I've seen a lot of complaints in the last 3 months, specifically about Distribution Platforms. Most of those complaints towards EA and its new Origin Platform.
"EULA: EA will take your data."
"EULA: Steam will watch you while you play."
...blah blah blah
Anyways, I want to point out that the End-User License Agreement is a "firewall" against frivolous and stupid people. See, the thing is, back in 2000, we started getting "sue happy". Someone sued McDonalds for spilling hot coffee [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebeck_v._McDonald's_Restaurants] on themselves. It wasn't even McDonald's fault (the customer had control of the coffee and just was stupid...feigning or not). In prison, Jonathan Lee Riches [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Lee_Riches] has filed over 1000 lawsuits against various people for no reason.
Whether people sue to get money, do it legitimately, or because they are bored, paperwork is filed, lawyers are hired, judges get lined up, and the money of our government is used. It is the "EULA" that protects these larger companies from these frivolous lawsuits, and that is it.
See, the thing is, developers and publishers ultimately want your money. If it is found out that EA is storing your Credit Card numbers in a database without encryption, I guarantee you that, regardless of the EULA's saying of "you can't file class action lawsuits", that a class action lawsuit will happen, and the people will win. An End-User License Agreement, regardless of its saying or intentions, can be broken. It has various clauses that say that "EA has to do this" and "EA has to do that". If they break it, lawyers will see the loopholes and stick 150 Harpoons into that hole and open the gap bigger than the United States Deficit.
In all reality, everyone is doing it. Steam is recording what you purchase, use and tell to other people, then providing it to sources that use that data for social research, advertising companies, and analytic companies. These analytic companies, ironically, figure out what games they should produce based on the actual popularity. Want to know why Gears of War 3 was made? Because they had the tracking to say that X million players played it over Y time.
I'm not saying that you should accept the EULA with a blind eye. In fact, you should be wary of the EULA. Its a scary thing, mixed with various lawyer lingo and loopholes to get as much money they can out of you. If you really want to prevent Origin from watching your computer, check out options to "isolate" Origin (and other programs). Many security companies make programs and environments which "close off" the computer environment to the program itself. These programs don't allow the program to access harddrive space that is outside the scope of the program. These "isolators" only allow the program to access memory and CPU that has been allocated specifically to that program, effectively making it so that it cannot access anything you tell it cannot.
Lastly, Steam, EA, GameStop, GoG and others don't want to piss you off. Ultimately, if you get pissed off enough, you won't purchase their games. If you don't purchase their games, they won't be able to support themselves.
Just chill out, relax, and stop whining. You're making the internet's head hurt.
"EULA: EA will take your data."
"EULA: Steam will watch you while you play."
...blah blah blah
Anyways, I want to point out that the End-User License Agreement is a "firewall" against frivolous and stupid people. See, the thing is, back in 2000, we started getting "sue happy". Someone sued McDonalds for spilling hot coffee [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebeck_v._McDonald's_Restaurants] on themselves. It wasn't even McDonald's fault (the customer had control of the coffee and just was stupid...feigning or not). In prison, Jonathan Lee Riches [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Lee_Riches] has filed over 1000 lawsuits against various people for no reason.
Whether people sue to get money, do it legitimately, or because they are bored, paperwork is filed, lawyers are hired, judges get lined up, and the money of our government is used. It is the "EULA" that protects these larger companies from these frivolous lawsuits, and that is it.
See, the thing is, developers and publishers ultimately want your money. If it is found out that EA is storing your Credit Card numbers in a database without encryption, I guarantee you that, regardless of the EULA's saying of "you can't file class action lawsuits", that a class action lawsuit will happen, and the people will win. An End-User License Agreement, regardless of its saying or intentions, can be broken. It has various clauses that say that "EA has to do this" and "EA has to do that". If they break it, lawyers will see the loopholes and stick 150 Harpoons into that hole and open the gap bigger than the United States Deficit.
In all reality, everyone is doing it. Steam is recording what you purchase, use and tell to other people, then providing it to sources that use that data for social research, advertising companies, and analytic companies. These analytic companies, ironically, figure out what games they should produce based on the actual popularity. Want to know why Gears of War 3 was made? Because they had the tracking to say that X million players played it over Y time.
I'm not saying that you should accept the EULA with a blind eye. In fact, you should be wary of the EULA. Its a scary thing, mixed with various lawyer lingo and loopholes to get as much money they can out of you. If you really want to prevent Origin from watching your computer, check out options to "isolate" Origin (and other programs). Many security companies make programs and environments which "close off" the computer environment to the program itself. These programs don't allow the program to access harddrive space that is outside the scope of the program. These "isolators" only allow the program to access memory and CPU that has been allocated specifically to that program, effectively making it so that it cannot access anything you tell it cannot.
Lastly, Steam, EA, GameStop, GoG and others don't want to piss you off. Ultimately, if you get pissed off enough, you won't purchase their games. If you don't purchase their games, they won't be able to support themselves.
Just chill out, relax, and stop whining. You're making the internet's head hurt.
