"Fearmongering on social media is boring as sh*t."
Once Human, a recently released post-apocalyptic multiplayer survival game featuring an interesting wipe mechanic, was met by over 80,000 concurrent players on Steam at launch but also Mixed reviews. A lot of people complained that its privacy policy is outrageous, asking for an alarming amount of personal information. However, is it that bad actually?
As we mentioned before, some players argued that this is standard practice in modern games, not scary at all, and former Blizzard security engineer Jason Hall agrees with the sentiment.
"The policy states under 'Personal Information we receive from you:' that they receive 'Name & Contact Details' 'Such as first and last name, title, prefix, email address, telephone number, (instant) messaging account, postal address, date of birth, age, gender, country/region, and government-issued ID, such as passport information, as required by applicable laws for age verification and correction of personal information'," he shared on X/Twitter (via GamesRadar) and said that this is not a privacy issue and the information is only sent to the company when required by applicable local laws.
"In some countries government issued ID's are required for live service game access. If you are not in one of these countries you obviously are not asked or required to present those documents.
"Fearmongering on social media is boring as sh*t."
In short, if your government doesn't need you to provide an ID to play live service games, you're okay. And if it does, well, do you have a choice besides closing the game?
What surprises me the most in this situation is how many people have actually read agreements for Once Human. I bet it all escalated from one post on X/Twitter, and many other games probably have the same rules (yes, I'm among those who click "accept" without reading game policies), but we will never know.
Hopefully, players' anger will dissipate soon, and Once Human will receive the rating it deserves.
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