EA's Origin Sends Personal Data to Third Parties

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amk-aka-Phantom

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You okay? We were talking about choosing STEAM or RETAIL (my choice!) versions over ORIGIN. That is NOT pirating.

EDIT: You can still buy a game on a DVD in US, right? :D Just checking.
 

demonhorde665

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[citation][nom]hoofhearted[/nom]So does this mean if I buy an EA game at Walmart, then bring it home, open the shrinkwrapped box, open the sealed DVD, then proceed to install, then read this EULA and disagreee, that I am screwed out of my 50 bucks or so?I mean is Origin forced onto retail bought copies as well?[/citation]

this is why many states are against videogame EULA's , the simple fact is that techncially for a contract of this manner to be upheld in a court , the seller has to provide this contract BEFORE MONEY IS EXCHANGED. so bassicaly the EULA's in gamesare there as a scare tatic to disuade consumers from ever takign the company to court , plus some lower court judges might actually eat this crap up , but any higher court (federal) would throw out a deffense based on a shit EULA , that the customer didnt see till after money was exchanged.
the fact of teh matter is the EULA is considered a hidden contract , because you don't see it after you paid , and hidden contracts are NEVER upheld in any deccent court.

in all hoensty it woudl just take a simple repackagaing by posting the full eula on the back of a game to make it legit,m hiowever that would mean 1 of 2 things ,

1., no room fore pretty stories adn screens to enticve gamers to buy teh game.
2. the eula would be printed so small that no human eye unaided , could read it LOL .
 

rohitbaran

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Well, all this is going to do is create outrage against EA and probably further piracy of their games. Whenever a corp. tries to gain too much control, it backfires eg. Ubisoft's Splinter Cell Conviction.
 

demonhorde665

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[citation][nom]amk09[/nom]You guys all think you are so special, it blows my mind. Every single one of you who is complaining right now are completely INSIGNIFICANT. At the end of the day, pirating = stealing, and the majority of people who steal are of lower character then others. And yes, ALL of you are in the majority, you are all whiny little girls who use every excuse they can find so that you don't have to pay $60 for a video game.[/citation]

woah slow down the haterade , not ever one at this site is a pirate , i only sw two post that sounded pro pirate. granted i agree those guys are scum. but you post is calling every one on tom's a pirate scum . wich just makes you look like a total a--. I for one ahve enver pirated a game in my life and never intend to , i CAN bitch about the a--holes at EA and it not make me a pirate. it's called a boycotte you c-- sucker now quit lumping every one in the same group.
 

twigai

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[citation][nom]amk09[/nom]You guys all think you are so special, it blows my mind. Every single one of you who is complaining right now are completely INSIGNIFICANT. At the end of the day, pirating = stealing, and the majority of people who steal are of lower character then others. And yes, ALL of you are in the majority, you are all whiny little girls who use every excuse they can find so that you don't have to pay $60 for a video game.[/citation]

Everyone has the right to express their opinion about the article and to hammer on companies that invade our privacy. I would have to agree with the majority on this, I don't want a company scanning through my computer and sending info to third parties. I don't want to receive feminine product info because they found something my girlfriend installed, or send me the latest Spongebob game which my son plays. We already have enough issues with MS, we don't need EA doing it too. Between EA and Activision forcing everyone to be online all the time, I can say my PC gaming dollars will be going elsewhere.

Now, it seems like you don't care either way, so why read through a 1.5 pages of comments just to bash everyone? You just proved the old saying: Opinions are like a**holes...

Thanks for being a HUGE OPINION!
 

spookyman

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Sounds like a lawyer will need to get involved with this ;)

I guarantee they are going a little far with it. Most companies at least give you the option to opt out of data collection
 

ct001

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[citation][nom]Cats_Paw[/nom]Yet another reason to "not buy original games". If they keep this, eventually only pirated games will have any sense. Some time ago someone told me that piradted games had better support, had no buggy security settings (everybody remmebers securerom), people can add their own mods easy, on some OS the software simply "aint supposed to work", yet you pirate the game, and the dude will explain to you how to make it work.Finally this crap. So lets see: Option 1: I pay 50 Euros, i get a game that will probably not work for some time, then i have to battle the security system since i dont have the latest driver, then i get to play the game and if it crashes, wait a few more weeks till they patch it, then i can play it again, and once i upgrade my windows, i can throw it away.Option 2: I download it, i play it, i save it for later.Yeah, hard choice. So far i only see buying the original game a way of thanking the company for making a good game, and then beeing not harrased by legal lawsuits (as far as i know if you have an original copy of something, you can get a pirated version as well, since you already payed for the contenent).[/citation]

Option 3, buy idie. They're cheaper, no DRM, and A TON of fun (some very high quality stuff out there).
 

internetlad

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[citation][nom]primonatron[/nom]Can someone explain what EA's Origin will be doing that Steam isn't doing?Steam collects information on what is on your computerhttp://store.steampowered.com/hwsurveyAnd their privacy policy looks like it condones the same things to me, just worded differentlyhttp://www.valvesoftware.com/privacy.html[/citation]


Steam ASKS You if it can do a one time collection of TECHNICAL HARDWARE DATA about your computer, so they can make and update games to match current gaming hardware trends. (IE shifts away from Windows XP and DX9, Shifts towards Quad core processing over dual core)

Origin is legally (through EULA) allowed to view whether or not you have steam/onlive/D2D installed/not installed/uninstalled, and EA is legally (through the EULA) allowed to distribute this information as they wish. Even if this means they sell your IP address (which will tell them what country and region you live in) and information about programs installed it's still legal if you clicked "YES" on the EULA.

Yeah, completely the same thing.
 

brotoles

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[citation][nom]cool_guy_mike[/nom]Your wrong. Stephen Reid stated on The Old Republic forums you wont need origins to launch, update, or play The old Republic."Regardless of what other games may choose to do in their integration with Origin's desktop client, here's what our situation is:You are not required to use the Origin desktop client to download, patch or play the game client for Star Wars: The Old Republic.This applies whether you purchase The Old Republic via Origin.com or from a retailer in boxed form. You will not be forced to install the Origin desktop client.There are still various consumer benefits to the client itself, but it's not required for The Old Republic."[/citation]

Of course they won't force you to install Origin... Origin is an anti-piracy measure, and SW:TOR is a subscription game. If you want to play it "the way it's meant to be played" (isnt' this an old EA slogan? :)) you must have the original game. So they won't bother to force you to install Origin, they don't need to.
 

kinggraves

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[citation][nom]wiinippongamer[/nom]WHO THE HELL AGREES TO SOMETHING THE HAVEN'T READ??!!!![/citation]

Everyone. That's why they don't realize that every person complaining is already signed up to give their personal information to someone. Even the grocery stores collect your personal info with their discount cards. So do Google and Facebook. So does Steam and most online retailers if you forget to check a box off. It isn't really moral for EA to do this, but it is legal so long as you can get the basic functionality of the game you paid for. Origin is at issue here, you are warned of the ToS in advance, and are allowed the choice to not install it. There's no trojan, you are told of what you are agreeing to. If you don't like it, DON'T PLAY it. It's a game, you have no right to it's service and no necessity to play it.

I mean, really, writing your Congressmen? What do they care if you can't play a game? There's a lot more important things to be writing your Congressmen over like the failing economy, corporations holding back technological advances out of greed, and the Congressmen themselves holding back any progress or change. It's going to be hard to play any games at all when you don't have a home anymore and internet costs several hundred dollars a month.

Oh, and the two who are trying to justify piracy are the biggest jokes of all. Any cracks and mods added by pirates are unsupported software, and sometimes not only damage your own game, but ruin the experiences of others in online games for your own enjoyment. If you absolutely need the mods of the cracked version, BUY the game anyway to support the devs, then play the cracked version. It's not like you're paying extra for the cracked one.

[citation][nom]liquidchild[/nom]Just returned my pre-order of SW collectors edition..so you just lost $150[/citation]

And who are you kidding? You're buying a collector's edition for the extras, not for the game. You aren't going to miss out on that.
 

amk-aka-Phantom

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Actually, I've thought for a while and... why the hell do you guys store personal info on the PC? Don't do that on your gaming rig. Or create a separate user for gaming or something. Still not enough reason to "avoid Origin". If they'd, however, force you to have online connection when playing single player, then it's a different story...
 
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blah blah "im a steam fanboy" blah blah


steam/ubisoft/gamersfirst = exactly the same thing...


next
 
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Maybe it's time to load our PCs with porn, so they can pass THAT on to their third party snoopers. :p
 

Kileak

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[citation][nom]rantoc[/nom][citation][nom]alhanelem[/nomWhy is it when big companies get so popular they think the only way to get more market share is to do this sort of thing.How about making some good quality games that aren't console ports!?!?![/citation]Because when a developer/distributor gets big enough the suit team arrives and they want the maximized income from everything and its done in the short term with no regard of the long survivability of the company. When the ship then starts to sink they jump to the next like rats and they back up their claims the did a good job with the first and it was only when they left it went to hell. Its like if the captain of the titanic left the ship after the iceberg, claiming he did a good job and the new appointed captain was the cause of the sinking. Thats suit's my friends![/citation]

So Bush was a "suit"?
 
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heres somthing i just found out about the e-mail http://www.ea.com/1/privacy-contacts. you send a e-mail to it to complain
about the EULA and you get a e-mail back stating you need to send the message to http://support.ea.com. but when you got to the page to do so.
you have to sign up for a account to send the message to them. but in the terms for you to start a account you have to agree to the terms of what? that dumb EULA. what a F**king joke.
 
I'm sure its an acceptable loss to EA. We're not gamers. We're just numbers, charts, graphs, bullet points, and dollars. They'll still make a profit from game sales, then further increase that profit by collecting data and using / selling it.

Writing letters and not buying their products won't change anything. What we need is for the developers, the individuals that really make the company what it is, to get up and leave. That's not going to happen either.

Reading this article and the EULA makes me sad. I think though as soon as I see others enjoying the games, watching game-play videos, and seeing benchmarks, I'll surely give in as will many, depending on the reviews. A lot can change between now and the release dates of any titles in question.

I've already paid for Star Wars The Old Republic.

I was in a wal-mart today picking up a Rx. I went by the pc games section. It's a 4 foot tall by 6 foot wide section of an aisle, lol... Anyway, I picked up the box for "Brink" just to look it over. On the back of the box, it mentions that there is a EULA and that you will have to agree to it in order to install/play it. I don't recall the exact wording. So it warns you about a EULA, at least. It may provide a website link to go read it, if you should want to do that before purchasing.
 

amk-aka-Phantom

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Sadly, you're right. I'm not looking forward to any games from EA, save Mass Effect 3 (though, of course, EA is only the distributor here...), so it's not that bad for me, but I find the trend of not caring for customers disturbing. It's like they're doing everything they can just to irritate us the best they can. I'm not afraid of what kind of info they might collect from my PC... I simply don't store any info there that I don't want to get out. But the disrespect is amazing. Why do we have to agree to this $h!t just to play the game which you paid for? It's equivalent to buying a car and then having the salesman tell you: "I'm sorry, sir, but in order to drive that car you must agree that we place our advertisement on the door and monitor your trips at all times. Don't worry, your secrets are safe with us!" The question is, why do they need these secrets from us?

Okay, sure, selling info to the databases and such, I get it. But shouldn't our government (sorry, YOUR government) do something to at least pretend like they care for their citizens and not let them get ripped off and spied on by businesses?

And it's SO sad to see the game stores nowadays. I go into my local game store, and what do I see? The consoles section is 5 times as big and is loaded with stupid titles from EA sports or lame FPS.

Sure, one might say that consoles have a few good games. The above-mentioned Mass Effect, for instance. Just don't forget how much better these games could be had they been developed for the PC and not just ported. I mean, in Mass Effect there're gameplay tutorial movies, and when I saw the ones for Xbox, I nearly threw up. Same clip, but dumbed down graphics, choppy animation and $h!tty controls. And you see the limitations that the Xbox placed on that otherwise great game everywhere.

Well, at least there's one thing to thank EA for... Microsoft didn't even care whether ME reaches PC or not.
 
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