It's all about getting your data nowadays so they can sell it on to marketing companies later. Their 'security procedures' are a joke when you look at how many times they get hacked.
As for CoD, never really play it but before Sony fucked it up, A LOT of them on Xbox wanted to jump over to Helldivers 2 than continue to play. There's a lot of people playing it and more remembering the fun they used to have in the past than having fun NOW.
can agree, i mean we already got artists doing it to their art for anti ai scraping. we need a similar techinque that runs on your computer and browser that poisons the data. the only way to stop this data farming is to make it unprofitable.
No way does a game company need my phone number for any reason.
Accounts requiring phone numbers is just a backdoor for the Real ID stuff they were pushing a few years back. It got dumpstered by public backlash so they found a way to make it happen in a less obvious manner.
Any game or service that requires a number I refuse to use when possible. I don't care if I "miss out", I still respect myself enough to want my privacy.
I remember the days where you were told to NEVER give ANY identifying information about yourself online. The days where your online safety wasn't about mean words being said on some forum you voluntarily went to, but about ensuring your information wasn't being taken by some creep.
Now everyone posts every fucking detail of their life and it's honest to god saddening. It's not even about the "people are tracking me crap", even though that is true (what the fuck do you think marketing is other than tracking information?), it's about the sheer vanity of it all.
And what's worse is that people share this information about themselves in order to be treated differently, and it doesn't even matter if it's negative or positive treatment. Anonymity is the greatest equaliser there could possibly be, and every time you reveal even innocuous information about yourself, you're expecting that information to result in different treatment. A common example of this is people that start something like "As an [insert demographic here]", a simple yet effective line to try and get people to hold more value as to what you say than what you're actually saying holding the value.
Even me saying "I remember the days where....." is helping lend weight to my words because somehow me being there could mean my words are more important, but it doesn't actually make that much difference.
Every entity that wants more information from you is seeking to treat you differently. To exploit you in some manner, for good or for bad (eg "This person is so trustworthy, listen to them (but only because they're saying what I want)" or "This person isn't trustworthy, don't listen to them (because they're saying things I don't want them to say)". There is no exception, and it's the bread and butter of collectivists and all those similar that place identity as sole importance above all else.
I even have accounts to some of these, and I don't want to use them anymore. I was okay doing the PlayStation account link when I played the Steam version of Spider-Man, since the account at least existed. It got bonuses, and it really didn't do anything after that. I had Helldivers 2 on my wishlist for a bit until all that shit went down. I want to put Ghost of Tsushima on my wishlist, but I'm not entirely sure where things are going with the account link thing with that game.
I've wanted to try Titanfall 2, never having heard anything bad about the game whatsoever, but that requires an EA account. I actually picked up LA Noire, only to find that has a third-party launcher requirement. The choice of games to put this shit on is getting irritating.
LA Noire, only to find that has a third-party launcher requirement
And that's something they added years after release, so you're never really safe from that possibility. People were rightfully pissed on steam when rockstar released updates on a bunch of old games - and it was only to add their stupid launcher.
Now that I think about it, I think Far Cry: Blood Dragon did that too. I'm pretty sure I started it once a long time ago, but the last time I tried booting it up, UbiSoft launcher requiring account.
That annoys me in particular as well, because gamers are so quick to excuse it as if it's out of the publisher's control and all up to a third-party. These are AAA gaming companies, they could have easily 1) negotiated for permanent permission to use the tracks, 2) tried to keep the tracks in already sold copies of the game and only take them out of new purchases after license expiration, or 3) not included something in the first place if they knew they were just going to take it away later.
Thankfully I have the disc copies of the old games without steam.
I want to put Ghost of Tsushima on my wishlist, but I'm not entirely sure where things are going with the account link thing with that game.
At current juncture its only required to link for the multiplayer portion.
Which, while tacked on long after the game shipped, is surprisingly fun and enjoyable. Until you hit the raid mode which requires a full 4 man pre-made party and massive coordination on the level of an MMO raid. Its not really worth getting into because that roadblock hits way too soon once you get hooked. Unless all that changed later as I only messed with it on release.
They might change that and force it to play singleplayer, or leave it just for the bonuses like Spiderman. But as it exists now that's their stance.
It's all about getting your data nowadays so they can sell it on to marketing companies later. Their 'security procedures' are a joke when you look at how many times they get hacked.
As for CoD, never really play it but before Sony fucked it up, A LOT of them on Xbox wanted to jump over to Helldivers 2 than continue to play. There's a lot of people playing it and more remembering the fun they used to have in the past than having fun NOW.
Terms of Service: We promise not to give your data to anyone!
One Week Later
Terms of Service: We've changed our terms to sell your data for pennies on the dollar. Get fucked.
someone's got to come up with a way to poison our data that they can't counter without massive expenditure.
can agree, i mean we already got artists doing it to their art for anti ai scraping. we need a similar techinque that runs on your computer and browser that poisons the data. the only way to stop this data farming is to make it unprofitable.
No way does a game company need my phone number for any reason.
Accounts requiring phone numbers is just a backdoor for the Real ID stuff they were pushing a few years back. It got dumpstered by public backlash so they found a way to make it happen in a less obvious manner.
Why do you need an account? The original COD worked fine on user-run servers.
Any game or service that requires a number I refuse to use when possible. I don't care if I "miss out", I still respect myself enough to want my privacy.
I remember the days where you were told to NEVER give ANY identifying information about yourself online. The days where your online safety wasn't about mean words being said on some forum you voluntarily went to, but about ensuring your information wasn't being taken by some creep.
Now everyone posts every fucking detail of their life and it's honest to god saddening. It's not even about the "people are tracking me crap", even though that is true (what the fuck do you think marketing is other than tracking information?), it's about the sheer vanity of it all.
And what's worse is that people share this information about themselves in order to be treated differently, and it doesn't even matter if it's negative or positive treatment. Anonymity is the greatest equaliser there could possibly be, and every time you reveal even innocuous information about yourself, you're expecting that information to result in different treatment. A common example of this is people that start something like "As an [insert demographic here]", a simple yet effective line to try and get people to hold more value as to what you say than what you're actually saying holding the value.
Even me saying "I remember the days where....." is helping lend weight to my words because somehow me being there could mean my words are more important, but it doesn't actually make that much difference.
Every entity that wants more information from you is seeking to treat you differently. To exploit you in some manner, for good or for bad (eg "This person is so trustworthy, listen to them (but only because they're saying what I want)" or "This person isn't trustworthy, don't listen to them (because they're saying things I don't want them to say)". There is no exception, and it's the bread and butter of collectivists and all those similar that place identity as sole importance above all else.
I even have accounts to some of these, and I don't want to use them anymore. I was okay doing the PlayStation account link when I played the Steam version of Spider-Man, since the account at least existed. It got bonuses, and it really didn't do anything after that. I had Helldivers 2 on my wishlist for a bit until all that shit went down. I want to put Ghost of Tsushima on my wishlist, but I'm not entirely sure where things are going with the account link thing with that game.
I've wanted to try Titanfall 2, never having heard anything bad about the game whatsoever, but that requires an EA account. I actually picked up LA Noire, only to find that has a third-party launcher requirement. The choice of games to put this shit on is getting irritating.
And that's something they added years after release, so you're never really safe from that possibility. People were rightfully pissed on steam when rockstar released updates on a bunch of old games - and it was only to add their stupid launcher.
Now that I think about it, I think Far Cry: Blood Dragon did that too. I'm pretty sure I started it once a long time ago, but the last time I tried booting it up, UbiSoft launcher requiring account.
That annoys me in particular as well, because gamers are so quick to excuse it as if it's out of the publisher's control and all up to a third-party. These are AAA gaming companies, they could have easily 1) negotiated for permanent permission to use the tracks, 2) tried to keep the tracks in already sold copies of the game and only take them out of new purchases after license expiration, or 3) not included something in the first place if they knew they were just going to take it away later.
Thankfully I have the disc copies of the old games without steam.
Unless you own a game on a read-only disk, you don't really own it.
Well, if purchase isn't ownership, then piracy isn't theft.
You can play single player Ghost without linking your account.
At current juncture its only required to link for the multiplayer portion.
Which, while tacked on long after the game shipped, is surprisingly fun and enjoyable. Until you hit the raid mode which requires a full 4 man pre-made party and massive coordination on the level of an MMO raid. Its not really worth getting into because that roadblock hits way too soon once you get hooked. Unless all that changed later as I only messed with it on release.
They might change that and force it to play singleplayer, or leave it just for the bonuses like Spiderman. But as it exists now that's their stance.