Games Wanna Play? Give Up Your Data.
posted by on May 7 at 13:45 PM
Following the lead of Internet cookies and TiVo, gaming systems are poised to be the next great American data farmers. I hadn’t thought about this until last night when my Wii glowed blue, which happens whenever Nintendo sends a message through its WiiConnect service. Last night, the company debuted the Nintendo Channel, a free, promotional video service with one particularly cool bonus. If you have a Nintendo DS, you can use the Nintendo channel to try free demo games on your DS by downloading from the Wii.
But there’s a catch: the demo option is grayed out until you accept a Nintendo data request. They want to continuously keep tabs on your hours played per game, hours spent using other Wii services, and more. Even though Nintendo states that this data isn’t tied to your name or machine, that it’s “anonymous,” it’s still damn weird—“tell us everything, or you can’t play. Neener neener.” I already regret clicking “yes” to try it out and have since turned it off. I don’t want to contribute to someone’s data pool, not even for a DS demo trinket.
This move isn’t unprecedented; the other Redmond gaming behemoth has done the same thing with its Xbox Live service for years. In fact, by making Xbox Live free in a “silver” tier, Microsoft has ensured that all online 360 users can deliver data such as “times you sign-in to and sign-off from the Service; games that you have played on the Service; content you purchase on the Service; and game score statistics.” Sony’s Playstation Network agreement lists the same sort of up-for-grabs data: “network configurations, your network devices, peripherals, USB devices, plug-ins and monitors… information about how you use PSN and your PLAYSTATION®3 computer entertainment system unit, including, for example, downloads, game activity (including game title name and length of play), forum postings, game profile, [and] rankings.” You’re also still on the hook if you play offline and then connect to the Internet later (though Microsoft is the only company that explains through its service agreement how to avoid giving this info up).
These practices aren’t entirely really evil. If you’re playing games online, you’re passing through these companies’ gates, and it only makes sense that they have policies in place to say that they’ll see who’s doing what. Also, Xbox Live users know damn well that their friends can see things like game history and “now playing” info (as can strangers if privacy settings aren’t enabled). But while MySpace and Facebook have gotten negative mainstream attention for gathering personal data, television-centric services like TiVo and game systems have gotten a relative pass from the mainstream. And that’s because these services deal primarily with anonymous info, so the media can’t craft any tales of identity theft or public embarrassment.
But anonymous data can be valuable stuff—usage patterns can shape a company’s production and marketing plans, and other companies desperate to know a target demographic just might pay top dollar for trends that pop up in that sea of faceless 18-35 year old gamers. Does each game console company do a decent job confirming or denying this angle? Nintendo’s service states that it will “use this information to recommend games to you and develop new games and services.” By using the word ‘services,’ Nintendo leaves the data door wide open. Microsoft’s online agreement doesn’t specify what they do with a wide range of usage data, other than the fact that if it happens, it’ll happen “without notice or compensation to you of any kind.” Sony uses a “for example” to talk about how non-personal information is fair game for “studies” with an “outside firm”—and they make sure that other vague uses get the green light from their phrasing. Sony is also the only one to go so far as to say your personally identifiable info is up for grabs if a “lawsuit, investigation or other action” comes up. Yikes.
There’s no lid-blowing discovery here; none of the three big gaming companies are exactly hiding this info (though user agreements are as close as corporations get to hiding anything) [Edit: I also feel the need to be clear that, yeah, these people aren’t hawking your e-mail address or installing malware on your PS3.] But if gaming is growing up, then so should consumers’ understandings that their aimless play is worth something to somebody. That blue light coming out of the Wii isn’t exactly staring you down HAL-style, and Mountain Dew may never see that it’s you, HotGruffyGamer420, who’s playing hours of Upskirt Anime Adventure 360, but they’ll know that Mr. 18-35 Target Demographic is.
Really? Wow. It was one of the first things that came to my mind shortly after purchasing my 360 twenty million years ago.
Spoiler: we MMO devs are collecting data on your paying habits of our online games too.
When there's millions and millions of dollars involved over dev cycles that can stretch on for years, you can bet that every iota of prerelease market research we can do is worth it.
Wow that sure is a lot of words. And yet I can't find any that actually explain why this is a bad thing. Exactly how does it hurt me to tell Nintendo that I played their demo for half an hour?
Actually, if you buy Spore, the EULA requires that you connect to the Net every ten days or so, according to EA.
I'll happily trade that data for a non-garbage online system, Nintendo.
Yeah, how is this bad again, as long as it's anonymous? Do you use a QFC or Safeway card? They've been doing this for years. Of course, the Broadway QFC stopped caring about making you sign up a while ago, so it's easy to get anonymous cards.
Make sure you pay cash for everything too!
Otherwise...THEY'LL KNOW!
I totally look at this in the opposite way, and think its cool that the demo-downloading feature for the DS will actually now be useful, instead of having to have happened to bring my DS to a game store which happened to have their DS Download Station turned on, and happened to have gotten the latest update for it. The fact that Nintendo is going to harvest some demographics from this is a pointless argument of paranoid tin-foil hattery. These video game companies develop that trend information LONG BEFORE that Wii ever got in your hands, when they were doing psychological evaluations of people playing these games and systems well before they hit the streets. All they're doing is basically a post-marketing study to ensure that what they thought they were doing is right.
@7 is right - if you ever (and I do mean ever) use a debit or credit card when you pay for the groceries, it gets linked to the data records of your "anonymous" card.
Which is why mine is in the name of Richard M. Nixon - to point out it's not any of their frickin business.
@8
I bet you're one of those douchebags who likes to point that out in the checkout line, followed by a chuckle to acknowledge just how funny you are (to yourself, albeit not intentional), and then you talk about how it's not their business and you're oh-so untraceable and on-top of things.
Actually, no, I just use it and smile at the cashier.
Cash - it's not just untraceable, you can make paper airplanes from it!
@10 But some stores have stopped taking cash. I was at a large chain store in NY at Christmas trying to pay cash for a present and the woman said "I'm sorry, we can't take cash here." I really thought she was joking but she went on to explain that their computers didn't handle cash, only credit cards.
I like to think of that usage data as being the cost for using the service. Nothing is really free, is it?
Days I've owned my TiVo: 1,538
Days since my TiVo has been unable to "make a phone call", presumably to upload my user data: 1,538.
Fuck You, TiVo, for being so nosy. I wouldn't really care, if someone could tell me just why the goddamn box needs to call home every night, and just what data it desperately needs to send.
Of course, it's "anonymous" until it isn't.
Netflix recently dropped a big dump of "anonymous" data in order to get people to design new algorithms to improve various features. The prize was that the best new algorithms came with offers of cash and employment. A privacy group successfully connected chunks of this anonymous data to individual accounts.
Yay for "anonymous" data staying that way.
Ehh. Data-mining gets less objectionable to me as less content is available. Which is to say:
The internet. Lots of naughty things available on the internet, and if I want to look at something unsavory (legal or not, taboo or not, tasteful or not), I certainly don't want that snooped. Thus, people are very concerned about internet privacy.
TiVo. There's very little on TV, and nothing at all on broadcast and basic-cable channels, that could get you in trouble, or even be all that embarassing. At the very worst, you buy tons of porn and then TiVo releases its porn-buyers list. People are only mildly concerned about TiVo privacy.
Nintendo Wii. Nothing non-family-friendly is made for it, nothing non-family-friendly is downloadable. It's impossible to indemnify yourself, intentionally or accidentally, by demoing Cooking Mama. At worst, your friends laugh at you for spending three hours on the Hannah Montana game. Thus, who gives a shit?
Okay, it's the principle of the thing. Still. If this is the biggest worry in your life, I want to trade lives.
Oh, that's why it glows blue?
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