Security Concerns FAQ

[Mailuki]

Security Concerns

We have noticed that many of you have shown concerns over some security issues brought up by one of the players, and we'd like to address those here for all of you to see.


WHY WE'RE GATHERING ANY DATA AT ALL

Let me start by saying this, which is probably the most important thing - all the data we're gathering are anonymous and are gathered for two purposes only:

* to evaluate if/to what degree some of our marketing campaigns work
* to get data on how the game is played and how it can be improved

Also, the important thing to understand is that since we are based in EU, we're bound by EU legislature which is very strict when it comes to acquiring and handling any kind of data from users.

WHAT IS SENT / WHERE IS IT SENT

When looking at where data are sent, you'll notice these:

Treasure Data

This is the storage for the game data that we use. This helps us analyze what players do - so, for example, we can see what percentage of players use the game Editor, which game is the most popular and which is the least one, what is the most common cause of death of your characters. Knowing this is extremely important to us because it allows us to tweak and improve the game, to find weak spots and things that we designed poorly. Eventually, we'd like to send this directly to our servers, but it's difficult to say when this is going to happen.

The fact that this is a major help for us in improving the game is the reason why "GATHER ANONYMOUS DATA" is turned on by default. To be completely honest - if it were opt-in, most people would simply overlook it or ignore it because many are not aware of how incredibly important this is to make the game better. Please note that many games are sending the same data we are but most don't give you the option to turn it off at all.

Redshell
[UPDATE: Redshell plugin has been removed as a part of a recent patch]

This is a commonly used service that lets us (based on anonymized user footprint) see if those who bought the game came to the Steam store from some link below a Youtube video, from Facebook campaigns etc. It helps us see which marketing campaigns worked and which didn't - no game data are sent there at all.


Once again - both Treasure Data and Redshell are solutions used by many developers and games (you can google them, if you wish). In both cases, all the data are anonymous and are sent to servers that only we can access.


WHAT WE PLAN TO CHANGE / WHAT WILL STAY

Because Redshell can't be simply turned on and off as the game analytics can and players seem to object to having it active, we decided to remove it from the game altogether. This was a very difficult decision. It will leave us basically blind when it comes to evaluation of any future marketing campaigns and make things much more difficult in this aspect - but even though, as I said before, this is a service used by many other games, we want you to feel comfortable and safe while playing our game.

On the other hand, we decided to leave game analytics gathering as opt-out because of the reasons I wrote above. For a game like ours to have a clear idea what works, what needs to be improved, what is popular or what features players haven't even found in the game is so important that we're leaving the settings as they are right now.

Yes, it means that when you run the game for the first time some data (anonymous statical data) will be sent even before you'll get the chance to turn this off. If for some of you this is unacceptable we'll be sorry to see you go but refunding the game will probably be the right choice for you.



WEBSITE

There have also been concerns about what our website collects. We took a look at it and you're right that it can probably be made better / some feature can even be turned off altogether. We'll go over it more thoroughly as soon as possible and make some changes.


Let me end by saying this: there's nothing shady going on in our game nor our website. We, Bohemia Interactive, have been around for many years now, have made games played by millions of players and how we behave towards them can be easily found. We've always tried to stay as transparent as possible. That being said, we do mistakes from time to time, and when we do, we don't hide behind some generic posts - you've probably noticed that we're trying to communicate with you as much as possible (and those talking to you are actual devs) - we're talking to you about how to make things right. If there's more we can do, just let us know.

Thank you.

[Kelz]

Thank you for addressing this.

[Juansaba]

Well, thanks for communicating with us, thats a step to the right direction

[Kelz]

Originally posted by JPSallaberry:

Well, thanks for communicating with us, thats a step to the right direction

They are doing a great job at that. I havent seen devs communicating like this...... ever?

[Brodaty]

Aaaaand?
We don't have option to disable such tracking if we don't accept such thing.

Sorry guys. You lost everything for me. Evry, even small piece of trust or respect for the player.

[Maple]

Thanks for explaining the situation, it was a concern considering the highest rated review.

I understand data gathering is important, to be honest it's not really the type of data being gathered, I don't really care what you track anonymously but not having a choice to disable that tracking was a concern, I'm glad to see that was addressed. Trust restored.

[Maple]

Originally posted by Brodaty:

Aaaaand?
We don't have option to disable such tracking if we don't accept such thing.

Sorry guys. You lost everything for me. Evry, even small piece of trust or respect for the player.

How about you read the post first?

Originally posted by Mailuki:

Because Redshell can't be simply turned on and off as the game analytics can and players seem to object to having it active, we decided to remove it from the game altogether.

[Kelz]

Originally posted by Brodaty:

Aaaaand?
We don't have option to disable such tracking if we don't accept such thing.

Sorry guys. You lost everything for me. Evry, even small piece of trust or respect for the player.

They are removing Redshell, thats the one you CANT turn off.

Treasure Data is the one u can opt-out of.

So all in all... they can be turned off now after once u load the game and some data slips thru. By than they have it so whats the point of opting-out. They got mine already so w/e not like i can take it back lol. Im not gonna sweat it. Nothing i can do about it now.

Plus its only for the purpose of making the game better and as long as my idenity doesnt get stolen, Im all for helping develop a amazing game, thats why im here paying for EA still after all the issues with EA. I just wish i was told first and had chance to decide to buy the game or not, i guess this is where everyone feels they got the short end of the stick.

[ranzar]

Originally posted by Mailuki:

It will leave us basically blind when it comes to evaluation of any future marketing campaigns and make things much more difficult in this aspect

Like ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ every other 99% games out there maybe? I don't know, you could read feedback instead of trying to spy the final user?

[Kelz]

Originally posted by Mailuki:

It will leave us basically blind when it comes to evaluation of any future marketing campaigns and make things much more difficult in this aspect

If u wanna know how i found out about this game. I seen GiantWaffle playing it on twitch, i watched for a hour, I looked it up on steam and bought it. Thats pretty much majority of how i buy games now-days. I watch twitch streamers play games, and i realise its good and just get it lol.

[✔️ TrueDeviL™]

Funny, people complaining about this stuff, and most Win10 users have no idea everything they do on thier PC is sent back to Micro$oft..

[DanteYoda]

While now you come out transparently? Why not have this in the store page when the game was released.. And yes now you are "fixing" these issues but taking data from us without our permission and keeping it secret is the very definition of Spyware...

Yes it might be safe (this time) but its still not good.. Glad i never purchased this and i hope this isn't the damn future of gaming.. So sick of this meta data ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥..

Originally posted by ✔️ TrueDeviL™:

Funny, people complaining about this stuff, and most Win10 users have no idea everything they do on thier PC is sent back to Micro$oft..

Why i'm still using Win 7 yes this garbage is everywhere these days it needs to be illegal..

[Rzep]

Originally posted by DanteYoda:

While now you come out transparently? Why not have this in the store page when the game was released.. And yes now you are "fixing" these issues but taking data from us without our permission and keeping it secret is the very definition of Spyware...

Yes it might be safe (this time) but its still not good.. Glad i never purchased this and i hope this isn't the damn future of gaming.. So sick of this meta data ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥..

Originally posted by ✔️ TrueDeviL™:

Funny, people complaining about this stuff, and most Win10 users have no idea everything they do on thier PC is sent back to Micro$oft..

Why i'm still using Win 7 yes this garbage is everywhere these days it needs to be illegal..

If your Win 7 is up to date then it is also gathering information just like Win 10 =) So the only solution is to go back to Xp.

[DanteYoda]

Originally posted by Rzep:

Originally posted by DanteYoda:

While now you come out transparently? Why not have this in the store page when the game was released.. And yes now you are "fixing" these issues but taking data from us without our permission and keeping it secret is the very definition of Spyware...

Yes it might be safe (this time) but its still not good.. Glad i never purchased this and i hope this isn't the damn future of gaming.. So sick of this meta data ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥..

Why i'm still using Win 7 yes this garbage is everywhere these days it needs to be illegal..

If your Win 7 is up to date then it is also gathering information just like Win 10 =) So the only solution is to go back to Xp.

Yes and no i've not added the meta data patches, i make sure to check which ones i update to. Partially why i never updated to Win 10 as all the update now crap also never got installed.

[Siccaxe]

Originally posted by Mailuki:

Because Redshell can't be simply turned on and off as the game analytics can and players seem to object to having it active, we decided to remove it from the game altogether. This was a very difficult decision. It will leave us basically blind when it comes to evaluation of any future marketing campaigns and make things much more difficult in this aspect - but even though, as I said before, this is a service used by many other games, we want you to feel comfortable and safe while playing our game.

This sucks, it's insanely important to build a userbase for these types of games. Without this data, I'd guess a lot of advertising dollars will be wasted or not spent at all, leaving the community stagnant.

Thanks for the info, sorry people are paranoid and crazy.

[DanteYoda]

Originally posted by Siccaxe:

Originally posted by Mailuki:

Because Redshell can't be simply turned on and off as the game analytics can and players seem to object to having it active, we decided to remove it from the game altogether. This was a very difficult decision. It will leave us basically blind when it comes to evaluation of any future marketing campaigns and make things much more difficult in this aspect - but even though, as I said before, this is a service used by many other games, we want you to feel comfortable and safe while playing our game.

This sucks, it's insanely important to build a userbase for these types of games. Without this data, I'd guess a lot of advertising dollars will be wasted or not spent at all, leaving the community stagnant.

Thanks for the info, sorry people are paranoid and crazy.

Can't you blame us, if these companies did things honestly there would be far less paranoia.