KLEI profits?!

[stan]

Why does a single player game need to collect my data and share(sell) it with "other" parties.

[admos]

What are you talking about? Could you be more concise?

[stan]

Look at the new terms of service and data sharing policy . Not sure if it is really new policy but its the first I've seen it and it screams google

[mreed2]

<sigh>

First, if you are referring to the privacy policy, found here (and linked in the EULA): https://www.klei.com/privacy-policy, note that this applies to more than just Oxygen Not Included -- in particular, it includes the forums, mailing lists, and similar functionality that Klei may have. It makes more sense that Klei would want to share information with third parties (whether for profit or not) in those cases.

If you are referring to the EULA of this game, the relevant section is:

- Privacy. We respect your privacy and only collect, use and disclose your personal information as described in our Privacy Policy https://www.klei.com/privacy-policy and in this Agreement. Klei may collect metrics regarding your use of the Game, including how long and how often you play the Game. Klei has used reasonable efforts to make this information anonymous (in other words, Klei has tried to exclude information that identifies you personally). You can turn off metrics reporting within the Game if you wish.

Which is just marginally more than "We have achievements, which require sharing gameplay information with Steam / ourselves, so..."

The <sigh> is because these threads are highly absurd. There are two scenarios:

If a company is "Evil", then they will collect and redistribute all kinds of data from your computer, regardless of what the EULA says. After all, that's what "Evil" means, right? And the binary code that the computer uses to execute the game doesn't care what the EULA says. In theory, you might be able to sue the company that violated the EULA, but... "Evil", again. If you can find the people who actually are profiting from their Evil use of your personal data (good luck), its highly unlikely that you'll be suing them for "violation of the terms of the EULA". There are a wide range of laws that they violated, all of which have much firmer grounding than an EULA violation.

On the other hand, if the company isn't Evil, then... Well, regardless of what the EULA says, they aren't likely to do anything to absurd. After all, their brand is more important than any short term profits that might be realized from selling off personal information.

In short, if you believe companies are Evil, then the EULA won't save you, and if you believe that companies aren't Evil, then the EULA is irrelevant. So... What's the point of freaking out over a EULA?

[admos]

Originally posted by stan:

Look at the new terms of service and data sharing policy . Not sure if it is really new policy but its the first I've seen it and it screams google

Could you show us exactly what you're talking about so we have more to go on?

Is it what was linked by the above user?

[AlexMBrennan]

Why does a single player game need to collect my data

Same reason other companies do focus testing: your investors will get angry if you waste their money on features no one cares about.

[The Tempted Man]

Your data is being collected everyday against your will, so why give Klei a hard time?

[SailaNamai]

Originally posted by mreed2:

Which is just marginally more than "We have achievements, which require sharing gameplay information with Steam / ourselves, so..."

<sigh> This is just false.

Anyway, since almost nobody cares about data protection or privacy it is, in general, always up to oneself to implement measures to protect said data. Blacklist their servers, block their application from accessing the net, reject any agreement you can and look for open source/paid alternatives and so forth.

However gaining any decent measure of control over your data requires real effort, sometimes sacrifice and technical know how most people don't and never will posses.

[Corona Varus]

Originally posted by stan:

Why does a single player game need to collect my data and share(sell) it with "other" parties.

Because Oxygen not Included dies after even after updates, because people already know how the game works. It's like Roller Coaster Tycoon, and other Tycoon Games. If you finished everything, the game becomes pointless until you find something new and play that instead.

I guess googled offered them more money on what they couldn't resist. There should be a law about companies using you as a test subject and using your daily activities; data collectors shouldn't block your access to a purchased product if you declined the terms and agree to collect your data. There should be a law for that too.


Also, I never knew Tencent starts buying every game in Steam and thought Google starts offering bigger money for every data collected from companies which they already did. No one discussed it first and it's pretty much their fault.

[View The Phenom]

Originally posted by admos:

Originally posted by stan:

Look at the new terms of service and data sharing policy . Not sure if it is really new policy but its the first I've seen it and it screams google

Could you show us exactly what you're talking about so we have more to go on?

Is it what was linked by the above user?

Not going to happen, these sorts of threads are always alarmist without any sort of meaningful evidence.

I suggest reading EULA yourself and forming your own conclusions.

[View The Phenom]

Originally posted by Corona Varus:

Originally posted by stan:

Why does a single player game need to collect my data and share(sell) it with "other" parties.

Because Oxygen not Included dies after even after updates, because people already know how the game works. It's like Roller Coaster Tycoon, and other Tycoon Games. If you finished everything, the game becomes pointless until you find something new and play that instead.

I guess googled offered them more money on what they couldn't resist. There should be a law about companies using you as a test subject and using your daily activities; data collectors shouldn't block your access to a purchased product if you declined the terms and agree to collect your data. There should be a law for that too.

There should also be a law that people use common sense and basic investigative techniques before making unfounded claims based on things they know nothing about. But, that's probably asking too much.

[mreed2]

Originally posted by SailaNamai:

Originally posted by mreed2:

Which is just marginally more than "We have achievements, which require sharing gameplay information with Steam / ourselves, so..."

<sigh> This is just false.

Anyway, since almost nobody cares about data protection or privacy it is, in general, always up to oneself to implement measures to protect said data. Blacklist their servers, block their application from accessing the net, reject any agreement you can and look for open source/paid alternatives and so forth.

However gaining any decent measure of control over your data requires real effort, sometimes sacrifice and technical know how most people don't and never will posses.

True!

By all means, setup your router to block outgoing connections, install software (ooops, I'm sorry, write your own software, as even open source software is suspect unless you have examined the source code to determine what the software does) to monitor outgoing packets, refuse to install any software on Steam (you have read the Steam subscriber agreement, right?), only run software from the internet in a virtual machine that has its network adapter disabled, and so forth.

My objection isn't to people worrying about their privacy -- my objection is to people expecting their privacy to be protected by an EULA. Even if a company violated a EULA, the only possible consequence would be if you filed a lawsuit -- and that's assuming that your EULA doesn't require you to go to binding arbitration, which almost always decides in favor of corporate interests.

If you install software from a third party, then the people who developed that software can violate your privacy in anyway that they choose.

An EULA won't protect your privacy -- if you are truly concerned about your privacy, you need to take active steps to make it impossible for third parties to violate your privacy.

Alternatively, you can push for laws to make it illegal to collect certain information in certain ways. This, at least, puts the burden on punishing violations on someone who has the time, skills, and ability.

[Aargh Tenna]

In seemingly unrelated news, lets not forget that KLEI is now owned by Tencent. Which is Chinese company. As we all (hopefully) know, Chinese companies are paragons of virtue and guardians of privacy of peoples worldwide.

[Alucard †]

Originally posted by Aargh Tenna:

In seemingly unrelated news, lets not forget that KLEI is now owned by Tencent. Which is Chinese company. As we all (hopefully) know, Chinese companies are paragons of virtue and guardians of privacy of peoples worldwide.

Yea it's not like this wasn't already talked about to death on both DST and ONI forums..

[Corona Varus]

Originally posted by ⎛ Alucard ⎞ ✟:

Originally posted by Aargh Tenna:

In seemingly unrelated news, lets not forget that KLEI is now owned by Tencent. Which is Chinese company. As we all (hopefully) know, Chinese companies are paragons of virtue and guardians of privacy of peoples worldwide.

Yea it's not like this wasn't already talked about to death on both DST and ONI forums..

I wonder how Tencent convince Game Companies to sell their assets to Tencent?
"Tencent is legally obligated to share their data with the Chinese government. Google is just a private company that only speaks for itself, ..."
blablabla, almost the entire world that has access to websites can collect your data, even your browser history.

[fradow]

If you are worried about what data is being collected, decompile the game and look at the source.

Spoiler alert: Oxygen Not Included collect VERY LITTLE data unless you actively send it (during a crash report). Someone already went through it on Discord, (edited a bit for clarity):

"platform id (so steam id), platform, hardware stats (the ones displayed at the top of logs), time of session start, some kind of session counter, how long the session was, player level which is null for ONI (they probably reused the code in other games). Starting a new game triggers to send those with information that a new game was started.
Aaaand thats pretty much it.

So they do know what hardware people have and how often and for how long people play their games.

It also sends information if the session ended because of a game crash.
i guess they can have some sort of comparison what hardware crashes more often, but i dont see any mod list being sent so i dont see how thats useful to them
i guess they can gauge whats their target playerbase"