Games @lemmy.world

3d ago

What's going on with Borderlands 2? Steam is giving it for free, but the game has 23% positive recent reviews.

224 comments

If a game, application, device or EULA changes in a way you find unacceptable, after you've purchased it, you should be able to get your initial purchase price back. And if you paid with your data, you need to be able to demand they delete all your data. I think that law would be entirely reasonable and would do a lot of good.

They added spyware to it.
Here is excerpt from the tos, shared by user in steam reviews of the game.

I wouldnt touch anything this company has produced.
- They added spyware to it.
  No, they didn't.
  Just because something sounds outrageous, doesn't mean it is true.
  Borderlands 2 hasn't been updated since 2022:
  Borderlands - Last updated: 3 August 2016 Borderlands 2 - Last updated: 4 August 2022 Borderlands 3 - Last updated: 8 August 2024
  No Borderlands titles include anti-cheat: https://areweanticheatyet.com/?search=borderlands
  Here is another person, 7 years ago trying the exact same outrage-based engagement farming strategy of linking a TOS update and implying a nefarious intent: https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/8naopt/take_two_a_spyware_apocalypse/ It's exactly the same "Take two is spying on you!!!" content and yet, none of the Borderlands games have added spyware and none have added kernel anti-cheat.
  Also, if you read the 2018 and 2025 TOS you will notice notice that the information that they collect in the 2025 TOS ( https://www.take2games.com/legal/en-US/ ) is exactly the same as it was in 2018.
  TL;DR - Just because you read it on the Internet, doesn't mean it is true.

I sometimes wonder what will happen when EAC, that has root access to millions of PCs, gets compromised or has grunty employee and pushes malicious update
- Same thing that happened to genshin when it's anti cheats got compromised I would guess. Not a lot and everyone ends up not caring.
  Because normal people do not give a single fuck about the technical aspect of data privacy.
  
  That's right. I'm not lying at all when I say that none of my friends care about privacy. It's actually quite frustrating.
- It probably spys on you already.
  The company that makes the Overwolf game launcher is an Israli cyber security company that gets money from the US.
  Tencent spys on people for China through a lot of the games they own.
  
  Holy fuck I did not know about Overwolf. That's the last time I download something from my, apparently, dipshit friend (no, this is not the only stupid thing he's done).
- Crowdstrike 2.0

I just don't understand anticheat or copy protection on PvE games. I can understand it if you don't want to play against a cheater, but this is a cooperative shooter.
- See you're looking at it from the point of view that it would serve the player experience, but that's not what it's for, it's to mine your data
  
  We haven’t gotten another Middle Earth game because it had an online requirement
  Now look where we are
- It's for precedent on future games and to sneak in shit for later. Wittle down your expectations and privacy, make it "normal".
- IIRC Borderlands 3 scales the value of loot to the game's difficulty setting, with some mechanics aimed at encouraging players to join online coops at high difficulties in order to earn more valuable loot. I imagine cheats undermine that intent, and I also imagine borderlands 4 might be aiming at a pay to play scheme.
  I'm guessing this EULA is being used for all their IP with the intent of taking advantage of it in the future.
- Need to protect those purchasing opportunities from cheaters.

🏴‍☠️ is free and without shenanigans.
- giving root level access to russian crackers instead
  
  If you go to the right sites you won’t get any malicious code. Stop spreading corpo propaganda.
  
  Damn, its such a shame you can't run a crack in a vm, or on linux via WINE and Proton, aw shucks.
  
  Shh, the kids don't want to hear about the dark side of free things (oh hey, a new Meta service!)
  /s
  
  Over wine?

LOL. I loved the Borderlands franchise, until Epic made their evil dog shit app store and the Borderlands devs sold out to them. Motherfuck Borderlands forever now. Thanks for the warning so I don't accidentally reinstall any of it from Steam.
- Bro get a life, it's not that serious. Evil app store lmao as if they're out to murder you and your family
  
  I know thats not a risk for you, but this data could genuinely be used by the us government to do that in the near future, for many marginalized populations.
  Especially queer people and anyone who could be seen as an immigrant.
  Some of us have real problems in life, and have to actually give literally a single fuck about the world.

Ok so that explains the bad reviews, but why is steam giving the game away for free? Also BL3 is heavily discounted
- Probably because borderlands 4 is on the horizon and sweat-gland randy caught some flag for tweets.
  My guess is that it was planed to be good PR.
- I think it's up to the publisher, and not steam, to give the game away for free.
- Publisher made it free to propagate their spyware.

You literally posted the answer to your question. Here is an expansion of the details.
- I haven't read the new TOS but if this review is correct it looks like a GDPR nightmare for them. Good luck to them explaining why they need to collect all that personal data.
  
  The "collected data types" in that comment seems to be copy/pasted from the privacy policy
  https://www.take2games.com/privacy/en-US/
  
  That might be US only, where the companies have freedom to get all the customer's data and do with it as they will.
  
  Most people don't care about privacy.
  Most people in the western civilized world are on Facebook, so...
  
  Do we know this is a thing in the EU?
- Due to Steam's tos updates a few months ago, isn't take-two opening itself up to a massive lawsuit?
  
  No idea, but I think it would be funny, so I'm all for it and hope you are right.
- Hm... Ok. Thats crazy. Someone wants to create a new branch of income it seems.
  Thats a fucking shame. Now I need to reconsider my plans to buy Borderlands4.
  But how will they do it? Which information is gathered from which source? Most of my accounts only hold as little informations as possible. Also my Os knows nothing about me. My MS account neither.
  On the other hand my steam 2FA need some mobile information.
  
  Checkout Jump Ship? It's some weird borderlands, Star citizen, (insert other generic shooter) type game. Pretty neat, was recommended to me by a shooter fanatic friend of mine. I trust his shooting game opinion
  https://store.steampowered.com/app/1757300/Jump_Ship/
  
  Unless you use Linux, your OS knows a ton about you. On top of that, with root access to your computer they can do whatever they want and if their system gets hacked you become a member of a bot farm or crypto mine.

Yikes. Is the review in the screenshot true? They got root anticheat? Or rootkit data harvesting?
- He said they added a kernel level anticheat in the TOS which is true. But they seem to have not included it in the game yet. But they tell that by possedong the game you allow them to. Edit : typo but can't correct "possedong" now
  
  possedong
  I'd like to know how your autocorrect learned this word
- No, it's misinformation and people who uncritically repeat things without verification.
  I've had the game installed for years and have to manually apply updates, there hasn't been one. e: I just checked, last update in Steam is dated 2022
  All they've done is make their TOS universal across all of their games.
  e: adding this from last post. TL;DR: People are spreading misinformation
  So, let’s look into the claims.
  Here’s the TOS:
  https://www.take2games.com/legal/en-US/
  There is nothing about root level access.
  In addition, if you look at the patch history for Borderlands 2 on SteamDB, you will see that the last update for the game was 4 August 2022.
  So, to be clear: There is nothing in the TOS that requires you to submit to a rootkit and there is no spyware that has been added. The comment in the OP is simply wrong.
  
  He said it, root access level in the TOS of BorderLand. Not that a root kit is included, but that they allowed them self to inclid it whenever they can. That not misinformation...

Don't just review bomb it
Report it to steam as SPYWARE, with the little flag icon on the product page

Did the EULA change? ✅
Were all Take Two games automatically updated in secret and now hijack your machine with root access to spy on everything you do? ❌
Do Take Two games contain code to report telemetry and user information(including application/system activity) to a home server? ✅
Is this EULA change extraordinary and particularly egregious in comparison to others that most people have probably already agreed to? ❌(IMO)
Are people riled up because e a YouTube video went a little viral and now they’re all playing telephone to the point where it’s now gotten to the point of random dumdums are review booming a 13 year old game claiming it’s turned into literal spyware? ✅(again, IMO)
Should you be surprised by any of this if you’ve been even remotely paying attention for any period of the last 30-40 years? ❌
Do we need more than just angry idiots in the battle against corpatocracy? ✅
We should be done coddling the late comers at this point. Yes welcome them and accept them, but at a certain point your level of ignorance became a detriment to your community and you should be made aware of that fact.
- Its a bit more than that:
  
  Would it shock you to know that ALL of these are in the Steam terms of service also?
  The only really sus one to me is the forced arbitration clause, and Steam also had that til they were pressured to remove it by multiple legal cases, including a class action brought to them by Steam users just last September. It is only sus because it's outdated - companies are generally removing them now rather than adding them. https://www.legal.io/articles/5540864/Valve-Removes-Mandatory-Arbitration-from-Steam-Subscriber-Agreement
  RE: remaining top 5 bullet points, 3 of the remaining 4 bullet points are uncontroversial bullet points about anticheat. The fourth is banning modding, which is also just a heavy handed anticheat attempt, and not uncommon for online games to add to their ToS to allow banning at their discretion. Either way its clumsy at the least as some mods can be harmless eg HUD mods for colourblind people and deserves some negativity - but not to this level, given everything else is just so boilerplate.
  Collected data types: these are all for if you buy stuff with a credit card / paypal / etc off 2k/parent company Take 2. Remember, they sell games with in-game purchases. They also have an app which has location permissions option which is what the precise location is about.
  So yes - again, as OP said, this is nothing controversial if you have paid attention to ToS meaning and content over the past 20 years.
  Aside from the forced arbitration crap - which Steam, Microsoft, Amazon, Lyft, Uber, Google, AT&T - and hundreds of other major companies all snuck into their ToS over the years, and many have now been legally pressured to remove by consumer rights group. That is stupid because it shows their legal team is behind the times, companies are mostly removing their forced arbitration clauses nowadays because it has been the cause of many lost class actions.
  
  Precise location information? Wtf for?
  
  A bit more than what, not really sure what your point here is? All of those bullet points are similar if not identical to terms in other EULAs half the people in this thread have already clicked thru.
  I’ll say it again, if you think this is anything new you haven’t been paying attention. I’m all for calling this fuckery out and pushing for something better. But like where yall been?
  Still no actual answers from anyone on how this is ‘more’ than what I described in my op. Sure it’s a more detailed list, but it’s really not the “gotcha” everyone seems to think it is. That is, if youve been paying attention.
- So...if Steam is running in a Flatpak, and Borderlands is launched from Steam, how much can they even see...really?
  
  They know I use Linux and that means they know too much
  
  So…if Steam is running in a Flatpak, and Borderlands is launched from Steam, how much can they even see…really?
  Without using exploits to escape the container, not much. A very empty Windows environment with a single game installed, your network interfaces and any directories that the Flatpak has access to (usually just the SteamLibrary directories).
  The TOS (https://www.take2games.com/legal/en-US/) changes are mostly related to data that they collect via their interfacing with Steam and through their website. This idea that they're requiring you to agree to a root level access or installing a spyware rootkit is just nonsense.
  
  Not a lot. Even when it isn't a flatpak windows software running on linux won't be able to interact with the system anywhere near as deeply as on windows.
  They'll be able to tell it's linux, though.
  
  You can install an application like Flatseal (https://flathub.org/apps/com.github.tchx84.Flatseal) to inspect the permissions for a flatpak.
  How locked down a flatpak is depends entirely on the developer and what permissions they request. By default, they can't really see much. For example, they can't even see the processes running on your host or your user and system files.
  Flatpak does not do anything about network access though, it can only do no access or full access, no in between. The data they can collect on Linux in a Flatpak is very limited but it does not prevent them from calling home.
  
  New to linux...are flatpaks like sandboxed?
- Pretty much nailed it, yep.
  A youtuber named Hellfire has been on a spree, basically discovering how fucked up EULAs have been in games for the past 20ish years... well this is all brand new news to him and and his Zoomer / Gen A followers.
  There is, as of right now, literally zero evidence that Borderlands 2 has been updated with a rootkit, with kernel level anti cheat, anything like that.
  The last update to its game files was 2 years ago.
  This is almost certainly them updating the EULA everywhere, the precise timing of this being for some specific arcane legal and business reasons... TakeTwo runs a whole bunch more games than juat Borderlands... namely GTA V...
  ...
  Is this EULA bad? Yes.
  Is it much worse than it was before, or what other large gaming companies EULAs have, and have had for... a decade+?
  Maybe by a bit, but not really, no.
  ...
  Is Randy Pitchford a dumb idiot asshole?
  Oh absolutely yes, but that shouldn't give people the liscense to make completely unevidenced claims about other things.
  ...
  The game does not have a kernel level AC or some kind of rootkit DRM, as many, many people are currently saying it does.
  I guess gamer attention span can really hold onto a few keywords and phrases at a time.
  ... I say this all as person who is vehemently against kernel level AC, who has been pointing out for 4 years, that almost all existing anti cheat systems currently have at least one game that implements their AC, on linux, without using kernel level anything.... it is entirely possible to do AC without kernel level shit, even on linux, and has been for at least 4 years. EAC and BattleEye have supported linux for 4 years, but nearly no game that uses them has actually used this feature/available and offered support.
  I am glad that this level of hate is finally being directed at shitty EULAs, but lets at least get our facts straight, or actually provide some hitherto unseen evidence that Borderlands has had some kind of sleeper malware in it for at least the past two years, just waiting to be activated by a TOS update to every single Take Two game.

Doesn’t the screenshot you posted explain what’s going on?

Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. Owns Rockstar Games, Zynga and 2K. So if that's all their games, it includes at least these: Bioshock series, Borderlands series, Civilization series, Grand Theft Auto series, Mafia series, Max Payne series, NBA 2K series, PGA Tour 2K series, Red Dead series, WWE 2K series and XCOM series.
Amazing stuff!
- That's just a list of games that used to be good and now suck.
  
  I object to that for XCOM

That. The content of the screenshot you posted. That is what's going on.

Pirates are winning over my empathy.
- They've been my best friend for years
  
  Piracy never gave me up, never let me down

I apparently love downvotes but here goes: All the Borderlands games (annoying childish cell-shaded skinner-box) and everything Gearbox is and has ever created it utter shit. The CEO is a garbage person, and thier dealings with Epic is Capitalist-Oink-Piggy shite! ""FUCK YOU 2K & GEARBOX, AND FUCK YOU BORDERLANDS!"
- Apart from the politics, the Borderlands games themselves are hardly utter shit for the most part.
  
  The writing is garbage but,... it's a game for edgy teenagers. It would be.
  The gameplay for me is Diablo with guns. It would suck for anyone not into that. If anyone isn't into that, don't buy Borderlands games.
  
  I think they're pretty terrible.
  I've tried multiple times to get in to them and I've come to the conclusion they're just for a gamer with lower standards than me.
  This is also based off of the games that I see borderlands fans like that I think suck ass.
- Yep, I am jumping in with you on this one.
  The cell-shaded art style? Not the problem, imo.
  The problem is the just astoundingly terrible writing, immensely insufferable characters, and astonishingly brain dead gameplay.
  Why have weapon balance ortactically interesting scenarios or any real sense of progression in gameplay when we can just procedurally generate guns and do everything we can to make everything into roughly the same level of bullet sponge with auto levelling?
  They are the lowest common denominator of co-op shooter games, made for people who enjoy bombastic sensory overload and near zero prefrontal cortex brain activity while gaming.
- Hear hear!
  Borderlands is a neat concept, but it's ruined by an awful studio and reddit-tier 'humor.'
  It was nice to see Battleborn fail because honestly that's what the studio deserves.
- Yes, but it should still be illegal for a company to do this. Don't let them blame the users for accepting this bullshit. As Louis Rossmann would say, they have the mentality of a rapist.
- everything Gearbox is and has ever created it utter shit
  OpFor was good, Blue Shift was alright too.
  Everything since they stole the whole idea of Borderlands has been bad though.
- You're definitely right about Pitchford or w/e dingleberry's name is.
- Except lawbreakers but he tainted it by supporting it and made ppl against it
  
  Bro thank you for mentioning Lawbreakers. Such a fun game that was cut short.
  
  Lawbreakers was made by Boss Key studios, headed by Cliff Blezsinski who was the guy behind Gears of War.
  You may be thinking of Battleborn, which was made by Gearbox.
- I'm sorry, but Battleborn was brilliant. Deadlock is the first game to re-capture (and expand on) the mix of mechanics Battleborn put together.
  Didn't stop Gearbox from shutting it down so that no-one who bought it could ever play again. Not even the story campaign.

Is this because Embracer sold Borderlands to Take-Two last year?
- It's because Take Two came out with a fuck-you-in-the-ass EULA for all their games. I actually look forward to boycotting someone, there's too much free and discounted shit everywhere

A government that cares for is people would ban this shit and procecute any company trying to find ways around it.

I checked the Steam depots. It seems the game files haven’t been updated since 2022. All that seems to have changed is some license agreement in February. Seems to be a thing across take two games, and not specific to borderlands 2.
Basically nothing has changed in real terms for this game. Maybe borderlands 4 might have draconian DRM, who knows.
- They can drop updates anytime after they made sure to have you accept the spyware.
  
  I doubt it though, the game will be 13 years old this year. It wouldn’t make financial sense for them to bother.

I didn't enjoy the Handsome Collection but free is free. Thanks for sharing.

I only play AAA games on GeForce Now (cloud). If the game can't run on my Linux system or on the cloud, I ain't touching it. Also, there are so many wonderful games that do not require a colonoscopy into your personal data to be played.

the game's store page doesn't mention that it requires root access, like it does for some other games. am i missing something?
edit: the words "root" and "level" (ctrl+f'd each one separately) don't appear anywhere in the EULA. "access" shows up in a couple spots that definitely are NOT talking about root level access. i'm all about outrage over enshittification, but so far this sounds like bullshit
- Maybe it's hidden in the in-game eula and they're using their launcher to collect all that info before we even get to agree or disagree.

I'm assuming the post is actually about DRM operating at ring 0. That's not really root level though. That's kernel level. Root is still operating in user-mode and politely asking the kernel to interact with hardware.
- But it doesn't have the mandatory kernel level disclaimer either.
  
  I did some more reading on this, and it apparently isn't due to DRM, its about an update to ToS that occurred in April. The update expands data collection for advertising and forced-arbitration. Arguably that's worse than kernel-level DRM. DRM can be ripped, legal shenanigans can't.

I noticed too.

Is the EULA also applicable to the Linux version, assuming that Aspyr did actually port the game to Linux and not just use Wine or something?
- The Linux version is utter dog shit. It's native but it's really terrible looking.
  
  Is it not fully compatible with newer versions of Linux? All the gameplay and comparison videos I've seen look identical to the Windows version. I'd test it myself but I'm pretty sure my computer doesn't have the hardware to run it even on low settings.
  
  It's also not been updated for a long time. You can't play with the windows version anymore.

On one side of the ring, greedy corps which want to profile you better than the NSA does. On the other, drama-hungry and social networks-fueled outrage culture.
That's how an old game giveaway backfires and becomes the scandal of the day.

Why isnt Steam banning them? Munny?

lemmy yet again falls for the ragebait hook line and sinker

Y'all really going to freak out over the new paralegal being told to update the EULAs and lazily hitting the update all button?

So 50% score loss because of a permissive EULA, got it ...
I'll just leave this in the "Pitchforks against Pitchford" and "Woke, must hate" folder. Call me back when they do actually include a rootkit in their games instead of jumping the gun because loud feelings say loud things. If only there was some way to get statistics of the people getting outraged because of posts in a subreddit community and the people who don't have a problem with rootkits installed by their favorite MMOs...
- Let's try this logic on other things. Their EULA says they can cut off a finger whenever they want. They haven't cut off my finger for my purchase of this game, call me back when they cut it off.
  If you're someone that doesn't want companies to have root level access to your computer, waiting until it happens is silly when they're telling you it's gonna happen. It is every reason to complain and be concerned.
  
  No offense, but have you ever read EULAs? Even Windows EULA has a lot of "cut off a finger" provisions. It's invasive, and people are right to complain. People might cry Linux, but when their job requires them to use Windows and abide by that EULA, most will crumble.
  Like it or not, most EULAs are legally binding bullshit that more often than not has to be ignored or bypassed outside of it if necessary. How many people are watching YouTube and ignoring their Terms of Service while using adblockers?
  This is nothing new in the world of gaming, and to the scale of affecting over 50% of the score of a game for a provision that is often included in other games they have no problem with is what's revealing. A lot of MMOs and many multiplayer games do, but people haven't cried wolf outside of a minority of their community. Pitchford has given his explanation, that it is a matter of the 2K EULA Gearbox has to adopt.
  Let’s try this logic on other things. Are all 2K games that have this in their newly updated EULA's being boycotted? Hint: Civilization is a 2K game.
  Some things are just obvious when your head is not stuck inside the ass of a circlejerk bandwagon. It's just sad that some people aren't honest with themselves and and are not willing to recognize how easily they are influenced by people who are holding hidden grudges. Too many games are getting shit on because of this, and I say this as someone who is not looking forward to the next Borderlands game until the discounts drop it well below its 80 dollar price tag several years from now while plenty of loud people in this thread will go out to buy it on day one.
  
  It's probably a common EULA for all games, so they probably added it to carify the terms for some other game that includes it.
- You should hold a class on how to insert "woke" into every conversation.
  
  Because of a single comment? No need to hold a class about your criteria.
- I'll just leave this in the "Pitchforks against Pitchford" and "Woke, must hate" folder.
  So you're an idiot?
  
  People do complain about rootkits, but a reaction on this scale means it might be more fitting for you to reply to the mirror.
- Lol go home Randy, you're drunk.
  
  ... Do you really believe I am Randy Pitchford? Whow, so that's the bar for IQ around these parts ...

Don’t speak I’ll of steam and billionaire Gabe around here. The steam bros are gonna crucify you for daring to even think ill of THEIR corporation and THEIR billionaire who of course loves and cares for them all.
Edit: there it is 🤣
- What's Steam got to do with Borderlands 2 having a rootkit?
  
  You're right that it's not Valve they're mad at, buuuuut....
  They could regulate that no games they sell can have rootkits and delist the ones that do, as well as offer refunds if a rootkit is patched in in the future. They have lots of rules already, and I don't think that would be a bad one.
  
  If this was on PSN or the Nintendo shop, everyone downvoting me would be up in arms blaming Sony and Nintendo
- Your mom is wrong. You are not even slightly cool.
  
  This thread makes me wish we could have a discussion community where we exclude Americans. Even the left are nuts over there now. Nothing but name calling and shit slinging. Glad your country is drowning

I’ll just stick to playing my console copy
- console
  If you're worried about personal data collection then I have some bad news for you...
  
  Every government and corporation has some data on us no matter how we like it. I was referring to my Xbox 360 copy which is totally offline.

224 comments

Report it to steam as SPYWARE, with the little flag icon on the product page