Hey Namelessbob, why don't you go ahead and highlight the portion of any of those EULA's that indicate the company is aggregating data and sharing it with 3rd party advertisers. Go ahead, I'll wait.
Okay do you not get that even though EA is a big company and rich, they still won't want to spend their money on something to make you happy just to make you happy? As i said before. The 50$ you spend on the box normally, pays for the initial development. and provides a profit for the company(if there wasn't a profit then why would they make the game?) What game company would then continue to host the game and continue developing non expansion content for a game without any more income. Theres a large staff continueing to work on the game. As i said before THATS what your paying for with your OPTIONAL 10$ You also have to know these are secure servers, that will contain your character information, and everyone else who decides to play, and chances are host the actual servers as well. how do you expect them to pay for these over the next 2-10 years? Do you think ea would constantly be spending money on servers, server maintenance, server techs, etc. The answer is why? to make gamers happy? You have to realize that at the end of the day, it's a company, they are after money, thats what every video game company is after. And these ads which are UNOBTRUSIVE. and NOT HARMFUL TO YOU IN ANY WAY! You play through hellgate, and you see a poster for comics, or mythos. Does that hurt you? Does that scare you? Watch tv for 30 minutes, walk down the street, listen to the radio, browse the web, heck even in books, magazines, and comics, theres ads. They get paid for them. Why do you think public channels have commercials? to pay for the shows without you having to pay for each channel. So why do we have ads in hellgate? Because you can and most people will play online for free, and thats how they are going to run them. It's common sense, they want to make money, and they want offer a service. You people act as if they owe you it, and they should spend their money just to make you have a better experience in the game, AFTER they've already sold you the product. You know you should stop btiching, and realize that if it wasn't for the ads, and it wasn't for the option of a fee. We wouldn't have secure online servers, we wouldn't have frequent content updates, we'd have a few patches here and there, one expansion, and that's it, like every other dungeon crawler.
How does Blizzard pay for their servers? How does CCP pay for their servers? How does PlayOnline pay for their servers? Honestly I don't know and I don't care. But EA should take note of that and figure out how they do it without inserting ads into the game. Who said that content updates won't have to be purchased? EA? Let me remind you what happened the last time developers promised something before they did it. (Vanguard) I'm also sure that in that ULA although I haven't read it fully they have thought about it and reserved the right to start charging people for future game content. If EA will choose to put an expansion out on the shelves and charge for it who will stop it? You? I don't know what books you read but there are no advertisements in any of mine. When the author of the book mentions a certain product or a company it's not there for advertisement purposes, it's there for character development. And what's easier to write? "Jake decided that he was parched, and it was time for his favorite beverage.....the black bubbly sweet stuff that burns your throat on the way down? Or maybe it's simpler to write COKE, or PEPSI. You continue to mention useless stuff trying to compare things, ie, TV and comic books and ads on MMORPG.com. The bottom line is I have a choice to skip the channel that is currently at commercial breakeor not look at the billboard when I'm driving a car. But playing a game? You don't get that simple of a decision. You either play it or you don't. And also this gem that I couldn't believe you posted:
"how do you expect them to pay for these over the next 2-10 years? Do you think ea would constantly be spending money on servers, server maintenance, server techs, etc. The answer is why? to make gamers happy?"
Ah HELL YES!!! If I'm spending money on a product and continue to do so on a month to month basis they better do whatever they can to make me happy. If you buy a brand new car from BMW or Mercedes do you think they don't care if you're happy or not? Do you know why they want to know if you're happy and keep you happy? BRAND LOYALTY!!! It means that if they treat you better than the other company you have a better chance of buying another product from them, no matter what business they are in. That's how EA got to where it is. By going the extra mile and in their early stages making much better SPORTING TITLES than anybody else out there. And it worked. Look at the millions of people that line up for FIFA or Madden, even though these games are the same crap thats been getting released every year with small insignificant updates. Not to mention buggy games as hell. Again BRAND LOYALTY.
But hey if this stuff doesn't bother you thats fine. Play the game have the ads who cares. But please don't try to force some "badly thought out ideas" on the rest of us and tell us that there is something wrong in our brains.
Okay do you not get that even though EA is a big company and rich, they still won't want to spend their money on something to make you happy just to make you happy? As i said before. The 50$ you spend on the box normally, pays for the initial development. and provides a profit for the company(if there wasn't a profit then why would they make the game?) What game company would then continue to host the game and continue developing non expansion content for a game without any more income. Theres a large staff continueing to work on the game. As i said before THATS what your paying for with your OPTIONAL 10$ You also have to know these are secure servers, that will contain your character information, and everyone else who decides to play, and chances are host the actual servers as well. how do you expect them to pay for these over the next 2-10 years? Do you think ea would constantly be spending money on servers, server maintenance, server techs, etc. The answer is why? to make gamers happy? You have to realize that at the end of the day, it's a company, they are after money, thats what every video game company is after. And these ads which are UNOBTRUSIVE. and NOT HARMFUL TO YOU IN ANY WAY! You play through hellgate, and you see a poster for comics, or mythos. Does that hurt you? Does that scare you? Watch tv for 30 minutes, walk down the street, listen to the radio, browse the web, heck even in books, magazines, and comics, theres ads. They get paid for them. Why do you think public channels have commercials? to pay for the shows without you having to pay for each channel. So why do we have ads in hellgate? Because you can and most people will play online for free, and thats how they are going to run them. It's common sense, they want to make money, and they want offer a service. You people act as if they owe you it, and they should spend their money just to make you have a better experience in the game, AFTER they've already sold you the product. You know you should stop btiching, and realize that if it wasn't for the ads, and it wasn't for the option of a fee. We wouldn't have secure online servers, we wouldn't have frequent content updates, we'd have a few patches here and there, one expansion, and that's it, like every other dungeon crawler.
How does Blizzard pay for their servers? How does CCP pay for their servers? How does PlayOnline pay for their servers? Honestly I don't know and I don't care. But EA should take note of that and figure out how they do it without inserting ads into the game. Who said that content updates won't have to be purchased? EA? Let me remind you what happened the last time developers promised something before they did it. (Vanguard) I'm also sure that in that ULA although I haven't read it fully they have thought about it and reserved the right to start charging people for future game content. If EA will choose to put an expansion out on the shelves and charge for it who will stop it? You? I don't know what books you read but there are no advertisements in any of mine. When the author of the book mentions a certain product or a company it's not there for advertisement purposes, it's there for character development. And what's easier to write? "Jake decided that he was parched, and it was time for his favorite beverage.....the black bubbly sweet stuff that burns your throat on the way down? Or maybe it's simpler to write COKE, or PEPSI. You continue to mention useless stuff trying to compare things, ie, TV and comic books and ads on MMORPG.com. The bottom line is I have a choice to skip the channel that is currently at commercial breakeor not look at the billboard when I'm driving a car. But playing a game? You don't get that simple of a decision. You either play it or you don't. And also this gem that I couldn't believe you posted:
Go look at some books, almost every single book has a advert to other books by the author, or by the same publisher. Some even go so far as to add the beginning of other books at the end of a book even when it's not part of the series. It's to earn money. "how do you expect them to pay for these over the next 2-10 years? Do you think ea would constantly be spending money on servers, server maintenance, server techs, etc. The answer is why? to make gamers happy?"
Ah HELL YES!!! If I'm spending money on a product and continue to do so on a month to month basis they better do whatever they can to make me happy. If you buy a brand new car from BMW or Mercedes do you think they don't care if you're happy or not? Do you know why they want to know if you're happy and keep you happy? BRAND LOYALTY!!! It means that if they treat you better than the other company you have a better chance of buying another product from them, no matter what business they are in. That's how EA got to where it is. By going the extra mile and in their early stages making much better SPORTING TITLES than anybody else out there. And it worked. Look at the millions of people that line up for FIFA or Madden, even though these games are the same crap thats been getting released every year with small insignificant updates. Not to mention buggy games as hell. Again BRAND LOYALTY. YEAH BOY BRAND LOYALTY!!! WOOT!!! HECK YA!!!! OH BABY!!! Now find me a company that constantly works on their car models and actually offers to "pimp your ride" every few weeks-months for free. I haven't seen any. Have you ever bought a new dvd player and they released a newer model and said hey we'll trade ya your old one for this one for free! Or a better example. Has EA ever offered to "update" your madden 2006 with 2007's rosters and gameplay additions for free? Yes theres brand loyalty, but hellgate is to continue on itself. This isn't about making Hellgate 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 successful. It's to make hellgate: london successful and to keep it going.
But hey if this stuff doesn't bother you thats fine. Play the game have the ads who cares. But please don't try to force some "badly thought out ideas" on the rest of us and tell us that there is something wrong in our brains. Your the one who expects things for free, you may be that naive, but don't think we are all that retarded
The advertisements aren't the problem, it's EA giving away personal information that's... weird...
In all reality any company who runs an anti-hack program in the background is taking information off your computer. IE. WoW, SoE, FFXI, GW, all Steam games, o the list goes on but not needed.
Yes, that is true. Do you really want to play a game that allows all the hacks? If people are scared of games installing spyware, then they shouldn't hook up their PCs to the internet. Just play offline console games.
I wouldn't mind in game ads, if I can play for free. Obviously having mana pots that were pepsi, wouldn't really bother me. Having bilboards down every street, would. I'm sure that people can have some common sense when they add ads. I think that is the future of online games. Subscriptions will decrease or go away, and ads will take hold.
If it has been posted, great! If not, well here it is. The explaination in plain english. People need to do a little bit more research before they start whining and complaining on forums about their make believe conspiracy theory. Even if HGL did watch your activities to choose what ads to place, big deal. I like the realism the ads give in the game. I kinda wish it was the case that they did this, too bad....
Summary;
The rumors are false regarding HGL containing spyware and only created by the conspiracy theorists who are scared of anyone in a suit.... or aliens I guess. I think they fear them too.
We just made some big announcements about Hellgate: London, and it’s been great to see all of the excited comments regarding what we have in store for our players on day one and onward. On the flip side, we’ve also heard grumblings about the EULA that went out with our DX9 single-player demo.
We want to make something very clear. We are in no way scanning your computers for your personal information or taking any personal information without your knowledge. The only time that Flagship or Ping0 would collect your personally identifiable information is when you actually decide to give it to us. Examples are when you create an account for Hellgate: London online or when you provide us your personal information when you enter a contest. The language in the portion of the EULA that has been cited is actually fairly standardized language that is used in the vast majority of EULAs for recent on-line software. It was unfortunately also somewhat broad in scope and potentially ambiguous in nature in an attempt to keep the legalese at a minimum.
This catch-all statement was included so that we have the ability to determine if someone is using hacks, unauthorized mods or other abusive applications while playing the game which spoils the gameplay for everyone else. We also use this catch-all to protect other parties offering technical support, such as our online provider, Ping0. This is a completely legitimate function and other leaders in the MMO space do it in an effort to stop hackers and provide better technical support. In order to stop hacks and cheats, as well as attempts at outright fraud, we may need the ability to scan our player’s computers for applications running at the same time as our game. This paragraph was designed to be able to allow for such functionality. It is also important to point out that EA does not determine what we do in regards to online and offline for our game security.
Also, this has nothing specifically to do with advertisements. EA has nothing do with Massive or potential ad-serving in Hellgate: London. First and foremost, any in-game advertising that would be in Hellgate: London is there to simulate how London looks in the real-world. Ads that represent this have been in the entirety of the beta, and in fact, have been shown in the game for well over a year. The fact is that we did not agree to potentially have ads in the game just to make more money. If we did not work with Massive, we would have to get individual approvals from every single company that we want to feature in the Underground stations. This is simply too time consuming and it’s much better to have the experts to do it, allowing us time to focus on making Hellgate: London better and better while getting a realistic portrayal of London in the process.
Should we elect to serve ads, they must be approved by us, Flagship Studios. We would demand that they be in-context with the game world - aged, weathered, only shown in appropriate areas, just as the static posters you see in the Stations are now. We have no interest in putting giant, bright-white billboard in the middle of your battles or having you wield swords of Brand X Cola.
Finally, Hellgate: London and all of the online play and components are controlled by Flagship Studios and Ping0. We’re all gamers here, and we’re as sensitive to protecting our personal information as you are. This is why we have spent the past six months becoming a member of the ESRB Privacy Online certification program. This means that we’re meeting the most rigorous standards in the industry for protecting your privacy and the information that you provide us.
We hope this helps address the concerns of our community.
Comments
Hey Namelessbob, why don't you go ahead and highlight the portion of any of those EULA's that indicate the company is aggregating data and sharing it with 3rd party advertisers. Go ahead, I'll wait.
"how do you expect them to pay for these over the next 2-10 years? Do you think ea would constantly be spending money on servers, server maintenance, server techs, etc. The answer is why? to make gamers happy?"
Ah HELL YES!!! If I'm spending money on a product and continue to do so on a month to month basis they better do whatever they can to make me happy. If you buy a brand new car from BMW or Mercedes do you think they don't care if you're happy or not? Do you know why they want to know if you're happy and keep you happy? BRAND LOYALTY!!! It means that if they treat you better than the other company you have a better chance of buying another product from them, no matter what business they are in. That's how EA got to where it is. By going the extra mile and in their early stages making much better SPORTING TITLES than anybody else out there. And it worked. Look at the millions of people that line up for FIFA or Madden, even though these games are the same crap thats been getting released every year with small insignificant updates. Not to mention buggy games as hell. Again BRAND LOYALTY.
But hey if this stuff doesn't bother you thats fine. Play the game have the ads who cares. But please don't try to force some "badly thought out ideas" on the rest of us and tell us that there is something wrong in our brains.
If anybody cares
http://www.hellgatelondon.com/underground/eula-explanation
no one cares lol. hehe joking. though EULA's in general tend to be a bit vague.
3.4ghz Phenom II X4 965, 8GB PC12800 DDR3 GSKILL, EVGA 560GTX 2GB OC, 640GB HD SATA II, BFG 1000WATT PSU. MSI NF980-G65 TRI-SLI MOBO.
Edit** its not worth it Mortis. You obviously understand and just like to argue worthless junk.
Go look at some books, almost every single book has a advert to other books by the author, or by the same publisher. Some even go so far as to add the beginning of other books at the end of a book even when it's not part of the series. It's to earn money.
"how do you expect them to pay for these over the next 2-10 years? Do you think ea would constantly be spending money on servers, server maintenance, server techs, etc. The answer is why? to make gamers happy?"
Ah HELL YES!!! If I'm spending money on a product and continue to do so on a month to month basis they better do whatever they can to make me happy. If you buy a brand new car from BMW or Mercedes do you think they don't care if you're happy or not? Do you know why they want to know if you're happy and keep you happy? BRAND LOYALTY!!! It means that if they treat you better than the other company you have a better chance of buying another product from them, no matter what business they are in. That's how EA got to where it is. By going the extra mile and in their early stages making much better SPORTING TITLES than anybody else out there. And it worked. Look at the millions of people that line up for FIFA or Madden, even though these games are the same crap thats been getting released every year with small insignificant updates. Not to mention buggy games as hell. Again BRAND LOYALTY.
YEAH BOY BRAND LOYALTY!!! WOOT!!! HECK YA!!!! OH BABY!!! Now find me a company that constantly works on their car models and actually offers to "pimp your ride" every few weeks-months for free. I haven't seen any. Have you ever bought a new dvd player and they released a newer model and said hey we'll trade ya your old one for this one for free!
Or a better example. Has EA ever offered to "update" your madden 2006 with 2007's rosters and gameplay additions for free? Yes theres brand loyalty, but hellgate is to continue on itself. This isn't about making Hellgate 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 successful. It's to make hellgate: london successful and to keep it going.
In all reality any company who runs an anti-hack program in the background is taking information off your computer. IE. WoW, SoE, FFXI, GW, all Steam games, o the list goes on but not needed.
Yes, that is true. Do you really want to play a game that allows all the hacks? If people are scared of games installing spyware, then they shouldn't hook up their PCs to the internet. Just play offline console games.I wouldn't mind in game ads, if I can play for free. Obviously having mana pots that were pepsi, wouldn't really bother me. Having bilboards down every street, would. I'm sure that people can have some common sense when they add ads. I think that is the future of online games. Subscriptions will decrease or go away, and ads will take hold.
If it has been posted, great! If not, well here it is. The explaination in plain english. People need to do a little bit more research before they start whining and complaining on forums about their make believe conspiracy theory. Even if HGL did watch your activities to choose what ads to place, big deal. I like the realism the ads give in the game. I kinda wish it was the case that they did this, too bad....
Summary;
The rumors are false regarding HGL containing spyware and only created by the conspiracy theorists who are scared of anyone in a suit.... or aliens I guess. I think they fear them too.
Direct link for the below:
http://www.hellgatelondon.com/underground
EULA Explanation
We want to make something very clear. We are in no way scanning your computers for your personal information or taking any personal information without your knowledge. The only time that Flagship or Ping0 would collect your personally identifiable information is when you actually decide to give it to us. Examples are when you create an account for Hellgate: London online or when you provide us your personal information when you enter a contest. The language in the portion of the EULA that has been cited is actually fairly standardized language that is used in the vast majority of EULAs for recent on-line software. It was unfortunately also somewhat broad in scope and potentially ambiguous in nature in an attempt to keep the legalese at a minimum.
This catch-all statement was included so that we have the ability to determine if someone is using hacks, unauthorized mods or other abusive applications while playing the game which spoils the gameplay for everyone else. We also use this catch-all to protect other parties offering technical support, such as our online provider, Ping0. This is a completely legitimate function and other leaders in the MMO space do it in an effort to stop hackers and provide better technical support. In order to stop hacks and cheats, as well as attempts at outright fraud, we may need the ability to scan our player’s computers for applications running at the same time as our game. This paragraph was designed to be able to allow for such functionality. It is also important to point out that EA does not determine what we do in regards to online and offline for our game security.
Also, this has nothing specifically to do with advertisements. EA has nothing do with Massive or potential ad-serving in Hellgate: London. First and foremost, any in-game advertising that would be in Hellgate: London is there to simulate how London looks in the real-world. Ads that represent this have been in the entirety of the beta, and in fact, have been shown in the game for well over a year. The fact is that we did not agree to potentially have ads in the game just to make more money. If we did not work with Massive, we would have to get individual approvals from every single company that we want to feature in the Underground stations. This is simply too time consuming and it’s much better to have the experts to do it, allowing us time to focus on making Hellgate: London better and better while getting a realistic portrayal of London in the process.
Should we elect to serve ads, they must be approved by us, Flagship Studios. We would demand that they be in-context with the game world - aged, weathered, only shown in appropriate areas, just as the static posters you see in the Stations are now. We have no interest in putting giant, bright-white billboard in the middle of your battles or having you wield swords of Brand X Cola.
Finally, Hellgate: London and all of the online play and components are controlled by Flagship Studios and Ping0. We’re all gamers here, and we’re as sensitive to protecting our personal information as you are. This is why we have spent the past six months becoming a member of the ESRB Privacy Online certification program. This means that we’re meeting the most rigorous standards in the industry for protecting your privacy and the information that you provide us.
We hope this helps address the concerns of our community.
See you online!