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It also requires root level access and is listed as such in their TOS.
People seem to not understand how TOS works. The game exe does not request admin permissions at all. There is no kernel level anticheat. It does not install Battleye or EAC or anything of the sort.
The TOS is not specific to this game. It just means there is at least one game by Take Two Interactive that requires this (though when I skimmed through I couldn’t find mention of it).
The game has not been updated since 2022 and I highly doubt it will get any more.
How do terms of service give them root level access?
EDIT: For the record, I've been playing through this whole series in the middle of when they rolled out these EULA changes, and I wish them the best of luck in getting root access to my machine, but I promise you they didn't get it via Proton.
It doesn’t, installing the game does. The terms of service just let you know that you are willfully infecting your computer with spyware.
Then I suppose the loophole is to play on Linux.
Not in general. Typically, games with kernel level drm or anticheat just didn't work at all.
Borderlands 2 specifically has a native Linux version though, and it may or may not abuse this fact. It isn't run in a sandbox-like environment like Windows games that run through proton, but according to protondb it does run through proton? In any case yes, it's probably better than running it on Windows.
Are you running it as root for some reason? Cause if you are not running it as root, it doesn't have root access, absent some kind of major security flaw in Linux.
No of course not, but if it's run under proton/wine it doesn't even have access to any normal files. When it's run natively it does (documents and all that). I'm not saying it's doing anything with this, or even that it would make sense.
Yes, support for Borderlands 2 continued long after it was clear that Steam Machines weren't taking off, which means it's on a newer version than the Linux native one that Aspyr ported. You can still run the Linux native version, but if you want to play with your Windows friends or just get access to all the DLC, you need to run it through Proton.
I wouldn't even give them the storage space tbh...just makes other people think it's ok because they can claim 'big yuge numbers of players'
It's Borderlands. They already had that claim. I don't feel good about it, but they made this change after I'd already started this trek. It's one more data point that gets me closer to only buying games on GOG, but I'm not all the way there yet. It's definitely nefarious that it's all good and legal to change the terms of the thing you bought after it's already been sold to you. However, I also don't see any evidence yet that it's actually getting root level access to your Windows machine other than someone's summary in a review, which is not exactly direct from the source.
By indicating that root access is required to play the game, and that you agree to this by agreeing to the TOS. Without agreeing, you can't play the game.
The TOS doesn't give the game executable magical powers to do things it wasn't written to do.
I don't mean to be disrespectful when I say this, but I can agree that gravity pulls things up instead of down and it won't make it so. I just skimmed through the EULA and didn't find anywhere that it said it needed root level access (though maybe I missed it), nor did the executable take any action to try to do so.
I'm not seeing anything about that level of access either. Only time I'd see a game need root level access is if it had anti-cheat but I'm not seeing any anti-cheat services mentioned anywhere.
Add it while it's free, worry about root later. :)
I'm going to try it on my Steam Deck, I just naturally assume they already have root access.