If a game, application, device or EULA changes in a way you find unacceptable, after you’ve purchased it, you should be able to get your initial purchase price back. And if you paid with your data, you need to be able to demand they delete all your data. I think that law would be entirely reasonable and would do a lot of good.
They added spyware to it.
Here is excerpt from the tos, shared by user in steam reviews of the game.
important Info in Terms of Service:
• Mods are a bannable offense • Display of Cheats/Exploits is bannable • Forced arbitration clause and a waiver of class action and jury trial rights for all users residing in the United States and any other territory other than Australia, Switzerland, The United Kingdom, or The Territories of The European Economic Area • You can be banned for using a VPN while connecting to online servers • Cannot access game content on a Virtual PC
Collected Data Types: • Identifiers / Contact Information: Name, user name, gamertag, postal and email address, phone number, unique IDs, mobile device ID, platform ID, gaming service ID, advertising ID (IDFA, Android ID) and IP address • Protected Characteristics: Age and gender • Commercial Information: Purchase and usage history and preferences, including gameplay information • Billing Information: Payment information (credit / debit card information) and shipping address • Internet / Electronic Activity: Web / app browsing and gameplay information related to the Services; information about your online interaction(s) with the Services or our advertising; and details about the games and platforms you use and other information related to installed applications • Device and Usage Data: Device type, software and hardware details, language settings, browser type and version, operating system, and information about how users use and interact with the Services (e.g., content viewed, pages visited, clicks, scrolls) • Profile Inferences: Inferences made from your information and web activity to help create a personalized profile so we can identify goods and services that may be of interest • Audio / Visual Information: Account photos, images, and avatars, audio information via chat features and functionality, and gameplay recordings and video footage (such as when you participate in playtesting) • Sensitive Information: Precise location information (if you allow the Services to collect your location), account credentials (user name and password), and contents of communications via chat features and functionality.
I wouldnt touch anything this company has produced.
They added spyware to it.
No, they didn’t.
Just because something sounds outrageous, doesn’t mean it is true.
Borderlands 2 hasn’t been updated since 2022:
Borderlands - Last updated: 3 August 2016 Borderlands 2 - Last updated: 4 August 2022 Borderlands 3 - Last updated: 8 August 2024
No Borderlands titles include anti-cheat: https://areweanticheatyet.com/?search=borderlands
Here is another person, 7 years ago trying the exact same outrage-based engagement farming strategy of linking a TOS update and implying a nefarious intent: https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/8naopt/take_two_a_spyware_apocalypse/ It’s exactly the same “Take two is spying on you!!!” content and yet, none of the Borderlands games have added spyware and none have added kernel anti-cheat.
Also, if you read the 2018 and 2025 TOS you will notice notice that the information that they collect in the 2025 TOS ( https://www.take2games.com/legal/en-US/ ) is exactly the same as it was in 2018.
TL;DR - Just because you read it on the Internet, doesn’t mean it is true.
Interesting. So the terms of service have not changed, and yet people are saying that they did. I wonder if there are criticisms that are still valid. For example, the terms of service that you linked:
- do not let me use a VPN (¶6.4)
- do not let me use glitches (¶6.4)
- do not let me own the copy of the game that I bought, but instead give me a limited license to it (¶2.1-2.2)
- do not inform you about future updates to their terms of service (¶10.2)
- force me to enter arbitration and do not let me be part of a class action lawsuit or have a trial by jury (¶17.5)
- link to their privacy policy, which:
- does not let me opt out of having my data bought, merged, and sold through ad networks or data brokers (§ Categories of Information Collected, § How We Use Information and Our Legal Grounds, § Sources of Information We Collect, and § When We Share Information ¶ 5— all sources combined)
- does not attempt to deliberately minimize data collection to protect user data (with the only exception of children’s data, their purposes are extremely vague § How We Use Information and Our Legal Grounds, they do not anonymize data, and they broadly do not make the attempt to do so— I cannot provide a citation because there is no attempt to do this in their privacy policy)
- does not specify the purposes of gathering and using information about any installed application on my device (§ Categories of Information Collected)
- does not let me opt-out of data collection categories for specific purposes (cannot give a direct citation because they simply do not do it; instead, they wrote vague types of information they collect —such as “details about… other information related to installed applications” in § Categories of Information Collected, as well as vague purposes in § How We Use Information)
So, coming back to the original claim you were debunking:
They added spyware to it.
Your response was
No, they didn’t.
And after reading their terms of service and privacy policy, I agree with you. If it is true that they haven’t changed their terms of service, then they didn’t add it. Instead, it was always there. They have always said that they gather “details about… other information related to installed applications” on my device for purposes that can include merging and selling my data to data brokers and ad networks.
The language about collecting and using data have been in TOSs for basically every online service since the early '00s.
I’m not saying that this is okay. The data that these services collect, which we’ve given them unlimited rights to, has only become more valuable and the incentives for these companies are always for them to gather more data about you.
You can use archive.org if you want to look at older policies from the same company. But, if you pull up any other game with an online component you will see that they all are essentially “Don’t cheat our services or hide your identity, We’re going to collect your data and use it how we want, and you have to enter into binding arbitration” with various levels of detail and verbosity.
I sometimes wonder what I casually believe because I read it while scrolling for something interesting. I don’t have the time or inclination to fact check every single detail I come across.
I’m sure I believe a lot of nonsense from reading the Internet.
That’s okay, we’re just human. The problem is when people try to ‘inform’ people of things that they ‘know’ from reading social media. That’s how these situations are created, so many people believe this because so many other people believe it and then repeat it as fact without themselves ever checking.
It’s like a feedback loop of ignorance, caused entirely by people who care more about getting social credit for talking and less about saying things that are true.
Totally. And then these rebuttals are time consuming to fact check too.
LOL. I loved the Borderlands franchise, until Epic made their evil dog shit app store and the Borderlands devs sold out to them. Motherfuck Borderlands forever now. Thanks for the warning so I don’t accidentally reinstall any of it from Steam.
Bro get a life, it’s not that serious. Evil app store lmao as if they’re out to murder you and your family
I know thats not a risk for you, but this data could genuinely be used by the us government to do that in the near future, for many marginalized populations.
Especially queer people and anyone who could be seen as an immigrant.
Some of us have real problems in life, and have to actually give literally a single fuck about the world.
Yes, the government is going to get you by installing spyware in a game launcher that nobody uses. You won’t care a shit about or vet at code level any of the 200+ closed source games you will play in your life because they’re all fine in your fantasy land, but one game launcher is out to kidnap you.
lemmy yet again falls for the ragebait hook line and sinker
Ok so that explains the bad reviews, but why is steam giving the game away for free? Also BL3 is heavily discounted
Publisher made it free to propagate their spyware.
I think it’s up to the publisher, and not steam, to give the game away for free.
Y’all really going to freak out over the new paralegal being told to update the EULAs and lazily hitting the update all button?
I sometimes wonder what will happen when EAC, that has root access to millions of PCs, gets compromised or grunty employee and pushes malicious update
Same thing that happened to genshin when it’s anti cheats got compromised I would guess. Not a lot and everyone ends up not caring.
Because normal people do not give a single fuck about the technical aspect of data privacy.
That’s right. I’m not lying at all when I say that none of my friends care about privacy. It’s actually quite frustrating.
Yup, same here. As long as it’s convenient, my friends/family don’t care what is taken from them.
Then the death squads will come in, and they’ll ask ‘how could this possibly happen!?’, getting fucking pissed or saying “we couldn’t have known!” when you answer, and offer an ‘i fucking told you so’ in line for the camps.
You’re there too, because they tagged you in everything.
It probably spys on you already.
The company that makes the Overwolf game launcher is an Israli cyber security company that gets money from the US.
Tencent spys on people for China through a lot of the games they own.
Holy fuck I did not know about Overwolf. That’s the last time I download something from my, apparently, dipshit friend (no, this is not the only stupid thing he’s done).
I think it’s kind of ironic you call your friend apparently a dipshit for not knowing something you also didn’t know… pot calling the kettle black & all.
from my, apparently, dipshit friend (no, this is not the only stupid thing he’s done).
Reading comprehension is hard. I get it.
Hey, maybe your friend didn’t know either!(nor did i😭)
Yes that’s the problem, he doesn’t know a lot of things. He also doesn’t seem very keen on learning them.
He’s young, so I still have hope for him but god damnit he’s stupid and a potential hazard apparently.
Crowdstrike 2.0
I just don’t understand anticheat or copy protection on PvE games. I can understand it if you don’t want to play against a cheater, but this is a cooperative shooter.
IIRC Borderlands 3 scales the value of loot to the game’s difficulty setting, with some mechanics aimed at encouraging players to join online coops at high difficulties in order to earn more valuable loot. I imagine cheats undermine that intent, and I also imagine borderlands 4 might be aiming at a pay to play scheme.
I’m guessing this EULA is being used for all their IP with the intent of taking advantage of it in the future.
It’s for precedent on future games and to sneak in shit for later. Wittle down your expectations and privacy, make it “normal”.
See you’re looking at it from the point of view that it would serve the player experience, but that’s not what it’s for, it’s to mine your data
We haven’t gotten another Middle Earth game because it had an online requirement
Now look where we are
We haven’t gotten another Middle Earth game because it had an online requirement
Now look where we are
So 50% score loss because of a permissive EULA, got it …
I’ll just leave this in the “Pitchforks against Pitchford” and “Woke, must hate” folder. Call me back when they do actually include a rootkit in their games. If only there was some way to get statistics of the people getting outraged because of posts in a subreddit community and the people who don’t have a problem with rootkits installed by their favorite MMOs.
You should hold a class on how to insert “woke” into every conversation.
Because of a single comment? No need to hold a class about your criteria.
Lol go home Randy, you’re drunk.
… Do you really believe I am Randy Pitchford? Whow, so that’s the bar for IQ around these parts …
I’ll just leave this in the “Pitchforks against Pitchford” and “Woke, must hate” folder.
So you’re an idiot?
People do complain about rootkits, but a reaction on this scale means it might be more fitting for you to reply to the mirror.
Let’s try this logic on other things. Their EULA says they can cut off a finger whenever they want. They haven’t cut off my finger for my purchase of this game, call me back when they cut it off.
If you’re someone that doesn’t want companies to have root level access to your computer, waiting until it happens is silly when they’re telling you it’s gonna happen. It is every reason to complain and be concerned.
No offense, but have you ever read EULAs? Even Windows EULA has a lot of “cut off a finger” provisions. It’s invasive, and people are right to complain. People might cry Linux, but when their job requires them to use Windows and abide by that EULA, most will crumble.
Like it or not, most EULAs are legally binding bullshit that more often than not has to be ignored or bypassed outside of it if necessary. How many people are watching YouTube and ignoring their Terms of Service while using adblockers?
This is nothing new in the world of gaming, and to the scale of affecting over 50% of the score of a game for a provision that is often included in other games they have no problem with is what’s revealing. A lot of MMOs and many multiplayer games do, but people haven’t cried wolf outside of a minority of their community. Pitchford has given his explanation, that it is a matter of the 2K EULA Gearbox has to adopt.
Let’s try this logic on other things. Are all 2K games that have this in their newly updated EULA’s being boycotted? Hint: Civilization is a 2K game.
Some things are just obvious when your head is not stuck inside the ass of a circlejerk bandwagon. It’s just sad that some people aren’t honest with themselves and and are not willing to recognize how easily they are influenced by people who are holding hidden grudges. Too many games are getting shit on because of this, and I say this as someone who is not looking forward to the next Borderlands game until the discounts drop it well below its 80 dollar price tag several years from now while plenty of loud people in this thread will go out to buy it on day one.
I agree they should expand their review protest to all games in the catalog and not selectively review bomb. Consumers have every reason to impact products success through their purchasing power and reviews. I stopped giving my money to game companies I don’t like a decade ago. It means missing some games, but there is so much out there it hardly matters. I don’t give a shit about this specific controversy, but I do think people have every reason to use their bully pulpit to attempt to impact consumer habits and therefore at least attempt change, even if they are often unsuccessful.
It’s probably a common EULA for all games, so they probably added it to carify the terms for some other game that includes it.
Yikes. Is the review in the screenshot true? They got root anticheat? Or rootkit data harvesting?
He said they added a kernel level anticheat in the TOS which is true. But they seem to have not included it in the game yet. But they and and by possedong the game you allow them to.
possedong
I’d like to know how your autocorrect learned this word
That’s a typo from an i to an o, commenter probably meant possessing but made a mistake and tried to type posseding, I suspect their native language is french given their username and “to possess” in french is “posséder”.
That being said, a possedong sounds intriguing
Do you do osint ? … That pretty Mich on point. I use a English/French keyboard and sometime autocorrect do strange things.
I had to look this up… looks like it’s a whole thing
No, it’s misinformation and people who uncritically repeat things without verification.
I’ve had the game installed for years and have to manually apply updates, there hasn’t been one. e: I just checked, last update in Steam is dated 2022
All they’ve done is make their TOS universal across all of their games.
He said it, root access level in the TOS of BorderLand. Not that a root kit is included, but that they allowed them self to inclid it whenever they can. That not misinformation…
He said it
That not misinformation…
It is misinformation if the things he said are not true.
So, let’s look into the claims.
Here’s the TOS:
https://www.take2games.com/legal/en-US/
There is nothing about root level access.
In addition, if you look at the patch history for Borderlands 2 on SteamDB, you will see that the last update for the game was 4 August 2022.
So, to be clear:
There is nothing in the TOS that requires you to submit to a rootkit and there is no spyware that has been added. The comment in the OP is simply wrong.
This is what happens when you simply read social media and repeat what you’ve heard without checking to see if you’re spreading misinformation.
I’m really curious on what actual specific steps you took to “check”. It took me about a few minutes of reading to find it.
https://www.take2games.com/privacy/en-US/#3-sources-of-information
We also may use internal and third-party anti-cheat technologies to detect and prevent cheating within our Services.
Furthermore, https://www.take2games.com/legal/en-US/#10-availability specifically section 10.2
We may provide patches, updates, or upgrades to the Services, Virtual Items, Content, or your Account that may be required for you to continue using the Services, including automatic or “in the background” updates without notice to you.
I hope the people who upvoted your misinformation are able to see this, please think of your actions and conduct before posting multiple comments defending a company if you’re worried about misinformation.
That… doesn’t actually rebut anything FauxLiving said. That they may use anti-cheat, and that they may have automatic updates, aren’t the claims in question here.
Ummm those two would statements would in fact allow them to install a “anticheat” rookit/kernel program at any time without your knowledge…
Sincerely thank you for commenting. I was completely dumbfounded with @Warl0k3@lemmy.world’s statement and wasn’t sure if I wanted to waste my time with a response if it was just trolling.
Don’t speak I’ll of steam and billionaire Gabe around here. The steam bros are gonna crucify you for daring to even think ill of THEIR corporation and THEIR billionaire who of course loves and cares for them all.
Your mom is wrong. You are not even slightly cool.
This thread makes me wish we could have a discussion community where we exclude Americans. Even the left are nuts over there now. Nothing but name calling and shit slinging. Glad your country is drowning
Cry moar, I’ll never see your blocked ass again :-)
Hahaha, you killed me. XD You have problem with the default country ?
What’s Steam got to do with Borderlands 2 having a rootkit?
If this was on PSN or the Nintendo shop, everyone downvoting me would be up in arms blaming Sony and Nintendo
Objection! Speculative
Making up scenarios and claiming to know what the response would be sure is a way to make an argument.
I mean, the worse most laughable way, but it’s a way indeed.
But it’s not. So don’t make up scenarios and then claim persecution when people downvote you.
You’re right that it’s not Valve they’re mad at, buuuuut…
They could regulate that no games they sell can have rootkits and delist the ones that do, as well as offer refunds if a rootkit is patched in in the future. They have lots of rules already, and I don’t think that would be a bad one.
That’s a nice thought, and they should do that, but you’ve gotta do better at picking and choosing your moments
I’m not the guy that guy replied to.
Just a random guy who thinks Gabe can put his foot down with these publishers. They already all tried going without Steam and they came crawling back.
So should Walmart stop selling products that I deem unfit based on my personal preferences too? Say goodbye to animal fats, products made in the US, ultra processed foods, some fruit I just don’t like the taste of, all Nestlé products…
I think you get the point.
If somebody put strychnine in the guacamole, I’d expect Walmart to remove it from the shelves and offer refunds to anyone that bought it.
If somebody distributed malware through Steam, I’d expect them to stop it also.
Not that there is currently malware in Borderlands 2, but their EULA says they could put it there if they wanted, and there’s nothing you could do about it.
As usual, money is the best message. So if they do put it into a game you’ve paid for, request a refund. If Valve starts losing money, they will change their rules.
Steam refunded me multiple time for game where EULA changed and I disagreed with it. I told them that the EULA changed to include spyware capabilities and I don’t agree with the EULA change.
I actually tried this with BL2 last week and got told “no, you’ve owned it for almost 10 years”
I find it hard to disagree with that notion, but also have a pirated copy with my saves backed up ready to fucking go
I didnt realize Steam would do that. There have been several times where EULAs changed or malware was added a year or more later and I just assumed I had no recourse.
Dépend on the backslash they get. I have to admit it didn’t work each time. Last time I did it was for a psn account requirement added after they sold it
🏴☠️ is free and without shenanigans.
giving root level access to russian crackers instead
Damn, its such a shame you can’t run a crack in a vm, or on linux via WINE and Proton, aw shucks.
and then run whatever modified code it just deployed on the host, yea
A game with a malicious crack that can escape a VM running on Windows and get to the main OS?
Sure, possible, but not by any means common.
A game with a malicious crack made for Windows that can… do anything nefarious when you’re running it on linux via WINE and Proton?
… Theoretically possible, but I’ve never heard of this actually occuring.
The same, but also inside another linux OS inside of a Bottle or Distrobox… or full VM… all running on a linux system that is significantly atomized with a read only core-os?
… At that point I am quite doubtful anyone is bothering to make a malicious crack that capable… when 99% of the existing game trainers and hacks that you can find or buy online… only work on Windows.
The crowd of people making game exploits and cheat engines… and the crowd of people making malicious game cracks… that venn diagram is almost a circle… and 99% of these people do not bother to ‘support’ linux, in anyway, at all, with anything they do.
Is using any random cracked software ever 100% safe? No.
But neither is say, using a Windows system, with 0 cracks or hacks… but with a MSFT trusted vendor’s 3rd party anti malware software… where said trusted vendor is allowed to push an unverified update to their kernel level anti-malware system… that is actually malformed, and then knocks out about 1/4 of every enterprise Windows PCs on Earth for 2 weeks.
Over wine?
If you go to the right sites you won’t get any malicious code. Stop spreading corpo propaganda.
There is nuance here. Not every crack is malicious but you have to assume they all are because some of them are. Trusting a source is irrelevant. Many security products will falsely tag cracked software as dangerous just because it’s cracked, not because it found a specific bit of nasty code, and this feeds the idea that you can’t believe when people tell you cracked software is unsafe. But there are many truly bad cracks out there. When in doubt, don’t trust it.
And you should always doubt free shit.
Same is true of any software these days, not just cracks…
This is true. Even projects with good reputations get caught up in shit like the XZ back door in Linux.
If you haven’t read up on that fiasco, you really should look into it. It got way too far before being caught all because people suck and ruin things for others.
it isn’t propaganda.
it’s been a while since I’ve used windows, but I remember having to give administrator privileges to software installers, whether they are from legitimate vendors or from ripping groups with modified code
Thats a windows thing so it can put files in “protected” folders like program files
What’s with this anyway? A remnant from the single-user days?
Some software installers still ask if I want to install for all users, which require elevated permissions, or only for me, which don’t. In that last option it will not prompt for elevated permissions as it will use one of my user’s folders which I have already all permissions for, obviously.
It’s a security measure that’s half assed. People are so used to it they just click allow but don’t actually look at the prompt anymore. Like I see a lot of people do with cookies on websites.
Shh, the kids don’t want to hear about the dark side of free things (oh hey, a new Meta service!)
/s
I didn’t enjoy the Handsome Collection but free is free. Thanks for sharing.
Is this because Embracer sold Borderlands to Take-Two last year?
It’s because Take Two came out with a fuck-you-in-the-ass EULA for all their games. I actually look forward to boycotting someone, there’s too much free and discounted shit everywhere
