Rather peeved about all of this. Been waiting for this game for ages and was excited about the F2P aspect then found out a lot of elements of the game are locked behind paywalls making the full game costing way over most AAA games. Ok, lets roll on anyways and see what the game has to offer. Then I get to the privacy policy and realize they’re using anti-cheat services to monitor your game, I continued reading the user agreement and then had to find their actual privacy policy page because they have it listed under a different url then what they have posted. Some Highlights from the user agreement:
You may not host, provide or develop matchmaking services for the Product, or intercept, emulate or redirect the communication protocols used by Frost Giant in any way, for any purpose, including without limitation unauthorized play over the internet, network play (except as expressly authorized by Frost Giant), or as part of content aggregation networks.
You may not organize, promote or participate in an esports competition for the Product which has not been licensed by Frost Giant.
You may not play on another user’s Account
In order to safeguard its licensing rights, when you are using the Product, Frost Giant may monitor your hardware random access memory (RAM)
You understand that the mere presence of unauthorized cheat software on your device, whether or not you use that unauthorized software while playing the Game, may result in Frost Giant exercising its full rights under this Agreement.
Acknowledgments. You acknowledge that:
- The Game which is the object of the Alpha or Beta Test is a work in progress and may contain bugs which may cause loss of data and/or damage to your computer system;
- You have, or will, back-up your hard drive prior to installation of the Beta;
- You have the resources necessary to easily reinstall the operating system for the computer system that you will use to take part in the Alpha or Beta Test as well as to restore any and all data that may be lost;
It just goes on and on with some really sketchy stuff, then I get to the privacy policy:
Your contact information/identifiers, such as your name, your gamer id, mailing address, email address, employer, primary language, country, social media credentials. preferred games and date of birth. If you contact us by telephone, we will also retain your telephone number.
Your geolocation data, if your device settings allow us to collect such information.
Your account preference information, such as your contact, communication and marketing preferences.
Your device and browsing information, including non-personally identifiable information about your phone, tablet, computer or device and online browsing activity, which may be automatically collected. This may include IP addresses, unique identifiers, cookie identifiers, browser language, device and browser settings and broad location-based information, and internet service provider information. It may also include information about when and how you accessed and used our Sites, how you navigated to our Sites (such as the date and time of your visit), the links you clicked, the websites you visited before and after our Sites, and what you searched for while on our Sites.
Analytics & Interest-Based Ads. We partner with third parties (like sponsors, content providers, and analytics companies) to help us improve our Services and better understand how you interact with them, as well as to support our marketing initiatives and ad campaigns. These companies may collect info from you automatically in connection with your visit.
And the really scary part
In particular, we have collected the following categories of personal information from consumers within the last twelve (12) months:
- A real name, alias, postal address, unique personal identifier, online identifier, Internet Protocol address, email address, account name, Social Security number, driver’s license number, passport number, or other similar identifiers.
- A name, signature, Social Security number, physical characteristics or description, address, telephone number, passport number, driver’s license or state identification card number, insurance policy number, education, employment, employment history, bank account number, credit card number, debit card number, or any other financial information, medical information, or health insurance information.
- Records of personal property, products or services purchased, obtained, or considered, or other purchasing or consuming histories or tendencies.
- Browsing history, search history, information on a consumer’s interaction with a website, application, or advertisement.
- Physical location or movements.
Third party service providers. - From time to time, Frost Giant may need to transmit your personal data to vendors or service providers that enable us to market, sell, or deliver our services. These service providers may require certain personal information in order to perform specific services on our behalf, such as cloud service and data storage, beta testing, tech support to enhance game operations, chat, customer support, social login, fulfillment and shipping, email and newsletter delivery, conducting surveys, payment processing, tournament operation, anti-cheat and fraud prevention, web hosting or web analytics. Such partners include:
Steam
Epic Online Services
RallyCry
Hathora
Brevo
Eventbrite
AWS
Sentry.io
Google
Easy Anti-Cheat
GGWP
Untapped
Kakao Games
ModSquad
I’ve stopped playing previous games that use these tactics and programs because there’s just too many other games that don’t require these that are available. This was a game I was hoping to get back into with some RTS friends I’ve made along the way, Is this just the way of the world or something to avoid?
IMO it is both, but I am more concerned about privacy than most seem to be.
I’ve definitely skimmed before without actually reading everything but after the car tracking and anti-cheat buzz I’ve been more aware so it is helpful. I just don’t understand why a game would need to collect your medical information and personal property records. Just completely insane and never seen anything like it but have probably agreed to it in the past without knowing it.
Yes.
If you still want to play such “modern” games loaded with what is akin to spyware, I recommend a dedicated only-for-gaming PC (running Linux of course*) using a different IP address than your main system (probably a notebook), for example by using a VPN on one but not the other. I’d recommend using the VPN for the gaming machine, it’s less of a risk there, it allows for easy circumvention of geo-blocking, etc. If you need to access some services (e.g. chat) from both machines, create a separate account for it. Don’t share account credentials between machines. In fact, act as if the gaming machine is permanently infected with random stuff “required” for modern games, and isolate it accordingly. This is just an idea how to mitigate those problems and don’t let them creep into to your real machine where non-game-related data could leak out as a result. But you’re still going to support the developer doing this which is not recommended.
*) Why still no Windows, in this isolated case, you ask? Well, because it’s important to fight MS’ monopoly on gaming machines, so don’t support it by running it and contributing to its marketshare. Instead, run Linux and enjoy watching Windows’ sinking market share. In fact, if you can, don’t support such games either by not playing them, that would be the ideal solution. But this is written under the presumption that you or your friends still want to play it and you kind of feel left out otherwise.