From Newsgroup: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action


So, "Borderlands 4" is out. That's a big deal to some, but not to me.
The series was never something I had great interest in, and it didn't
seem to be getting any better with each iteration. Supposedly this
fourth* game is better than the third, but that's not a particularly
high bar as far as I'm concerned. Anyway, I'm not really here to talk
about the game itself, which I'm unlikely to play any time soon (or
possibly ever).

Instead, I'd rather observe the kerfuffle Take Two and Gearbox have
gotten themselves into, and how it was all so avoidable. It's not a
big kerfuffle** but it is having an impact on their release-day sales
Whether it will actually amount to anything is debatable, but I'm not
a fan of Randy Pitchford, so anything that pours sand in his corn
flakes is okay by me. ;-)

See, the problem all stems from the Take Two EULA that is attached to
the game. It's not a new EULA; it's actually one that was last revised
a few months ago. It made a few waves back then too; it's a bit over
broad, technically allowing Take Two to allow kernel-level monitors
that, if you agreed to it, allowed them to basically monitor and track
user personal data. This was done all in the name of fighting online
cheaters and I'll --perhaps unwisely-- give Take Two the benefit of
the doubt that their /intent/ was as narrow-focused as they claim.
Maybe they never intended to vacuum up and resell everybody's data...
but they sure as heck made sure to give them the rights to do so in
the legal boilerplate.

That's why it's not without some small amusement that I see this EULA
problem rear up again with the release of "Borderlands 4". Previously,
the upset about the EULA didn't have much affect; the games that it
pertained to were years old, and the customers making a fuss were
small enough in number that they couldn't rock the needle much
compared to the already massive sales (and positive user reviews) of
those games. But with the newly released "Borderlands 4", the ratio
between happy gamers and upset gamers is skewed, and the latter's
unhappiness is definitely affecting sales (not to mention overall
review score).

And, of course, all this could have been avoided. "Oh," says Gearbox
and Take Two, "Don't hold us accountable to the language in the EULA.
We'd NEVER do everything it allows us to do." They make it sound as if
the EULA is something they themselves have no control over; a bit of
legal jargon that has them at its mercy as much as the customers. But
of course, that's untrue. They have the ability to modify the EULA at
any time; to make it a lot less expansive. They just choose not to.

So Take Two and Gearbox asking us to trust them seems a bit
ridiculous. You want trust? Act trustworthy!

In the long run, none of this will matter of course. I'm sure that the
fuss about the EULA will abate, sales of the game will skyrocket, and
the tiny percentage of people who are aware of the problem (and
actively complaining about it) will amount to a rounding error in Take
Two's ledgers. But in the short run, it _is_ affecting their sales...
and it could have all been avoided if Take Two -like all corporations-
wasn't acting like a self-entitled psychopathic asshole.



Oh, also, the game apparently needs >100GB to install. That's apropos
of nothing; I just know a number of people here are discouraged by how
big games are getting in terms of storage requirements, so I thought
I'd throw that out there. ;-)













* well, ninth for the franchise and fifth for the series***, but who's
counting ;-)
** Kerfuffle. Kerfuffle. I really like that word.
*** not including DLC or special editions that collect/repackage
existing releases


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