You just potentially admitted that you're going to record kids since the last game was rated 12 and can't imagine this is suddenly an 18 so you've just admitted to an illegal action in several countries.
True but it's they also love plausible deniability. It's easier to get away with it by blaming cookies and an app requiring GPS to function than the company itself stating "we are going to record everything you say in a game meant for kids" and as we are seeing a lot more, that's a political deathbed to defend anything infringing on kids.
I don't know that it's illegal anywhere, but it's not illegal in the US and you can't stop your citizens from playing an internet game on international servers unless you're China.
Actually it might run afoul in the states that have 2 party consent laws as a child cannot consent and good luck in the court trying to argue that the parent consented by providing a phone number. Just looks like they are really opening themselves up for litigation to 'hurt the trolls' when you could easily just remind everyone there's a mute and report button.
I don't understand what you think the consequence of any of this would be.
Albania cannot go arrest blizzard because some albanian kid played Overwatch. Blizzard is not under the jurisdiction of Albania. Blizzard does not need to comply with Albanian laws unless it chooses to go out of its way to do business there, and if it does and the laws are annoying, it can just leave and it would still be getting money from Albanian kids playing its games.
I didn't mention Albania, I mentioned States (as in States within the United States of America) that require 2 party consent for recordings meaning you need to get the consent of the person you're recording
I'm not a lawyer, but I'd imagine in court it would be extremely hard to argue that by having a phone number the person consented to you recording their children, just a hunch but that wouldn't work out well for them...
2 part consent laws are a joke for businesses, all they need to do is tell you you're being recorded. haven't you ever called ANY customer service number anywhere and heard "calls may be recorded for quality assurance purposes"?
Blizzard will have TOS that says your voice chat is recorded.
ALSO you don't have any expectation of privacy in a voice chat lobby since it is a bunch of people and not a 1 on 1 phone call.
Employers also routinely record their employees and its legal, same concept as a video game.
But children involved so as I said, good luck arguing that in court
Plus TOS doesn't stand up to legal precedent, courts will routinely throw it in the bin if any part of it tries to supercede their authority in any way.
If someone says the spooky nono word, will Blizzard check if they're black before banning them? Because if they leave it to an algorithm, chances are they're going to ban almost all black gamers from their platform.
With the launch of Overwatch 2, Blizzard is implementing SMS Protect to help verify the ownership of any given Battle.net account. This means that players must attach a phone number to their Battle.net account in order to play Overwatch 2 across PC and consoles. Phone numbers can only be used once, and players can not have multiple accounts with the same phone number. Pre-paid phones and VOIP can't be used. Those that own the box version of the original Overwatch will be required to add a phone number to keep playing once Overwatch 2 launches as well.
LOL what bullshit. 0 anonymity. Just like in fucking China. Fuck Blizzard.
Blizzard to "collect a temporary voice chat recording" of a reported player and transcribe what they're saying through text to speech programs. This text is then analyzed by Blizzard's chat review tools to search for "disruptive behavior."
So if you say this:
"when you set up the bomb make sure you rig her right"
Blizzard sees:
"when you set up the bomb make sure you NIGGER FIGHT"
ALERT ALERT, PERMA BAN, PHONE NUMBER BAN, TRANSCRIPT FORWARDED TO THE FBI & USER'S EMPLOYER, YOUR APPEAL HAS BEEN CONSIDERED AND DENIED
Remember when the Internet was an open field of limitless possibilities ad was going to define the future? And now it's been properly corralled and trained to be subservient to all the vestiges of the past (online media answers to legacy fact checkers, games and email answer to phone numbers).
It's all prep for Digital ID and the end of anonymity.
They will combat "disruptive players" by getting rid of players. Brilliant!
"muh hate speech" has been the biggest driver behind mass surveillance online. "for the children" didn't work so now they pivoted to something the retarded kids these days agree with. No bad tactics, only bad targets.
I REALLY wanted Gundam Evolution to be decent, for the sheer purpose of telling Overwatch to fuck off. But unfortunately, the ruling systems for that game are not fair and balanced in my opinion, I couldn't keep going. Hell, it was a match that ended in victory for me that finally made it clear how bullshit the ruling system was.
I heard Marasai was bad, hadn't heard much about Mahiroo. But I'm not good enough at these sorts of games to judge unit balance. Hell, from what I saw, Zaku II (R) seemed like one of the weakest units of all, yet some people are just absolutely amazing with it. I at least tried to get a decent understanding of Sazabi and Methuss before I dropped it. And I certainly wanted to try Unicorn, but once I fully understood how the game would judge matches with no consideration for performance in point ties (when you can only get up to 2 points, that'll happen OFTEN), I knew my short temper with this sort of thing wouldn't be able to take it.
Absolutely not necessary for either. You do not need the players phone number to secure a players account. Especially since you already have an Authenticator app.
Do people still even use corporate in-game chat options? When friends and I play we spin up and use our own self hosted and encrypted nextcloud talk instance.
We used to use discord but they're starting to their own woke "hate" speech policing.
One word: Lawsuit
You just potentially admitted that you're going to record kids since the last game was rated 12 and can't imagine this is suddenly an 18 so you've just admitted to an illegal action in several countries.
Don't count on it. Western governments will never let you kill a mass data-mining platform that normies voluntarily sign up for.
True but it's they also love plausible deniability. It's easier to get away with it by blaming cookies and an app requiring GPS to function than the company itself stating "we are going to record everything you say in a game meant for kids" and as we are seeing a lot more, that's a political deathbed to defend anything infringing on kids.
I don't know that it's illegal anywhere, but it's not illegal in the US and you can't stop your citizens from playing an internet game on international servers unless you're China.
Actually it might run afoul in the states that have 2 party consent laws as a child cannot consent and good luck in the court trying to argue that the parent consented by providing a phone number. Just looks like they are really opening themselves up for litigation to 'hurt the trolls' when you could easily just remind everyone there's a mute and report button.
I don't understand what you think the consequence of any of this would be.
Albania cannot go arrest blizzard because some albanian kid played Overwatch. Blizzard is not under the jurisdiction of Albania. Blizzard does not need to comply with Albanian laws unless it chooses to go out of its way to do business there, and if it does and the laws are annoying, it can just leave and it would still be getting money from Albanian kids playing its games.
I didn't mention Albania, I mentioned States (as in States within the United States of America) that require 2 party consent for recordings meaning you need to get the consent of the person you're recording
I'm not a lawyer, but I'd imagine in court it would be extremely hard to argue that by having a phone number the person consented to you recording their children, just a hunch but that wouldn't work out well for them...
2 part consent laws are a joke for businesses, all they need to do is tell you you're being recorded. haven't you ever called ANY customer service number anywhere and heard "calls may be recorded for quality assurance purposes"?
Blizzard will have TOS that says your voice chat is recorded.
ALSO you don't have any expectation of privacy in a voice chat lobby since it is a bunch of people and not a 1 on 1 phone call.
Employers also routinely record their employees and its legal, same concept as a video game.
But children involved so as I said, good luck arguing that in court
Plus TOS doesn't stand up to legal precedent, courts will routinely throw it in the bin if any part of it tries to supercede their authority in any way.
Would be good to possibly sue Blizzard for wiretapping
If someone says the spooky nono word, will Blizzard check if they're black before banning them? Because if they leave it to an algorithm, chances are they're going to ban almost all black gamers from their platform.
Algorithms have difficulty of not flagging photos of blacks as gorilla's. Wanna bet that it flags a lot of blacks as not black
Inb4 Spanish speakers get banned again for saying Negro. Granted, that was siege but I could see it happen here.
LOL what bullshit. 0 anonymity. Just like in fucking China. Fuck Blizzard.
So if you say this:
"when you set up the bomb make sure you rig her right"
Blizzard sees:
"when you set up the bomb make sure you NIGGER FIGHT"
ALERT ALERT, PERMA BAN, PHONE NUMBER BAN, TRANSCRIPT FORWARDED TO THE FBI & USER'S EMPLOYER, YOUR APPEAL HAS BEEN CONSIDERED AND DENIED
... and Blizzard will be refunding Overwatch 1 owners who don't want this totalitarian bullshit, right?
...
Right?
Remember when the Internet was an open field of limitless possibilities ad was going to define the future? And now it's been properly corralled and trained to be subservient to all the vestiges of the past (online media answers to legacy fact checkers, games and email answer to phone numbers).
It's all prep for Digital ID and the end of anonymity.
They will combat "disruptive players" by getting rid of players. Brilliant!
"muh hate speech" has been the biggest driver behind mass surveillance online. "for the children" didn't work so now they pivoted to something the retarded kids these days agree with. No bad tactics, only bad targets.
There goes whatever miniscule amount of interest I had.
HAHAHAHAHAHA
Oh man, that's the funniest shit I've ever heard.
Get FUCKED, Blizzard.
I REALLY wanted Gundam Evolution to be decent, for the sheer purpose of telling Overwatch to fuck off. But unfortunately, the ruling systems for that game are not fair and balanced in my opinion, I couldn't keep going. Hell, it was a match that ended in victory for me that finally made it clear how bullshit the ruling system was.
I am still playing Gundam Evolution but the game mechanics, balance and map design could be better.
Harbor City is the worst map in a fps I have seen in possibly my entire life.
Certain suits like Mahiroo and Marasai are relatively weak compared to suits like Exia and Barbatos.
The overtime mechanic is pretty annoying.
I have lost games I should have never lost
I heard Marasai was bad, hadn't heard much about Mahiroo. But I'm not good enough at these sorts of games to judge unit balance. Hell, from what I saw, Zaku II (R) seemed like one of the weakest units of all, yet some people are just absolutely amazing with it. I at least tried to get a decent understanding of Sazabi and Methuss before I dropped it. And I certainly wanted to try Unicorn, but once I fully understood how the game would judge matches with no consideration for performance in point ties (when you can only get up to 2 points, that'll happen OFTEN), I knew my short temper with this sort of thing wouldn't be able to take it.
Absolutely not necessary for either. You do not need the players phone number to secure a players account. Especially since you already have an Authenticator app.
Wonder what Microsoft will think about them when they find this out.
Fuck off (((Blizzard)))
Her a burner phone/SMS burner card if you really want to play. I sure as fuck aren’t. The Blizzard that made WC3 is long gone.
Do people still even use corporate in-game chat options? When friends and I play we spin up and use our own self hosted and encrypted nextcloud talk instance.
We used to use discord but they're starting to their own woke "hate" speech policing.
Jesus that’s sad
Blizzard had a woman in charge for how long again?
Already spying on wrongthinkers.
Microsoft needs to clear house in 2023 when the purchase goes through.
I wouldn't count on it. M$'s not known for being the most rational people.