Red Shell Integration REMOVED in v1.1.3

[Daylight Studios]

Dear Spudlings

Thank for your feedback here! We have updated the game to remove Red Shell due to the complaints received from you.

We might integrate it more properly in the future with an 'opt-in' approach rather than opt-out so you don't have to go through the hassle of opting it out yourself.

However, please feel free to let us know of any other approaches you think are better.

While we have made the decision to remove it, for now, we will also like to clarify some of the notions about it:

- Red Shell does not have anything to do with showings ads inside the game. We don't show ads inside the game and we never will as it is a premium title.

- Red Shell only tracks if someone bought a game through a link we posted, say on Facebook or Youtube or somewhere. For players who already have the game, it does not affect them. The way it works, from our understanding, is as follows:

1. Someone clicks a link on Facebook that directs them to our Steam page. When they click the link a cookie is stored in your computer with a unique id which is a one-way hash of your IP which means there is no way to decrypt it.
2. The above person ends up buying the game and playing it. The first time the game starts, it generates the id again and compares it against the cookie saved in the browser.
3. If the ids match, it lets Red Shell know that someone bought the game through the link. It is just a number that gets added to the campaign data. There is NO personal information at all or anything regarding the behaviour of the player.

- Red Shell is an analytics tool like Google Analytics, which is very commonly used to understand the behavior of users on a website; for instance, what links they are clicking, whether they bought something, which countries are most users coming from etc. In fact, Red Shell does only a tiny bit of what Google Analytics does on websites.

- Analytics are used by almost every company to understand how people are using a game, a platform, a website etc. Steam itself uses analytics heavily to determine, for example, what games to show you. Without analytical data, it will be very hard to optimize any sort of software and result in poor user experience and wastage of resources.

- Red Shell solves a key problem that we have. With the increasing numbers of games that are being released on Steam, it is not easy for us to get visibility. The other way to get visibility is through marketing our game outside of Steam, like through social media, Facebook, Youtube, Google etc. If we market our game outside of Steam, we need to know if it works since we are spending time, money and resources to do it. Ultimately, what we need to know is if people are buying the game as a result of our marketing activity or ad campaign so we know our resources are utilized effectively. There no way to know that by default on Steam (unlike Apple App Store and Google Play which provide this feature). Red Shell solves this problem by letting us know if people bought the game through our social media post or an ad campaign. If, for example, we are not getting enough sales through an ad (determined through Red Shell) we will decide to try a different kind of ad instead.

Please understand that we are determined to always improve the experience of players in our games. But at the same time also need to get more players to check out our games. And there are not many ways to do it effectively without knowing if our strategies are working or not.

Thank you again for the feedback and if you have any questions, do ask here! We will also love to hear if you have any ideas on how we should approach integrating any such tools in the future in a way that's acceptable.

Best Regards
Daylight Studios Team

[nicki]

and if seriuos, about what effective strategies you are talking about if you post 1link on facebook, 2links on twitter and gave 3steam keys to some shady youtubers (who immediately just resell them even without reviewing a game) and then you put your game in a dirty bundle and now you want to know - from where those remaining +-5 legit customers got your game So i really don't understand what you want to analyze here in what campaign you invest money..... if no one playing this crap (current players online ~20) Better start thinking how to create a good games and not about some stupid strategies as i will tell you only thing - I did got any game from social media advertising/links simply because i don't use social media (espessialy for buying games/or to listen some ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ to recommend me something there).

[Wok]

Thanks for the clarification.

[MIK0]

It's really a shame. You were legit developers making nice indie games and you ruined your reputation for something that meaningless. What made you think it was fine to install unwanted software on your customers computer without them knowing.
The phrase Please understand that we are determined to always improve the experience of players in our games. But at the same time also need to get more players to check out our games. And there are not many ways to do it effectively without knowing if our strategies are working or not. sounds so fake now. How someone that claims to do something for their customer, employ such a strategy. I can assure you, your strategies are not working for this very reason. If you think your business is more important than your customers, then you don't deserve a business.
Now you'll be known as Daylight Studios the anticonsumer company instead of a developer, and that's is well earned. It's a miracle that Valve haven't banned you.

I'll be wary of you and your product in the future as you showed that you cannot be trusted.

[edgarust]

Im 85% sure that the very act of putting redshell(with or without consent) into games is violating privacy laws in my country. It could also fall under espionage by hostile foreign entity. Given what US is doing around the world I wouldnt be surprised.

[HonoredShadow]

16 Studios Removing Alleged Spyware (Red Shell) From PC Games After Fan Outcry:

http://www.kotaku.co.uk/2018/06/19/16-studios-removing-alleged-spyware-from-pc-games-after-fan-outcry

[chook]

Here is an idea on better implementation:

DON'T USE IT.

Spying pieces of ♥♥♥♥ stealing data.

[LoftyBunny]

Hmm...Windows 10 sends far more data back home than this does by all accounts. Virus scanners and also anti-cheat utilities bundled with many games (also Steam's VAC AFAIK) have privileged access to your entire computer and can get hold of any data held in memory or on disk (if they wanted to). I wonder how many of the knee-jerk reactions here are from people who actually know how much data they're already blindly giving companies access to. There's nothing whatsoever stopping games individually sending back analytics anyway without using third-party software. If it's mentioned in the EULA I doubt they're doing anything illegal.

Having said that, accessing browser cookies directly is a bit of a concern - when you visit a website it's not normally able to read cookies from other sites and theroetically that could be abused.

[StarKiller]

LoftyBunny a écrit :

Hmm...Windows 10 sends far more data back home than this does by all accounts. Virus scanners and also anti-cheat utilities bundled with many games (also Steam's VAC AFAIK) have privileged access to your entire computer and can get hold of any data held in memory or on disk (if they wanted to). I wonder how many of the knee-jerk reactions here are from people who actually know how much data they're already blindly giving companies access to. There's nothing whatsoever stopping games individually sending back analytics anyway without using third-party software. If it's mentioned in the EULA I doubt they're doing anything illegal.

Having said that, accessing browser cookies directly is a bit of a concern - when you visit a website it's not normally able to read cookies from other sites and theroetically that could be abused.

Even if every other company is doing this, does that make it right?I mean if one person breaks into my house and robs me does that mean anyone else is justified to do the same? Also just because something isn't illegal, doesn't mean it's right or that anyone doing thesaid actions should be excused from blame for doing so.

Yes, anti-consumer practices are not rare in the field of computer software, companies have long known they can abuse their customer base and have only a slim chance of ever being busted for it, and since these companies tend to view their customer base of stupid sheep waiting to be sheered it doesn't surprise me when things like this come out, but it also doesn't stop me from calling out those using these tactics against their own consumers.

We constantly hear how the purchase price of games isn't high enough, which is why they need paid dlc, loot boxes, pushing in game stores, branding deals with various companies, with no mention of this revenue stream. I've got no problem with greed, but Jesus people, let's try and keep it to sane levels shall we?

[LoftyBunny]

Not saying it's right. Just think that in the big-bad-world of analytics, you lose much more by:
- Using an MS operating system
- Using any social media application
- Just browsing the web with JS/cookies enabled (check how many pages have Facebook scripts running, it's insane)
- Using a credit card

If we give this company the benefit of the doubt that they're just collecting anonymised info related to specific games - ethically maybe there's a degree of wrongdoing there but practically speaking? There's a lot worse that goes on, so I wouldn't lose sleep over it. I do think there should be a EULA *specific* to this Red-Shell software library that users have to accept (don't know if there was or not) - the (more intrusive) anti-cheat systems do at least present such a EULA (I won't play Fortnite because of this but giving admin-level access to a piece of background software running all the time is quite a big deal).

If all is above-board then compared to Google and Facebook this is nothing. If the people who are upset here are all Libertarian Linux users who greatly value their privacy, don't use social media, etc, then fair enough, but otherwise I do kinda think this is a bit of a 'storm in a teacup' in relative terms.

Edit: I hope anyone worried about privacy intrusions avoids VAC protected games btw:

"In February 2014, rumors spread that the system was monitoring websites users had visited by accessing their DNS cache. Gabe Newell responded via Reddit, clarifying that the purpose of the check was to act as a secondary counter-measure to detect kernel level cheats, and that it affected one tenth of one percent of clients checked which resulted in 570 bans."

[HonoredShadow]

https://youtu.be/wF-umETMsSg

Sid alpha discusses red shell

[Ken]

Hi Devs, just wanted to let you know that if you put this poison back in your game, no pretty words or explanations are gonna be enough to make people happy. I give you the benefit of the doubt the first time, but if you poison my drink again then you do not deserve forgiveness or redemption.

This is not a bad game, but it is also not the greatest game ever made. You got paid by the people who bought it, and I dunno why you would think it would be ok to harvest and sell my personal information to make more, but I have no respect for that decision or anyone who would even consider stealing my personal info and selling it to be something ok.

If I bought a box of Cheerios and found a dead scorpion inside I would blame the STORE, not general mills................

Please do better.

[Desperado]

Was about to buy the game but this made me think twice.
Just like ken says what if she poison your drink on the first date...
Would you still go for a second time, after waking up in the hospital just escaped dead?
Everyone so hes own thing but I wouldn't.

It is just the same cheap sht as from facebook...

[Desperado]

LoftyBunny a écrit :

Not saying it's right. Just think that in the big-bad-world of analytics, you lose much more by:
- Using an MS operating system
- Using any social media application
- Just browsing the web with JS/cookies enabled (check how many pages have Facebook scripts running, it's insane)
- Using a credit card
...

The big problem we got here is that they force it upon us and that even without saying.
You should watch the video 2 comments above mine, it explains it verry well.
It is not so much about them tracking x data but the fact red shell sells it.
That together with no opt-in or opt-out it seems like facebook all over again true that.
But while we can avoid using credit cards and social media this we can't if we play the game.
Instead of asking us if we ok with them gathering x data which would already change the whole landscape. Still it doesn't take away that RED SHELL is the worst of them all...

[RavensDaemon]

Ken a écrit :

Hi Devs, just wanted to let you know that if you put this poison back in your game, no pretty words or explanations are gonna be enough to make people happy. I give you the benefit of the doubt the first time, but if you poison my drink again then you do not deserve forgiveness or redemption.

This is not a bad game, but it is also not the greatest game ever made. You got paid by the people who bought it, and I dunno why you would think it would be ok to harvest and sell my personal information to make more, but I have no respect for that decision or anyone who would even consider stealing my personal info and selling it to be something ok.

If I bought a box of Cheerios and found a dead scorpion inside I would blame the STORE, not general mills................

Please do better.

That's just stupid. If you found a dead scorpion inside a closed, sealed box of Cheerios then it is definitly General Mills' fault.

[Ken]

RavensDaemon a écrit :

Ken a écrit :

Hi Devs, just wanted to let you know that if you put this poison back in your game, no pretty words or explanations are gonna be enough to make people happy. I give you the benefit of the doubt the first time, but if you poison my drink again then you do not deserve forgiveness or redemption.

This is not a bad game, but it is also not the greatest game ever made. You got paid by the people who bought it, and I dunno why you would think it would be ok to harvest and sell my personal information to make more, but I have no respect for that decision or anyone who would even consider stealing my personal info and selling it to be something ok.

If I bought a box of Cheerios and found a dead scorpion inside I would blame the STORE, not general mills................

Please do better.

That's just stupid. If you found a dead scorpion inside a closed, sealed box of Cheerios then it is definitly General Mills' fault.

Untrue. The wax bag holding the cheerios may be sealed, but stuff gets into cereal boxes all the time. Try Googling "snake in a cereal box" or something like that.......

The point is that I don't blame Red Shell for existing, I blame the devs that allow it into thier games.