Poll: Battlefield 3 PC - Anyone else not purchasing this due to Origin?

[ph0b0s123]

It's the same thing as Steam, the Terms of Service aren't much different either, Steam just got them in a different place.

With Steam the info being taken from you is OPTIONAL. With Origin it is not. That's the issue.

Last time I looked at my profile my computer said no.
They have my name, they have my address, they save the time I played any game, they save Achievements and they save a shitton of other stuff. I know that they ask you before doing a Hardware survey though, as I participated several times.

Origin is likely not doing any different though, and both their EULAs don't differ as much as you think... don't make me have to Copy/Paste it...

Steam has most of that hidden away in their "Privacy Agreement" instead of their Subscriber Agreement like Origin e.g.: http://www.valvesoftware.com/privacy.html

Collection and Use of Information
By using Valve's online sites and products, users agree that Valve may collect aggregate information, individual information, and personally identifiable information, as defined below. Valve may share aggregate information and individual information with other parties. Valve shall not share personally identifiable information with other parties, except as described in the policy below.

"Aggregate information" is information that describes the habits, usage patterns, and demographics of users as a group but does not describe or reveal the identity of any particular user.

"Individual information" is information about a user that is presented in a form distinguishable from information relating to other users but not in a form that personally identifies any user or enables the recipient to communicate directly with any user unless agreed to by the user in advance of such communication. This information may be used to improve Valve's products and online sites, for internal marketing studies, or simply to collect demographic information about Valve's users.

etc.

Now be silent!

How was that going to keep me silent when you have just confirmed where Steam and Origin differ. Steam ask's if you want to give them data about your hardware and software, Origin doesn't. So the fact you are aware of the Steam set-up makes you worse for not understanding that they are different.

You have to agree to privacy policy to use the product at all I don't see how this isn't agreeing to allow them to gather data and then allow them to use that information for in office use.

It's really all about the hardware software info for me. Name, address and email etc are a necessary evil to provide to use the service. No problem.

The hardware and software info can only be provided through the surveys, that you can opt out of. If I knew for a fact that Valve was getting this info even if you have opted out of the Surveys, my Steam account would be toast tomorrow.

 

[fix-the-spade]

The level of access Origin has to your computer can be altered relatively easily in a similar manner to Steam (Google it).
Much like Steam altering these particular settings doesn't really change any functionality and EA so far have done nothing to discourage it. Although whether they continue to take the same laid back approach as Valve have for the last seven years remains to be seen.

 

[thenumberthirteen]

I'm not really interested in BF3. Though I expect this will be an issue when Mass Effect 3 is released next year. I don't see too much of a problem with Origin. The only issue I have would be that I have to have another program to store my games on. As it is I have my Steam library, and I can see all my games. If I can add ME3 to my steam library then I'm ok.

 

[Frost27]

Quit moaning and crying about it. Origin isn't going away and EA doesn't give a shit about the 5 people that actually won't buy the game because of it.

 

[Clive Howlitzer]

I am not purchasing Battlefield 3 on Origin mostly because EA is a fuckin' useless company that I've had nothing but negative dealings with. The fact it is on Origin was just the icing on the shit cake. I've already made up my mind not to purchase Mass Effect 3 or Dragon Age 3 if they don't get their act together. It pains me to do so because I was greatly looking forward to both games. It sucks trying to make a point.

 

[AzrealMaximillion]

Most of the people crying about Origin spying on them probably have Facebook accounts. So many invalid arguments.

Stupid, facebook cannot go through your computer and look at what you have installed etc. That's is unless you have allowed lots of facebook apps that can do that. Facebook on it's own cannot do that and if I knew for a fact it could my hardly used account would be gone tomorrow.

Lol, nice try. Facebook sells your info to private data companies, who in turn share that info to 3rd party companies like EA. All in all it's the exact end purpose of data collection that Origin hopes to gain. How the hell do you think Facebook generates revenue without charging anyone?

No Facebook can't access you're computer, but you've put your personal info on a website that makes money selling that info to others. And you're calling me stupid...

 

[ph0b0s123]

Most of the people crying about Origin spying on them probably have Facebook accounts. So many invalid arguments.

Stupid, facebook cannot go through your computer and look at what you have installed etc. That's is unless you have allowed lots of facebook apps that can do that. Facebook on it's own cannot do that and if I knew for a fact it could my hardly used account would be gone tomorrow.

Lol, nice try. Facebook sells your info to private data companies, who in turn share that info to 3rd party companies like EA. All in all it's the exact end purpose of data collection that Origin hopes to gain. How the hell do you think Facebook generates revenue without charging anyone?

No Facebook can't access you're computer, but you've put your personal info on a website that makes money selling that info to others. And you're calling me stupid...

"No Facebook can't access you're computer,"
So as I said your original point of facebook being the same as Origin was wring. That makes the rest of your post is irrelevant, as the access Origin has to your computer is the thing we are talking about here in, regard to privacy concerns.

 

[ph0b0s123]

Quit moaning and crying about it. Origin isn't going away and EA doesn't give a shit about the 5 people that actually won't buy the game because of it.

Who said anything about Origin having the go. And don't be a douche it's more than 5 sales they would lose if the poll in this thread and here (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.315464-Poll-Origin-How-many-of-us-have-folded?page=1), are anything to go by. Would it be enough to scare them, probably not, but don't be so dismissive.

 

[bificommander]

I didn't like another service being jammed through my throat. And they piled a lot of crap on what seemed like a pretty decent game (I liked the previous Battlefield games). So when I noticed the release date was almost the same as Sword of the Stars 2, I figured I'd just skip this game. Maybe I'll buy it once the price goes down and the cries of frustration from the early adopters have gotten EA to actually fix the bugs in their Orwellian system before making it mandatory. So yeah, they lost at the very least an early sale from me.

 

[Wicky_42]

Edit: Will clarify one thing quickly that lots seem not to understand. Steam collects a lot of the same data from you that Origin does, in hardware and software surveys. The difference is that with Steam it is OPTIONAL. If it was optional with Origin (rather than just don't use it), I would no longer have any more issue with Origin, than I do for any other on-line distribution system.

I've read around that Origin can be sandboxed by various firewalls - that's my plan when my copy turns up If it weren't possible to restrict I don't know what I'd do

 

[Pedro The Hutt]

I've got Red Orchestra 2, I feel no need to buy Battlefield 3.

Granted, Origin sure didn't encourage me to get it. I've already got Steam running, why would I need/want to run a second similar program with less features and a smaller catalogue?

 

[Ickorus]

I don't like the sounds of Origin and as such I won't be getting it, if my suspicions are proven unfounded after a couple of months I may pick it up though.

To be honest though, I haven't played many FPS games in quite a while and a lot of the Free to Play ones coming out soon are looking really good so I may just give the game a miss anyway.

 

[LITE992]

I wouldn't avoid getting it because of Origin, because I'm a Battlefield fan. However, I hate Origin with a passion and I think it's the worst thing EA has ever come out with.

 

[DesiPrinceX09]

This origin thing sounds pretty bad, or at least people make it sound really bad. I am not much of a fan of war shooters so I don't care about BF3 or its arch rival MW3 although after hearing all the stupid crap that EA has been doing with this stuff about origin and not being allowed to play the game or whatever, I am kind of rooting for MW3 even though I don't give a damn about either.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

No steam, and no in-game server browser. They can call it a PC game if they want, but if a multiplayer oriented game on PC doesn't have a server browser in the actual game I will not buy it. And on top of that they want me to use their shitty Origin? Sorry, but no. And it's not like it's some kind of special game either. It's just another modern military FPS.

 

[Dogstile]

Most of the people crying about Origin spying on them probably have Facebook accounts. So many invalid arguments.

Stupid, facebook cannot go through your computer and look at what you have installed etc. That's is unless you have allowed lots of facebook apps that can do that. Facebook on it's own cannot do that and if I knew for a fact it could my hardly used account would be gone tomorrow.

Lol, nice try. Facebook sells your info to private data companies, who in turn share that info to 3rd party companies like EA. All in all it's the exact end purpose of data collection that Origin hopes to gain. How the hell do you think Facebook generates revenue without charging anyone?

No Facebook can't access you're computer, but you've put your personal info on a website that makes money selling that info to others. And you're calling me stupid...

Facebook only has what you put into it. It cannot take your computers specs and your info and pass them on. That right there, is the difference he is trying to make.

His point however, not mine, just thought i'd clear that up seeing as you missed the point.

 

[Bvenged]

I refuse to have anything published by EA installed on my computer, what with them being evil and such. Origin helped though.

I don't understand how EA is evil, they publish great games. So what if they want to see my system specifications? They can't take anything personal without being in massive violation of the Data Protection Act or privacy violation. Have you not seen how the shit piles onto Facebook every time they're caught mistreating privacy with data we fucking give them? If EA was to take such information straight from our computers, even with hidden Terms & Conditions, they would be in breach of a fair few laws, fined millions or even forcefully shut down.
- The only quarm I have with them is when they do things like C&C4 or close down Bullfrog etc.

Activision are the ones I'm on the brink of boycotting - shitty games time after time, but every now and then they do a good one; only to ruin it by turning it into a cashcow by exploiting absolutely everything about said gem-of-a-game in a few (couple of) years, driving it hard into the ground never to resurface. Plus they treat their devs like shit and never give a fair deal to them.

Ubisoft & Bethesda are the so-so, grey-moral publishers to me but their developers are fantastic, and by so-so I mean not really doing anything critically wrong, or critically right (whereas Activision is almost always wrong and EA are almost always doing the critical).

 

[joshthor]

im not buying it simply because i dont wanna use origin. there is literally no point to it.
second: i dont trust ea
third: im not that big of a shooter guy....

No point?

Every company is going to want to be as self-sufficient as possible. The EULA is eyebrow raising and all, but I'm sure the point is to not have to manufacture endless game boxes and discs, and to not have to cut Valve into the profits and play by their rules...the latter probably being of greater significance.

I'm pessimistic about it really, but it could end up being a good thing. I've had to use origin to play Fifa, and it seems as though it's perfectly functional.

im all for them not wanting to give valve a cut, but they should at least make there be a reason for it to be there. origin does nothing that other services dont do, they dont even give thier customers the extra dough that would normally go to the store its being sold through.

while every company wants to be self sufficient and have an unarguable right to, they should offer a competitive service, something that EA is not doing. it is basically going "we are competitive because we are the only way you can buy this game" its not competitive, cause they have no competition. if they offered it on origin for like...55 bucks instead of 60, it would make it a competitive service. but they dont even offer the cheaper price.

thus - no point for a consumer to use origin. im not going to get a service for just one game. its a waste of processing power. and more junk emails i dont need.

 

[SillyBear]

Can someone be a pal and explain all this to me.

This thread is literally the first I've heard of it.

I gather Origin is a program that makes you run your game through it like Steam - but they also data mine?

Why do they data mine? Can you turn Origin off if you aren't playing BF3? Can someone give me a quick run down of what is ACTUALLY going on?