Firestorm on Steam - Causa EULA

[civxander]

Whats wrong with the people. In the last days, just around release the ratings on steam are very bad.
Reason is the text in the Eula.

I wondered and looked around a little bit and found this on reddit:

https://www.reddit.com/r/civ/comments/aq327d/the_eula_reviews/

Im a little angry. A lot of people are just to stupid to understand what the meaning of the EULA is.

For Firaxis and 2k and the game developer is it a man made desaster.


(Sorry - my English )

 

[Victoria]

Should never have redshelled, it may even be hangover from that.
EULA is nothing compared to what is out there for sale on you for $10

 

[youngsteve]

Sorry I have no sympathy whatsoever. You are right in that peoples perceptions about the EULA & the truth is not consistent, but the fault for this goes down to 2K & for its utter greed & contempt for its customers. The damage it has done to its reputation & sales of Civilization games & its other games is immense with most of the people buying Gathering Storm are the games biggest supporters. Old style civ players & general gamers are avoiding it for this, as well as the fact the game has a lot to prove to the non committed. Shocking easy, having no real challenge, & people will soon get bored of it. With any luck the damage done to 2K will put it in financial difficulty & release their grasp of Firaxis, so a decent company can take over the franchise.

 

[DWilson]

I'm mostly annoyed because people are being silly to get upset (at best), and bad enough reviews could damage performance enough to put a damper on a third expansion or more DLC content.

 

[Victoria]

One may even consider this is a conspiracy by those that do not like Firaxis taking a popularist view to gaming and want the game a challenging wargame.

 

[youngsteve]

I'm mostly annoyed because people are being silly to get upset (at best), and bad enough reviews could damage performance enough to put a damper on a third expansion or more DLC content.

I believe it is having an effect. Just visited Steam (I'm from the UK) & noticed the base game has been reduced for a limited period to £12.49 & the base game with DLC', not expansions, is £17.49. I have never seen their lead game reduced to those levels in the UK before. Usually, get offers like this when a new version is released. Obviously, trying to attract a wider audience.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

Usually, get offers like this when a new version is released. Obviously, trying to attract a wider audience.

Or perhaps, you know, hoping to get a few upsells to the the new expansion they just launched on Thursday!!!

 

[Noble Zarkon]

The damage it has done to its reputation & sales of Civilization games & its other games is immense

Reputation perhaps, but do you have any basis for alleging sales have been affected?

 

[youngsteve]

Reputation perhaps, but do you have any basis for alleging sales have been affected?

The fact so many people are paranoid about the EULA would suggest this, as they would hardly be on the Civ sites/Steam if they hated or never played the game. Obviously, like others on these board, I have no real figures, but I would be surprised if the biggest buyers of the expansion were not already people playing the game, than less casual players or people who fell out with Civ VI but love civilization series in general. Civ 5 started out with a poor reputation, but slowly began winning over neutrals & causal gamers over time, & still is by all accounts. I feel Civ VI has a long way to go to get that sort of trust. You have only to look at the debacle of Sim City 5 (2013) to see the damage developers can cause to a successful series. No sign of a new entry in the series after this.

 

[Siddorm]

I think this is the sort of thing that people will react differently to, depending largely on how much they like the game. I have always thought Civ 6 has the potential to be a good game. However, I have slowly lost faith in this title and I decided to uninstall it after reading the EULA. If I thought they would use the data they collect to improve this game I might accept it; but after two years of disappointing updates, I am now thinking "why should I allow them to collect my data? why do I have this game installed?".
If you love this game and its EULA, that's good for you. I still enjoy reading these forums and I don't want to be negative; my point is that "the EULA issue" is most likely to be off-putting to customers (like me) who were already slowly losing interest.

 

[AriochIV]

Seems like a lot of people are actively searching for something to be upset about.

 

[UncivilizedGuy]

The expansion has Mostly Positive reviews

 

[God of Kings]

Good thing that Civ VI for the Switch is the only Civ VI port that does not require any Internet access to install or play (and is also the only one not to collect any personal data that I know of (aside from Nintendo ID and social media accounts (but via the latter can personal information can still be collected, but one does not have to link them in the first place)). Correct me if I'm wrong.

Even /r/pcmasterrace is trashing Civ VI. Yet, iOS and Switch versions account for far less than 1% of Civ VI sales, even when both are combined with the MacOS App Store version.

 

[WillowBrook]

Is there a recent change to the EULA that people don't like? Or are people just whining about it now for some reason? Or are the complaints not new? (I really don't want to wade into the Steam forums to try to figure out what's going on.)

 

[CyberChrist]

The expansion itself is not the problem, but the increased infringements on private information as outlined in the EULA is. Within the EU the Civ6 EULA is even in clear violation of the recently passed GDPR law. Sadly then this is not a problem that exist solely with Civ6/Firaxis/Take2, but it is in fact a growing trend of continually cutting one more slice of the privacy sausage for each new EULA (ie. 'reserving the right' to collect and use more and more private data from the customer) that is applied by many companies - and that should be a cause for concern for everyone it affects.

 

[Quintus of Mund]

If they infringe GDPR, why not go and sue them?

 

[youngsteve]

If they infringe GDPR, why not go and sue them?

It is not easy to sue some gigantic organisation. Particularly when it is not based in the EU.

 

[Quintus of Mund]

I do still think that if you see clear grounds to suspect they are not abiding by GDPR that evidence should be collected... pretty sure the EU set up a process for that...

 

[Magnot]

I think that it's really important to point out that the block of text that everyone is copy and pasting actually isn't from the Civ VI EULA, it's from the Privacy Policy on 2K's Website; and if you read the quoted section in context, it is far less alarming than everyone seems to be making it out to be. One key bit that everyone is conveniently leaving out: "Personal information is information that identifies you and that may be used to contact you online or offline. The Company collects personal information from you on a voluntary basis." In other words, there is no indication that Civ VI is full of spyware that's scouring your computer without your knowledge while you're filling out unrelated online forms; rather, the privacy policy is addressing personal information that you choose to give to them, and how they use that information.

You can read the full thing here: https://www.take2games.com/privacy/

 

[CyberChrist]

It has happened before. Google was slapped with 5B$ fine and Facebook is currently being investigated and may face a similar outcome. Furthermore then companies continuing to fail to comply risk being locked out from operating within EU altogether. Personally then I just wish companies would keep their hands and eyes off private data that clearly cannot be argued (within reason) to be related to the performance of their product(s).