Will the NSA spying on video gamers affect your buying choices.

[kilenem]

I bought the Wii U when the price dropped because it was the only console manufacture with out news of it working with the NSA. Sony worked with the NSA to develop the Software for Ericson phones and Microsoft has done a tone stuff with the NSA.

My cousin thought I was paranoid and that the NSA wouldn't spy on gamers. Well Snowden leaked info today that they have spied on world of war craft second life and Xbox live.

Will this affect the way anyone buys games are you just going to ignore it. Right now I'm to have my Wii U and have a PC with Linux or the steam box if that turns out good.

To the idiots who think if your not a terrorist don't worry about it, its a waste of my tax payer dollars and its ironic because American soldiers are fighting to protect rights that the NSA is violating.

 

[Roxas1359]

Nope. That will not change my purchasing decisions. If I want the game, then I will get it.

Pretty much. Really I think everyone sorta has come to expect this at this point, since you gotta find "dem tehorrists", and it's funny too because if you read the reports there were so many people that they had to use special programs so that they wouldn't accidentally be spying on other NSA members. XD

 

[LetalisK]

Nope. The publishers and other corporations probably already spy on me to such a degree as to make the NSA trivial.

 

[KarmaTheAlligator]

I won't be online with my consoles anyway, so that doesn't really worry me. Plus if they want to spy on me they can go through my phone.

 

[sanquin]

I live in Europe, so that's one thing. I know they can still spy on my of course. Or my own country is doing so, I don't know. Either way, I'm not going to let the idea of them spying on me stop me from playing my games. Do I think those people doing the spying should be locked up and heavily fined? Hell yes. But considering how the world works right now, I don't see that happening...

 

[KissingSunlight]

It has already. I bought the past 2 generation of Xbox. The idea of the Kinect being on and tracking me has made me really hesitant to get the Xbox One. I wouldn't be surprised they are ways that the PS4 & Nintendo could be tracked by the NSA and corporations. If anything, I may just stop buying gaming consoles because of the privacy invasion.

 

[Caiphus]

Nope. I'm sure they already collect Skype logs, and I've said stuff on there that would probably get me put in jail for a long time if I was serious about it. So collecting video game information, where I rarely play multiplayer, won't affect me one bit.

Also, protip. Starting a thread with "To the idiots who think X" isn't a super strong way to start a discussion.

 

[O maestre]

Nope, I'll just avoid talking about my secret weapons grade nuclear meth lab, which I Produce for my various partners, a certain league of shadows,a large serpentine themed organisation and many others. Just don't talk about your diabolical plans to conquer the world and there won't be problem simple.

In all seriousness I don't think there is much we can do about it short of a revolution, spies are gonna spy. There are no secret foxholes that they cannot tap into, even TOR is run(financed) by the Gov't of the USA. There is no escape, we can only hope that the intelligence gathering isn't used against the public by selling it back to their corporate partners.

 

[Rattja]

It will stop people bying games, just as much as security cameras stop people from going anywhere, or tracking stop us from using phones. It will only affect you if you do something you should not be doing.

So most of us won't care.

 

[The Great JT]

Unlikely, most likely the government is just using this to try and plot what might cause the next school shooting (despite the fact games DON'T cause this crap).

 

[Azkar Almsivi]

They already know about my weird taste in monster girl oriented 2d pornography, I don't mind if they know I play some games for a few hours a week with my mic off ignoring children.

 

[babinro]

It's a complete non-issue for me.
I look at this the same way I do when a gaming company studies your actions for marketing purposes. It doesn't feel like a true invasion of privacy unless I'm doing something worthy of attention.

 

[Multi-Hobbyist]

I don't know why the hell it would. The only people who's choices are going to be affected are -

1. Those committed to sending a message to them.
2. Those who take offense to anything and everything and do it for the wrong reason(s).
3. Terrorists. But I can't remember the last time I saw a bunch of suspicious avatars grouped together in the "DIE INFIDELS" party.

Snowden likely only released this information to give gamers a laugh. Thanks, Snowden!

 

[MrBaskerville]

It's one good reason out of a myriad of good reasons that i would probably chose another console if i had to go next-gen. I'm more tempted to go sony than MS, because i don't like the way MS operates, i never liked them and it will probably take a long time to restore my faith in them. But that doesn't mean i will rush out to buy a PS4, i'd rather buy a WiiU because it is less dependent on the internet and surveillance is one out of many reasons why i don't want to depend on the Internet. I think it's a slippery slope and we shouldn't allow our goverments to do stuff like this.

 

[Drummodino]

Uh... I don't care. Even if my country or another country monitored my gaming or internet activity, they won't find anything illegal. And I don't think a poor university student like myself has to worry about people trying to manipulate them. So how does it affect me? Not at all.

 

[chikusho]

It will stop people bying games, just as much as security cameras stop people from going anywhere, or tracking stop us from using phones. It will only affect you if you do something you should not be doing.

So most of us won't care.

Except security cameras, tracking and all manner of surveillance have huge effects on how normal people operate in their daily lives. The argument that it's something you "shouldn't be doing" is really inapplicable to reality.

Uh... I don't care. Even if my country or another country monitored my gaming or internet activity, they won't find anything illegal. And I don't think a poor university student like myself has to worry about people trying to manipulate them. So how does it affect me? Not at all.

If you aren't a terrorist or doing something illegal you likely don't need to worry

The problem is that you don't decide what's illegal. Or what they might deem suspicious, which is all that is necessary for them to lock you up forever without even charging you with anything. Or your friends and family, just on a whim.
Also, all surveillance systems get abused, and they leak, which places us way out of even "legal" territory.

and I think the question one should ask is: How effective has it been?

Effective at what? If you're talking about how many lives it's saved, it could be one of the most ineffective systems in human history. Hundreds of thousands of people die in heart disease and cancer every year. Smoking, obesity, car accidents, mental health and suicides, crime, gun violence, etc. all things that harvest lives every day. And while most of these issues are glanced over and even cut back from the budget all the time, the NSA receives around 10 billion a year for the benefit of possibly a handful of people.

 

[Jiffex]

I think it would be funny if the only reason these projects were suggested were so the agents involved could play WoW and Xbox at work. I'm from the UK so I'm used to walking down the street with at least 10 cameras on me at any one time. And seeing as I don't have any plans to go on any kind of killing spree it won't have any affect on my buying habits even if my government is spying on me.