Microsoft clarifies that game activity is shared with third parties in new ToS
microsoft.com
microsoft.com
Microsoft despite its revenue volumes is not exempt from trying to diversify its revenue streams through selling whatever data they have for ads/whoever wants it.
That's a HUGE part of the reason why I refuse to use any "cloud storage" aka OneDrive or whatever they call it these days, or any of the MSFT cloud services in Windows. Bing is the first thing I disable, along with all the MSN bloatware, and it's all done through a DNS block at the top of my network stack. Never connect the OS to the Microsoft account either, because the way the company works - they are not a friend of yours and neither are they going to help you re-gain whatever semblance of privacy you're aiming for.
Microsoft intends to turn Minecraft into snitchware that will effect players playing the game entirely on their own computers and private servers, not just those playing on rented servers (aka "the cloud".)
Windows nags you about Microsoft account and won't let you install without it unless you know the magic CMD incantations.
Xbox games that are physical are nothing more than a "license key" that is used to download games from the MSFT servers, so if they ever go down, your DVDs are useless.
MSN being showed in Windows under the guise of "weather" and "widgets" while they promote trash tabloid content.
Logging in with an Outlook account in Edge hooks it to sync with Edge and you have to then explicitly go and opt out.
Shoveling third-party adware into Edge in the form of "credit payments".
Blocking custom browser settings.
There's a clear history here of reverse-Midas-ing quite a few things, and I genuinely feel bad for folks that want to build a great product within that environment. But the pattern is clear - your data and usage of their products will be tracked and monetized. The only winning move is not to play.
I enjoy Minecraft as much as the next schlub, but I think you're being hyperbolic. Modding is great, but I think we've seen the extent of what it's capable of. Enabling mod support on Bedrock isn't going to herald in a new golden age of gaming, it would probably just give Microsoft more of a reason to kill off their legacy platforms, which is not what anyone wants.
Java and Bedrock compliment each other. Java is simply a better pick for modding, and Bedrock is available so kids watching Minecraft videos have somewhere to spend their $7 allowances. This might be an unpopular opinion, but I think Microsoft made the right move here. Running the Java version on mobile was miserable, so making a pared-back, cheaper and monetized version for mobile gamers is fine as long as that development effort ultimately feeds back into the Java version (which most of the time, it does).
I say this as a (now retired) Microsoft stack developer since 1995.
I think this is probably some catch-all legalese they "have" to write there, and this is a case of the EULA becoming so stupidly nondescript that it allows everything and explains nothing. It would be probably better though if they said in each game "hey, we will share your score and recordings of ranked games with other players, if you don't want that click here".
Why would anybody opt-in to analytics of a website they are visiting - even if it's strictly first-party, not sharing it with advertizers or Google, just for improving the site? You are gonna click "no".
Same with application analytics - if you know as a developer which functions people use how frequently, and where the app crashes, everyone benefits. The potential dangers are theoretical at best, and you can always opt out. But if it is opt-in, you get completely skewed results.
Controversial opinion, but I think opt-out should be the default in 90% of the cases, and to prevent the undesired outcome (e.g. people making ad profiles) you should not require out-in, but just ban the undesired outcome.
You know it's a bad thing when you say "If I ask users for consent, nobody will agree to this."
I as a customer want full control of my data and if you, the website owner, try to force me into giving data that I did not consent to (invasive site analytics, for example, that track my page behavior), I will go out of my way to block that through extensions and by just banning things at the DNS level.
That is not the "tragedy of the commons". (Even if Tragedy of the Commons is rubbish)
Make clear why, and people will opt in. If they do not tough luck. Be more attractive next time.
I have experience in exactly this (in a different domain).
If there is something that gives you an aggregate benefit, but no immediate benefit, and you have to go out of your way to agree, and maybe there is some scary legalese that you have to sign, then most people will just not bother.
I don't mean harmful things like sharing PII with advertizers, political parties, or law enforcement, but only things like censuses, public transportation statistics, application crash analytics.
Ultimately, if I’m playing in a public lobby, I kind of assume that game data is public anyway.
This is less “user data” like Facebook and more “user data” like my bowling alley automatically posting scores online.
> If you choose to link your Microsoft Xbox Services account with your account on a non-Microsoft service or sign in to your Xbox Services account to access a non-Microsoft Service...
I work on a service that tracks game activity for users, but we require them to go through the OAuth process and explicitly give us permission to do so.
Yeah and how much is it really a choice? Either you do this or you don't have access to <games or features of games> , but it's still "your choice". Shady as fuck and clearly not a 'choice'. Weasel words.
Hopefully you do not get banned or else all your digital games gone.
With minecraft it's worse than that; a game I 'bought' years ago from another company, since acquired, can now be taken from me by Microsoft. If they were merely to deny me updates made after my purchase, that would be understandable, but they've gone further than that. To play the game as it existed when I purchased it, I need Microsoft's continued approval in the present and into the future.
Now I pirate a game I once bought, because I refuse to sign up to those new terms and due to that refusal, cannot play the game even the version of the game I originally bought. Lesson learned: buying games is for chumps. I am now reticent to buy any game from any company; any of them might get bought by microsoft too. When companies do shit like this they aren't just harming the users of that specific software, but the entire industry as a whole.
You're right in that once you get banned (for any arbitrary reason), there is no recourse. You can't get your library back.
So what can folks do?
- Buy MP3s that are DRM free.
- Buy physical copies of movies on DVD/BluRay instead of paying for streaming.
- Buy games on GOG, or physical copies that do not depend on "launchers".
- Buy software that is not subscription-based (Affinity is fantastic if you want to replace Adobe, for example) and you can buy for a one-time fee.
You know, because Minecraft is a game targeted at kids. And maybe you don't someone spouting racist/sexist garbage at them all day.
This is Microsoft, and in a competitive landscape, no less. Not sure if this maps.
Moderation is hard work, expensive, and doesn’t scale. And Minecraft doesn’t have even a theoretical sinister benefit of being able to sway public opinion with it. It’s just a cost center to keep the ecosystem non-toxic.
And yet they are seeking the power to ban people from playing on their own private servers. It's a blatant power grab, but I guess it not real authoritarianism unless they're laughing like a cartoon villain when they do it, right? Give me a break. All corporations are power hungry by nature; and the largest and most powerful of them have demonstrated this nature time and time again to become the way they are today.
Well two of them at least.
I don’t want Microsoft to police what sort of speech my kids are and aren’t allowed to have, nor do I want them to get to decide what the consequences for breaking the rules are.
What I’d like to be able to do is set up a server and let our kids and their friends play on it, without anyone else. That would protect the kids just fine.
This doesn’t take a globally unique Microsoft account, it takes a player guid. I’m pretty sure the capability is all there, too, but they just decided to lock it behind their ecosystem.
A survival game where you are utterly alone fighting zombies and all kinds of monsters that come at night while you have no weapons or shelter.
Yeap... kids stuff.
I'd be less concerned if they committed to sharing data about a game's use ONLY with the publisher of said game, via an opt-in mechanism (or at least gave you a global opt-out option).
But the ambiguous way this is worded leaves the door open to them sharing whatever they want with whoever they want. No thank you, bugger off.
It's as if we need to simplify the way we have 18,337,398 page Privacy Policy into something like "We collect and sell your data to the following parties: 1, 2, 3". Bet at least then you'd have some people against the mass telemetrization of every nook and cranny of your devices.
7/2: We told Facebook you visited our website
7/3: We shared your recent search on "Ukraine" with Cambridge Analytica
7/14: Cambridge Analytica shared your Ukraine search history with Russian FSBNo matter how many laws we have to protect our privacy against exploitation, companies will start using their ToS to avoid legal consequences.
We are reaching a point where we should avoid certain kinds of products and services if we care about privacy.