They also listen to the forums and all they get in return is whiny kids. bf2142 add agreement Thier current offense is 'Spyware' which is total BS. The advertising technology only monitors ingame activity - what adds you see, how long, when. This information is useful. read here this is officially how the adware behaves. Apparently this resource isnt trustworthy!! this is all because some gaming website said "it scanned your cookies" which IT DOESNT. It doesnt say that anywhere in the eula. Now if you visit the bf2142 forums you will see hundreds of posts from people saying things like "i'm not buying anything from EA again, they suck, they put spyware in my game and didnt tell, privacy bla bal bla". Plus a 1 day extra wait from EA downloader and being more expensive than some websites they are getting more flack than ever for almost no good reason. Nobody will listen to the facts or reason. I assume once people start installing the game they will shut up. EA claim the advertising is required to pay for servers and patches.

So you're basically saying that you got a job as an EA astroturfer? Congratulations, you'll quickly become widely respected on many internet forums!

Hell, you're basically spouting EA marketing gibberish.
1) EA's support does, for it's BF games, tend to produce lots of patches. Why? Because they also tend to rush the original product to market with very little QA time and /the games are nearly unplayable at launch/. This has been true for '42,Vietnam,and BF2. You can't laud a company for providing support when they are the primary reason a game needs that much support.
2) Part of the problem people have with the 2142 advertising is that it does not appear in the EULA. The only warning about it comes from that slip of paper and nobody to the best of my knowledge knows exactly what it's doing, besides being spyware that most people wouldn't let run if it wasn't required for their game.
3) The problem is not that EA did not /tell/ about this spyware. It's that they thought it was a good idea to install spyware alongside a game, except the spyware continues running even when you are not playing. There is no good reason for a game, an entertainment product, to monitor and report on your browsing habits.
4) Advertising is not needed for servers or patches and if you believe that line, I happen to know an African prince who needs to quickly transfer a million dollars out of his country. '42, Vietnam,and BF2 all managed to have servers without in-game-advertising, and for all three, the source of most servers was the players themselves, not the company.

There, I've argued with reason and facts, now it's your turn to rebut with emotional pleas and angry ad hominems.

There is 2 bad things i see in this. First it's not an option. You have to use it if you want to play. If there was a way, an easy way, via options panel to disable that, it would be better as it leaves the choice to the end user. Second, the software even if not spying cookies, is uploading files to your computer without asking, which is something i really dont want.

On a more legal note, i wonder how this would apply in France since as stated by the law, if a company wants to use data about a consumer, it have to ask for consents first and must offer a way to deny that right without altering the product. In this case it would mean that EA have to give the option to refuse the data collect, still allow the game to be played even if you decided to refuse collecting.

Anyway i havent played any EA games, not cause of the company but because the games are just not appealling. And it seems it will stay that way a long time.

[Edited by - Lenolian on October 18, 2006 6:35:52 AM]

I refuse to pay money for games that have built-in ads. I understand why ads are needed in games that don't charge the end-user anything, but in games that cost 50$ it's unforgivable.

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Original post by DJ14IVI3 I refuse to pay money for games that have built-in ads. I understand why ads are needed in games that don't charge the end-user anything, but in games that cost 50$ it's unforgivable.

Do you buy Movies?

Movies have ads in them... and I don't just mean the previews.

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Original post by DJ14IVI3 I refuse to pay money for games that have built-in ads. I understand why ads are needed in games that don't charge the end-user anything, but in games that cost 50$ it's unforgivable.

Dont be too hasty to dismiss in game advertising, in some games (Im mainly thinking of advertisment billboards in sports games) it can help improve the atmosphere of the game.

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Original post by Run_The_Shadows 4) Advertising is not needed for servers or patches and if you believe that line, I happen to know an African prince who needs to quickly transfer a million dollars out of his country. '42, Vietnam,and BF2 all managed to have servers without in-game-advertising, and for all three, the source of most servers was the players themselves, not the company.

If this was slashdot, I'd rate that as Funny or Insightful. Ah, well.

I'm not quite on the "unstable POS" line with BF2, since for some reason, it's quite stable for me. Sadly, it's constantly crashing or losing connection or creating unexplicable lag for all of my friends, so getting a game going is a bit of a lottery. I also had no problems with getting a replacement copy of 1942 when my retailer seemed to have a whole batch of bad serial numbers. Still, putting ominous pieces of software into an engine that's already running beyond its capabilities is bad. EA sure as hell doesn't need to know about my browsing habits to push more bad 50$-mods on the market.

This crash was brought to you by Dodge. Buy bigger cars.

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Dont be too hasty to dismiss in game advertising, in some games (Im mainly thinking of advertisment billboards in sports games) it can help improve the atmosphere of the game.

I think there is a distinction to be made with respect to in-game advertising. You have the kind you mentioned (billboards in sports games) and DakeDesu alluded to (product placement; the Coke can in the foreground of the scene, et cetera).

Then you have the kind that GameDev itself and most other websites have: ads that sit someplace on the interface and are not part of the actual content provided by that interface.

I agree that the former type can provide an additional boost to immersion. And unless the latter type actually interrupt your gameplay or appear in the corner of your screen during gameplay, or whatever, I don't think they really detract from immersion all that much. I mean, nobody out there actually views game server browsers as an attempt to simulate "reality," right?

I also think there's a distinction between static ads (the Coke can in the movie scene was a pre-arranged deal and will always be a Coke can) and targetted ones. I think it is (in general) the targeting of ads that bothers people, and the extent to which companies (including EA) appear to try and sneak the targeting into their products.

Whether or not its legal, whether or not they monitor this or that or record "personally identifiable" information, people don't like it. And I suppose companies realize this, and figure that trying to slide the feature in under the radar would be better than having a press conference and announcing it very openly, well before release. Of course, it backfires, and either way you end up with a PR fiasco.

The assertion by people trying to push this model is that "well, we need more money to make these top-budget games," which I think smacks equally of stubbornness on the part of the developers and publishers (for allowing themselves to be constrained by the industry's poor business and marketing models and rapidly escalating budgets that result in response), and on the part of consumers for continuing to consume the products that provide the market in which such a model is possible.

What I imagine will happen is that everybody will whine and moan about the EA "spyware" scandal, but sales of the product won't suffer enough as a result; and so the conclusion that can be drawn is that, "Hey, we can do this."

You know, I don't mind information being gathered on me. Read up on Social Engineering, you'd be surprised what you can learn about anybody--even people who try to claim there is no information on them.

My stance... it is easy for people to find out about me, why not be open and honest. I am not taking the stance "I have nothing to hide". I have many deep dark secrets. However, if a piece of spyware can find it out, then I am horrible at keeping it, and it should be released.

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Original post by Riviera Kid Having followed bf since 1942 i must say they give the best support i have ever seen.

Good joke mate.

I bought every BF game and expansion up to now, and while I love the gameplay (when I can actually manage to log on a server), the support is among the worst in the industry. On many occasion, even downloading the (huge) patches can be a feat worth of a tale. The last patch for BF2 totally prevent me and thousands of others from logging into a server, and the issue is not even being acknowledged.

For each game in the series, it has become increasingly difficult (and long!) for me just to log on and play the damned 70$ game. So I say screw BF2142, and I just hope that others studios take the clue about multiplayer shooters.

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Original post by Run_The_Shadows 3) The problem is not that EA did not /tell/ about this spyware. It's that they thought it was a good idea to install spyware alongside a game, except the spyware continues running even when you are not playing. There is no good reason for a game, an entertainment product, to monitor and report on your browsing habits.

did you even read my post?
BF2142 does not monitor your browsing habits (somebody made that up). It is not spyware, its addware. It gives adds to people and uses ingame data to target people. The program which creates the data - uses the data. That isn't spyware. Are tv adverts spyware? NO. Targetted adds are better and that is what the software achieves.

Also, it is in discussion to have the ingame adds as a server option.
They didnt tell anyone about the adds because it isn't an issue. Its less than an issue. Does it say on the back of a dvd "Contains Coca Cola adverts!". No it doesnt.

What does it matter? Release early - patch or release late. Its all the same.

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Original post by Run_The_Shadows 4) Advertising is not needed for servers or patches and if you believe that line, I happen to know an African prince who needs to quickly transfer a million dollars out of his country. '42, Vietnam,and BF2 all managed to have servers without in-game-advertising, and for all three, the source of most servers was the players themselves, not the company.

i quoted EA, i didnt say i believe them.

The bottom line is: IT ISNT SPYWARE. Thats a lie from dodgy sites.

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Original post by Riviera Kid Quote: Original post by Run_The_Shadows 3) The problem is not that EA did not /tell/ about this spyware. It's that they thought it was a good idea to install spyware alongside a game, except the spyware continues running even when you are not playing. There is no good reason for a game, an entertainment product, to monitor and report on your browsing habits. did you even read my post? BF2142 does not monitor your browsing habits (somebody made that up). It is not spyware, its addware. It gives adds to people and uses ingame data to target people. The program which creates the data - uses the data. That isn't spyware. Are tv adverts spyware? NO. Targetted adds are better and that is what the software achieves. Also, it is in discussion to have the ingame adds as a server option. They didnt tell anyone about the adds because it isn't an issue. Its less than an issue. Does it say on the back of a dvd "Contains Coca Cola adverts!". No it doesnt.

Movies also don't contain slips of paper on the inside saying they record your watching habits. Why? Because they don't need to. EA does because they're trying to cover their asses. Obviously they felt that the advertisements were an issue because they placed the warning paper inside the product. And obviously they put the paper on the inside so people can't return the product after they open it.

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It is not spyware, its addware.

It (the term) is adware. "Ad" has one d.

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BF2142 does not monitor your browsing habits (somebody made that up).

While I'm not going to bother trying to argue this one way or another, I'm kind of curious what, exactly, they can collect and use for targeting, other than just your IP. The little slip of paper says it only runs while the Software (presumably previously defined in another agreement) is running, which implies only when the game is running (assuming the definition of the Software covers only the game client itself); there's not much you can do during game play besides play the game, so beyond a users IP, there isn't a whole lot of context with which to target ads.

They track the angle of deflection at which I view, and the time I spend viewing, a particular ad. But all that can reasonably tell them, I would think, is that an ad served to this particular gameworld location is viewed often. You can't make assumptions that just because the ad was on my screen a long time, I must be interested in the product or anything (perhaps the ad is on a billboard, and I'm waiting for an enemy to peek out from behind that billboard so I can place a bullet on his forehead); I mean it should be pretty obvious that the reason one is playing the game is to play the game and not to view the ads, so I don't think it would beneficial to try and correlate time spent viewing an ad with much but whether or not that location is good for ad placement.

Interestingly enough, website ads do IP-based geo-targeting (right now, GameDev has an ad for finding "singles in Odenton," which is near where I am) and don't appear to have nearly the same level of opposition. This, I feel, supports the point that the issue is not what is actually collected so much as the idea of it being collected in secret.

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They didnt tell anyone about the adds because it isn't an issue. Its less than an issue. Does it say on the back of a dvd "Contains Coca Cola adverts!". No it doesnt.

It is an issue, obviously. This is the point I was making -- the Coke ad in a movie is static and was put there as part of a pre-arranged deal. The DVD player didn't notice that I prefer Coke, somehow, and place a Coke label on the can in real-time. That's fine, nobody cares about that kind of advertising (or if they do, they're just being unrealistic). What people care about is the concept of being spied on, regardless of how tame that "spying" actually is. The fact that the alleged "spyware" feature of the game appears to have been kept secret and deliberately difficult to know about only exacerbates the fear of "Big Brother EA" tracking your internet usage.

Enough people have taking issue with it for it to become an issue -- whether or not their specific complaints are valid or just wildly blown-out-proportion paranoia is another. The fact remains that this was not the best way for EA to handle the entire situation.

[Edited by - jpetrie on October 18, 2006 10:56:12 AM]

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Original post by Riviera Kid Quote: Original post by Run_The_Shadows 3) The problem is not that EA did not /tell/ about this spyware. It's that they thought it was a good idea to install spyware alongside a game, except the spyware continues running even when you are not playing. There is no good reason for a game, an entertainment product, to monitor and report on your browsing habits. did you even read my post? BF2142 does not monitor your browsing habits (somebody made that up). It is not spyware, its addware. It gives adds to people and uses ingame data to target people. The program which creates the data - uses the data. That isn't spyware. Are tv adverts spyware? NO. Targetted adds are better and that is what the software achieves. Also, it is in discussion to have the ingame adds as a server option. They didnt tell anyone about the adds because it isn't an issue. Its less than an issue. Does it say on the back of a dvd "Contains Coca Cola adverts!". No it doesnt.

Oh, I feel very terrible for taking such a harsh tone with you. I realize now that you aren't arguing out of a misplaced love, but rather out of sheer ignorance of the topics at hand. Thus, I suppose you cannot be held accountable for the thing that you write. My apologies, let me try and educate you.

You see, there are various terms for third-party software. You have "adware" which is generally ad-supported software. Generally this means that the software ships with ads or streams them from a server /while that application is in operation/ and generally it's a one-way system. You get ads somewhat randomly based on the feed. This is much like banner ads on many sites or, to stretch the metaphor, product placement in movies. You go see a movie and you have /no control/ over what product you see, nor do the film producers place it there /for you/.
Spyware is similar and often symbiotic with adware. The difference is that it is 'targetted'. This implies that the application monitors your computer in some form or another and transmits this information back to the parent company. This is spying, thus, 'spyware'. In the case of BF2142 the very image that you posted explicitly says

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..the Advertising Technology may record your Internet Protocol address and other anonymous information...

This implies, as does the last bolded section, that this software is monitoring your computer in unknown and undisclosed ways. Not only is it monitoring and recording, but it's shipping this information(who knows what that may be) back to IGA or EA so that they can give you targetted ads.

I hope this has cleared up your prior confusion about 'spyware' and 'adware' and made the significance of this problem much more apparent to you. If you have any further problems or misconceptions that arise, I'm happy to help clear things up for you.

Oh good. Thank you Run_the_shadows for explaining that. With all the BS going back and forth on the internet these days its hard to get a good grasp on what is going on in man isuess. Thanks for clearly explaining it(and after reading the slip in the image again) I finally understand. There is no way in hell I am buying that game. Hell, I'm not even a big fan on the engine they are using.I like the gameplay, but when I am playing the BF2 and the BF2142 demo it just seems skippy and wierd when running, jumping, and whatever. Seems too mechanical almost... hard for me to describe.

Anyway, maybe someone will adopt the gameplay on a different engine(HL2's Source engine would be cool.. Don't know if it could handle those huge maps well though). If the gameplay is carried over to a different engine and someother company that isn't packaging the software with spyware I would definately check it out.

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Original post by Riviera Kid did you even read my post? BF2142 does not monitor your browsing habits (somebody made that up). It is not spyware, its addware. It gives adds to people and uses ingame data to target people. The program which creates the data - uses the data. That isn't spyware. Are tv adverts spyware? NO. Targetted adds are better and that is what the software achieves.

Sorry, you misrepresent what the software does. It may not monitor what you are doing while surfing the web, but it most certainly does monitor what you are doing in the game. It does not simply use that information on your PC to select what ads are displayed. Rather it sends that information to a server which makes it spyware. It's a very simple concept, if it collects information on the contents/configuration of your PC or your usage of your computer and transmits that data to some other computer without your explicit permission then it's spyware.

No one collects data on a massive scale without some reason they believe makes it worth the expense. It is not enough to simply have a use for the data. Here all they needed do was provide the user the ability to opt out of it. A little check box on the install dialog and an option in the game to turn it on or off. Have it on by default, provide an extra for enabling it and they would have all the information they have any real usage for. How they did it was a big FU to their customers. We don't care how you feel about it, if you want to play our game you have to accept it.

It is a big issue to me. Going forward EA is no longer a company from which I will buy games. When and how much I play their game is none of their damn business. I don't care how much money they can make off of my gaming habits. If they want to pay me for that information then I might consider it. I might even give it to them for free if they simply asked for it. Since they want to say if you want to play our game then you have to give us this information so we can sell it my response is a big FU in return. I may have to in order to play their game, but I certainly don't have to play their game by any stretch of the imagination. It's no big loss to me since I can't even remember the last time they managed to produce a game I thought was worth playing. Should this idea catch on and spread throughout the industry then I'll just quit gaming and that will be no big loss to me either.

I think this is being blown way out of proportion (blogs? no!).

Joystiq had some clarification on this earlier today:

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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.

So, surfing the web (even with ad-blocking software) reveals far more data about your machine than does playing BF2142. In other words, everyone reading this thread gave GameDev.Net (and if you clicked the Joystiq link, them as well) more info than you hand over to IGA (via EA).

To summarize: you give them your IP address for regional-advertising (which I find entirely reasonable), and they report impression data (how long a given ad is onscreen) (again, very reasonable). There is absolutely no privacy impact whatsoever.

I believe the reason EA included the sheet of paper inside the box was not for the nefarious reason that "they knew they were doing something bad" or they "didn't what people to know until after they purchased the game and opened it." The reason is that in the sue-happy US, large corporations like EA have to go above and beyond to cover their ass to avoid being bled dry by pedantic consumers. Kinda like car commercials telling me that I can't really drive my car across the ocean or up the side of a building... because, you know, if they didn't, I'd be trying it then suing their asses when I wrecked my Dodge.

Of course, I really don't like the idea of in-game advertising like this, particularly for a commercial title I've paid for. I'm fine with product placement, and I realize that some see this as just a more "advanced" form of that, but it's not really the same. Product placement is (or should) be the branding that would *naturally* exist in a given setting, i.e. the guy in the sitcom would probably be drinking a Diet Coke, not a non-brand "soda." But when it comes to billboards... well, I don't like billboards in *real* life (but I do like Diet Coke!), so why would I want to put up with them in my *fake* life?

I do allow for the exception of free games that support themselves with advertising (in-game or not), along the lines of traditional advertising (TV networks, magazines, newspapers, websites).

But let's dispense with the EA bashing. Bad PR move? Sure, they should have made it optional and very apparent during installation (or first run). Evil? No. Privacy-invading? No. Worth boycotting? No. Deceptive? No.

Of course, as Joystiq pointed out, they announced they were going to do this months ago, but for some reason it was a surprise to all those "editors" on those blogs!

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I think this is being blown way out of proportion (blogs? no!).

Oh, definately. The proliferation of bogus news, misinformation and FUD by way of blogs and "news-blogs" is astounding. It's probably grown with (at least) the square of the number of such sites in existence.

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To summarize: you give them your IP address for regional-advertising (which I find entirely reasonable), and they report impression data (how long a given ad is onscreen) (again, very reasonable). There is absolutely no privacy impact whatsoever.

I'm still interested in what they think the impression data tells them, though (not because I think its a privacy violation -- I don't, nor do I really care since the demo turned me off to a purchase anyway). Can anybody with marketing or advertising experience here comment? What kinds of correlation can you make based on the amount of time an ad is onscreen (because that doesn't mean I'm neccessarily looking at, or paying attention to, it -- see my previous note about waiting while sniping, or something)? Or is it purely so that EA can throw some numbers back to IGA or whomever to say "this is how long our players spend looking at ads for your nifty products?"