SE5 bad reviews and problems.

[shinigami]

Jeku said:
when you play the game, a 3rd party company receives your IP

Whether defined as adware or as spyware this practice is just plain wrong and if people stop buying their products in protest, tough, you reap what you sow. If they wanted to use in-game ads based on your country they could have pulled the regional settings from the registry.

[Yimboli]

shinigami said:

Whether defined as adware or as spyware this practice is just plain wrong and if people stop buying their products in protest, tough, you reap what you sow. If they wanted to use in-game ads based on your country they could have pulled the regional settings from the registry.

do you view pulling registry settings as less invasive than getting the IP?

[shinigami]

Lesser of two evils, yes. A program checking the registry is common practice. I would prefer that one did not do even that, though.

[Yimboli]

shinigami said:
Lesser of two evils, yes. A program checking the registry is common practice. I would prefer that one did not do even that, though.

agreed.

[Jeku]

"What you describe is spyware; software that logs users online behavior &c."

Um, I didn't say it logs user's online behaviour. I said it *doesn't* do that. It simply sends your IP address one time when you first start the game, which is destroyed immediately.

The in-game ads is a different issue altogether, but I just wanted to make clear that this is neither adware nor spyware, especially as they are upfront with it in the first place with the leaflet inside the game box.

[Atrocities]

The last thing I want to see when I am playing a game is an adverstisement for SHRAPNEL GAMES, popping up on some build board in the game. (No offense Shrap, but your site is like the only site I regularly visit so... it would be the site that might pop up.)

They are doing this because it is what google and now AOL do with email and web searches. YOu get an email message from someone asking you about say the Star Trek Mod and on the side I get all these advertisement about Star Trek.. WTF! If I want to search for something like that I will do it on my own. I hate the fact that my email, and now my games, are being data mined in order to force feed me advertisment. If that is the way things are going, kinda like paid tv has gone, then I WANT TO BE PAID to play!

[Suicide Junkie]

Note:
Just because they admit it is adware dosen't make it not adware.

[Suicide Junkie]

The third party thing is a big hole. You can't always trust the *maker* of the game these days, what with asinine stuff like starforce these days. God knows what a third party will do.

Besides, the IP address thing is less accurate anyways.
Especially for European stuff, where it is easy to drive to a new country with completely different language.

On the other hand, it is a given that the user can read whatever language their regional settings are set to. If you don't read Italian, your PC isn't going to be set to Italian, even if you're visiting Italy at the time.

Or, heck, you could let the user choose what language they want the ads in! You're already doing that for the game's UI, right?

The question of why there are ads in a game you already paid for anyways is a separate matter.

[President_Elect_Shang]

I fail to see what the problem here is gentlemen? I personally like to learn of a new cream for my hemorrhoids while I blow away someone else’s!