Apex Skins

[Valkenr]

So this is what they did with the BF2 monetization scheme...

[Aidy]

No. You don't get to move the goal posts around after the fact. Besides, what other motivation would EA or any other video game company need to track your data?

I'm not moving the goalposts, you are. The implication was clear that the gathering of data was data unrelated to the game, not data referring to game play metrics. Of course game companies track your purchases and your game stats. If you're suggesting by "data" he meant game play stats, trophies, save data etc then he wouldn't play any game at all, would he?

[Erebus]

I didn't ask for evidence that EA track what you do for marketing purposes, if you actually need to be told that you need to read your T&Cs more carefully. I asked for evidence that the game (or the launcher) was gathering data from your hard drive, the obvious implication that the data in question was not related to the game.

No. You don't get to move the goal posts around after the fact. Besides, what other motivation would EA or any other video game company need to track your data? It's always related to marketing and ultimately with making more money in the video game market. You contested his claim with a generic "where's the evidence?". Save data, trophies, data such as hours played/money spent are stored on your harddrive/profile. EA has access to all of that and is using it to make more money off of ya whenever you play one of their games.

[Aidy]

You don't have to do anything with EA, just pass on what you know to the relevant authorities. Governments have departments that look after this stuff and if there is a case to answer they will take EA to court and fine them if necessary, and the fines can be huge.

[CSANecromancer]

Of course. I'll try a case against EA over something I am not interested in. I'm sorry, but the more pressing issue for me personally are the "telemetry data" Microsoft gathers through Windows. Sorry, I'm not living in "wishfulfillment land" but in a country where even the leaders are OPENLY breaking the laws and no one gives a f**k.

It's quite simple: You are a fan of Apex? That's fine and I sincerely wish you much fun with the game.
But I will not buy it, I will not play it, to me the pricing of the skins is irrelevant. That's it - and I even delivered my reasons.

But I don't need to and WILL NOT justify my opinion, much less to a stranger on the internet. Take it or ignore it, do just as you wish.

[Aidy]

They could be $10,000 per skin. Who cares? The game is a F2P.

Of course its a cash grab! The game is completely free, lol. F2P games can't have MTXs in them, is that what you are saying?

Angry Joe (vehemently anti-micro transactions) has released his video on Apex after having played it for a while and was positive overall. He said it's a good game, that he doesn't mind transactions in a free-to-play game, that you get plenty of opportunities to get the gear via other ways, the transactions are cosmetic only and so on.

[Aidy]

https://mashable.com/article/fifa-player-spending.amp

"Michael's wanton spending wasn't the only thing the GDPR allowed him to see — he got a look at all of the data EA was keeping on him, including every time he logged in and out of the games, who was on his friends list, how many goals he scored, and a bunch of other stuff that he uploaded in an Imgur gallery."

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmir...-behavior/amp/

This whole article is very interesting. It proves his point fot the most part. EA not only extensively tracks your data but has data analysts studying it all.

I didn't ask for evidence that EA track what you do for marketing purposes, if you actually need to be told that you need to read your T&Cs more carefully. I asked for evidence that the game (or the launcher) was gathering data from your hard drive, the obvious implication that the data in question was not related to the game.

[Erebus]

Do you have evidence that the game gathers data from your hard drive?

https://mashable.com/article/fifa-player-spending.amp

"Michael's wanton spending wasn't the only thing the GDPR allowed him to see — he got a look at all of the data EA was keeping on him, including every time he logged in and out of the games, who was on his friends list, how many goals he scored, and a bunch of other stuff that he uploaded in an Imgur gallery."

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmir...-behavior/amp/

This whole article is very interesting. It proves his point fot the most part. EA not only extensively tracks your data but has data analysts studying it all.

[Erebus]

Considering it's F2P, MXT are understandable.

[Temuldjin]

It's a thing, but the fact that it's free-to-play means I don't have much of a problem with the micro-transactions.

Don't you mean Macro-Transaction?

20$ for a skin... ain't nothing Micro about that...

[isturbo1984]

They could be $10,000 per skin. Who cares? The game is a F2P.

Cash grab rip-off, nothing new or unexpected from EA.

Of course its a cash grab! The game is completely free, lol. F2P games can't have MTXs in them, is that what you are saying?

[Aidy]

If you have evidence that Origin is gathering data from your hard drive (data not connected to the running of the software I assume you mean otherwise you wouldn't have made those comments) and sending it somewhere then you should let the authorities know as that's probably a pretty major crime in most countries. It would certainly be illegal in the UK and most of Europe.

[CSANecromancer]

The game itself? No, but the Origin software of EA. I had traced and logged Origins behaviour some time ago. The results led to my complete avoidance of (not only) EA. And now the best part of it: I will NOT provide any links to these logs, I will NOT upload them anywhere, I do NOT care, what you make of it. Call me liar, conspiration lunatic, whatever you will.

But if you want to try it for yourself: Set up a virtual machine with the OS of your choice, install Origin, close all real internet connections of the VM and set up WireShark to monitor the generated IP traffic. Let the system (with launched Origin) stand for a few hours. Then take the log and eliminate all connection tries to Microsoft's server (given you have set up a Windows machine). Afterwards see for yourself what remains.
In similar way you can monitor file access to various parts/directories on your drives.

The original part of the post was: "What do you guys think about Apex?" I think I answered that, but I will gladly boil it down once more:

Apex is distributed but Electronic Arts. That is a 100% K.O. criterion to me. So - I don't care about Apex or the skin prices or anything else of this game AS LONG as it is distributed by EA.

[Aidy]

Letting EA gather data from my hard drive uncontrolled is not what I consider "free".

Do you have evidence that the game gathers data from your hard drive?

[decoyOctopus]

Game if fun and the skins are mostly terrible and overpriced.

Have I mentioned it's a F2P game and you can get the skins from loot boxes which are dropped after a match?


I think the EA hate (which is totally understandable and justifiable) is blinding some people against Respawn and their new game.