BF2142 - EA CAN POKE IT UP THEIR BIG FAT ****
Discussion
My copy of BF2142 dropped through the door today on my way out to work. This evening I opened it, somewhat excited to play the new game and see the new features - however their was one feature I was not expecting to see.
When I opened the box, a small square card fell onto my lap, I read it thinking it may be the game key, but it wasn't, instead what fell out was a small note explaining that this game has spyware which is installed and permits pop-up adverts in game.
At the bottom of the card the following is written:
"IF YOU DO NOT WANT IGA TO COLLECT, USE, STORE OR TRANSMIT THE DATA DESCRIBED IN THIS SECTION, DO NOT INSTALL OR PLAY THE SOFTWARE ON ANY PLATFORM THAT IS USED TO CONNECT TO THE INTERNET" Great! thanks for that then, I won't play it online..NOT
On the outside of the box, there is NO mention of any spywhere.. while I was reading the card in utter disbelief, two of my friends rang me and showed me some web sites, apparently a lot of people are boycotting it. If it had the warning on the front of the box, I would not have ordered it in the first place. Also having beta tested the previous, there was no mention of this whatsoever.
Ok, so some may say its only a few adverts right? But its the principle here - adverts mean that the developers will get more money for the game, but do we see a reduction in price as a result of that? Do we hell
Also I believe that it clashes with a Microsoft Security patch, and that EA recommend uninstalling the Microsoft patch, thus leaving a system open to the exposure that the patch fixes!
Don't take my word for it, have a read.. sorry for the big-time rant, but I think they're taking the piss. What's next then; the game stops while we watch the adverts?? I like games for escapism and the last thing I want is to see adverts from the 'real world'.
My copy is going back to Play.com on Monday poste haste
Apparently somewhere there is already an online petition where you can sign, not on the links below but I'm sure it will crop up sooner or later.
Is this the future of PC games??
http://forums.amd.com/index.php?showt
www.futuremark.com/forum/showthread.php?t=23357
http://ve3dboards.ign.com/message.asp
www.gamingforums.com/showthread.php?p=3296616
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showt
When I opened the box, a small square card fell onto my lap, I read it thinking it may be the game key, but it wasn't, instead what fell out was a small note explaining that this game has spyware which is installed and permits pop-up adverts in game.
At the bottom of the card the following is written:
"IF YOU DO NOT WANT IGA TO COLLECT, USE, STORE OR TRANSMIT THE DATA DESCRIBED IN THIS SECTION, DO NOT INSTALL OR PLAY THE SOFTWARE ON ANY PLATFORM THAT IS USED TO CONNECT TO THE INTERNET" Great! thanks for that then, I won't play it online..NOT
On the outside of the box, there is NO mention of any spywhere.. while I was reading the card in utter disbelief, two of my friends rang me and showed me some web sites, apparently a lot of people are boycotting it. If it had the warning on the front of the box, I would not have ordered it in the first place. Also having beta tested the previous, there was no mention of this whatsoever.
Ok, so some may say its only a few adverts right? But its the principle here - adverts mean that the developers will get more money for the game, but do we see a reduction in price as a result of that? Do we hell
Also I believe that it clashes with a Microsoft Security patch, and that EA recommend uninstalling the Microsoft patch, thus leaving a system open to the exposure that the patch fixes!
Don't take my word for it, have a read.. sorry for the big-time rant, but I think they're taking the piss. What's next then; the game stops while we watch the adverts?? I like games for escapism and the last thing I want is to see adverts from the 'real world'.
My copy is going back to Play.com on Monday poste haste
Apparently somewhere there is already an online petition where you can sign, not on the links below but I'm sure it will crop up sooner or later.
Is this the future of PC games??
http://forums.amd.com/index.php?showt
www.futuremark.com/forum/showthread.php?t=23357
http://ve3dboards.ign.com/message.asp
www.gamingforums.com/showthread.php?p=3296616
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showt
Yes, in detail. You have to remember that those that post on the EA forums will be more susceptible to accepting the adverts as they just want to play the game.. a lot of these kids are 14 or 15.. I'm 40! For those of us that opened the box to just play the game and then found out its a whole new ballgame.
What about bandwidth for starters?
Those that take games seriously, have invested money in good hardware, and a fast connection; what good is it if your buggy software is uploading data about bloody adverts while your swinging round to drop some guy in your peripheral vision only to find that the performance that you had paid for has been downgraded by a reporting tool which you had no concept of?
Who wants to see bloody adverts for Coka bloody Cola ingame??
What about good old fashioned market research surveys, that actually ask the punter what he wants in his game that he pays for?
What about EA pre-warning us with how its going to be in the future, or even saying "Hi guys - thanks for your support - here's a free copy in recognition of the allegence to our brand name and don't worry we will make up for the cost by the adverts? If you don't want them, just buy the game" What choice??
Yup, I'm still steaming
Edited to add:
EA = EXTREME ADVERTISING
What about bandwidth for starters?
Those that take games seriously, have invested money in good hardware, and a fast connection; what good is it if your buggy software is uploading data about bloody adverts while your swinging round to drop some guy in your peripheral vision only to find that the performance that you had paid for has been downgraded by a reporting tool which you had no concept of?
Who wants to see bloody adverts for Coka bloody Cola ingame??
What about good old fashioned market research surveys, that actually ask the punter what he wants in his game that he pays for?
What about EA pre-warning us with how its going to be in the future, or even saying "Hi guys - thanks for your support - here's a free copy in recognition of the allegence to our brand name and don't worry we will make up for the cost by the adverts? If you don't want them, just buy the game" What choice??
Yup, I'm still steaming
Edited to add:
EA = EXTREME ADVERTISING
Edited by SS HSV on Friday 20th October 23:45
rich1231 said:
Think you are over-reacting. The game seems to be great.
Actually no. I don't think he is over reacting. You expect to continually pay for a MMORPG to support the bandwidth and server farm.
A FPS game that has spyware built in and recommends you uninstall a microsoft patch??? That is bloody cheeky and bang out of order for a product you've paid hard earned money for.
If the game were free and add supported then fine. But I don't belive it is.
thepassenger said:
rich1231 said:
Think you are over-reacting. The game seems to be great.
Actually no. I don't think he is over reacting. You expect to continually pay for a MMORPG to support the bandwidth and server farm.
A FPS game that has spyware built in and recommends you uninstall a microsoft patch??? That is bloody cheeky and bang out of order for a product you've paid hard earned money for.
If the game were free and add supported then fine. But I don't belive it is.
www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=11300
It would be okay if you could choose not to have the ads, but the fact you can't takes the piss. My mates was telling me that it searches your internet history and displays adverts relevant to what sites you have been on. You still shouldn't have to put up with adverts having paid so much for a game.
EA are really taking the piss with games now. And the the new Need For Speed, it looks exactly the same as most wanted, but with a different track and a few different cars. I definately won't be buying that.
EA are really taking the piss with games now. And the the new Need For Speed, it looks exactly the same as most wanted, but with a different track and a few different cars. I definately won't be buying that.
rich1231 said:
thepassenger said:
rich1231 said:
Think you are over-reacting. The game seems to be great.
Actually no. I don't think he is over reacting. You expect to continually pay for a MMORPG to support the bandwidth and server farm.
A FPS game that has spyware built in and recommends you uninstall a microsoft patch??? That is bloody cheeky and bang out of order for a product you've paid hard earned money for.
If the game were free and add supported then fine. But I don't belive it is.
www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=11300
Neat story. Misses the point... but neat. And I don't belive the cruft about next-gen games being so expensive to develop we need to use in-game ads to help ofset development costs, this is precisley the rod they have made for their own backs and to be quite honest several noteable games devs have spoken about how this is not going to be a good thing for games players (to summarise: more capabilities equals more money for budgets which translates as even more risk adversiv publishers).
I appriciate that they are attempting to tailor the adverts to the setting of the game, however I am wondering precisley how much tailoring you can do? After all if you are trying to advertise say Cherry Coke-a-Cola then your going to have to present an image that is recognisable as the product someone can buy in the store right now, it's one thing to design a futuristic looking Pepsi bottle to appear in a movie, but another to do the same for a computer game.
I'm also wondering what the next stage in this would be? I have absolutley no desire to be playing an RPG and during a quite momment one of my hencemen or party members turns round and starts giving me a sales pitch.... git would find himself on the wrong end of a maximised fireball.
The funny thing is that because nothing is on the packaging to warn you about this 'feature' and you have to break the shrink wrap, you're stuck with the damn game. You can not return it for a refund as pretty much all high street stores will refuse on grounds you could of copied it, they will exchange it as defective for an identical product though... not much use when you're trying to return it because you disagree with the EULA.
All of this aside though. This is where it starts. If people don't like this then the game needs to tank heavily. Retailers should have unsold stock abungo and be desperate to shift it, the game shouldn't even make it in to the top50 let alone top10 charts. However it's the follow up to one of the most sucsessful on-line multiplayer FPS games of recent years, EA knew that they could do this and despite peoples outcrys the game will still fly off the shelves. Thus the project will be shown as a sucsess and open the doors for other games and publishers to employ the same system in their products.
As to the thing about it being incompatible with a WinXP security patch and the official advice being to uninstall the patch... I just find that the cherry on top of the cake personally.
thepassenger said:
rich1231 said:
thepassenger said:
rich1231 said:
Think you are over-reacting. The game seems to be great.
Actually no. I don't think he is over reacting. You expect to continually pay for a MMORPG to support the bandwidth and server farm.
A FPS game that has spyware built in and recommends you uninstall a microsoft patch??? That is bloody cheeky and bang out of order for a product you've paid hard earned money for.
If the game were free and add supported then fine. But I don't belive it is.
www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=11300
Neat story. Misses the point... but neat. And I don't belive the cruft about next-gen games being so expensive to develop we need to use in-game ads to help ofset development costs, this is precisley the rod they have made for their own backs and to be quite honest several noteable games devs have spoken about how this is not going to be a good thing for games players (to summarise: more capabilities equals more money for budgets which translates as even more risk adversiv publishers).
I appriciate that they are attempting to tailor the adverts to the setting of the game, however I am wondering precisley how much tailoring you can do? After all if you are trying to advertise say Cherry Coke-a-Cola then your going to have to present an image that is recognisable as the product someone can buy in the store right now, it's one thing to design a futuristic looking Pepsi bottle to appear in a movie, but another to do the same for a computer game.
I'm also wondering what the next stage in this would be? I have absolutley no desire to be playing an RPG and during a quite momment one of my hencemen or party members turns round and starts giving me a sales pitch.... git would find himself on the wrong end of a maximised fireball.
The funny thing is that because nothing is on the packaging to warn you about this 'feature' and you have to break the shrink wrap, you're stuck with the damn game. You can not return it for a refund as pretty much all high street stores will refuse on grounds you could of copied it, they will exchange it as defective for an identical product though... not much use when you're trying to return it because you disagree with the EULA.
All of this aside though. This is where it starts. If people don't like this then the game needs to tank heavily. Retailers should have unsold stock abungo and be desperate to shift it, the game shouldn't even make it in to the top50 let alone top10 charts. However it's the follow up to one of the most sucsessful on-line multiplayer FPS games of recent years, EA knew that they could do this and despite peoples outcrys the game will still fly off the shelves. Thus the project will be shown as a sucsess and open the doors for other games and publishers to employ the same system in their products.
As to the thing about it being incompatible with a WinXP security patch and the official advice being to uninstall the patch... I just find that the cherry on top of the cake personally.
unlikely to tank, there have been 150,000+ game registrations already
ed up UO and now they are doing the same to BF the For giggles I decided to go to a large torrent site hosted somewhere in Europe. Not to actually get the game but just to check a theory, whilst the site is having issues with it's search function I pulled up the list of Top 100 PC games.
BF2142 doesn't appear. Flight Simulator X and a whole host of current releases do however. It could be taking the cracking groups longer to rip out the ad engine or to nuter it I'll grant you but nada, absolutley nothing on this very large torrent site.
I find that fascinating, a game pirates are currently staying away from for some reason.
BF2142 doesn't appear. Flight Simulator X and a whole host of current releases do however. It could be taking the cracking groups longer to rip out the ad engine or to nuter it I'll grant you but nada, absolutley nothing on this very large torrent site.
I find that fascinating, a game pirates are currently staying away from for some reason.
mungo said:
Bought it on the way home from work tonight - VERY dissapointed - it keeps throwing me off half way through playing it ... must be to do with this spyware thing???
Obviously... Couldn't possibly be anything else in a big and complicated game could it
The FPS community in general are vehemently opposed to a monthly payment type model (like a MMORPG), yet the huge numbers of servers a publisher is expected to setup and run for the life of the game cost money (especially with an effectively online only title like Battlefield). Is there a better solution? If they can't recoup some of the costs eventually games that fit the FPS style client server model simply won't get made, it'll make more sense to use the team to create something else at a similar cost and sell a similar number of units... Without the ongoing cost of running servers for it.
Having to remove a MS patch to play the game is pretty unforgivable though, I guess the patch came out after the game went through QA and it simply doesn't work after.
Whilst I decided not to buy BF2142 as it appeared to be nothing more than a mod for an unfixed-bug-ridden previous release, what concerns me more is that Need For Speed: Carbon also appears to be infested with this advertising spyware. As has already been pointed out, once you break the shrinkwrap it's too late to return the game, but you must do so in order to be able to read the EULA for the advert-ware.
Whilst you may be able to get around the situation in a single-player game by denying the executable network access via a firewall rule, it somewhat defeats the point in an internet game like the BF series.
I should just say that I have no objections to some advertising in games - things like billboards with real products on them increase immersiveness IMHO. However, it is wholly unacceptable to invade users privacy in this way. I agree the only course is to not buy these games, or take them back to the retailer and complain.
[k]
Whilst you may be able to get around the situation in a single-player game by denying the executable network access via a firewall rule, it somewhat defeats the point in an internet game like the BF series.
I should just say that I have no objections to some advertising in games - things like billboards with real products on them increase immersiveness IMHO. However, it is wholly unacceptable to invade users privacy in this way. I agree the only course is to not buy these games, or take them back to the retailer and complain.
[k]
SS HSV said:
Duly signed. I have enough spyware from the dodgy sites I visit, I don't need anymore more from legitimate software.
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