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.

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.

and then run whatever modified code it just deployed on the host, yea

Bro get a life, it's not that serious. Evil app store lmao as if they're out to murder you and your family

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 It is only sus because it's outdated - companies are generally removing them now rather than adding them.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.

I agree they should expand their review protest to all games in the catalog and not selectively review bomb. Consumers have every reason to impact products success through their purchasing power and reviews. I stopped giving my money to game companies I don't like a decade ago. It means missing some games, but there is so much out there it hardly matters. I don't give a shit about this specific controversy, but I do think people have every reason to use their bully pulpit to attempt to impact consumer habits and therefore at least attempt change, even if they are often unsuccessful.

A game with a malicious crack that can escape a VM running on Windows and get to the main OS?

Sure, possible, but not by any means common.

A game with a malicious crack made for Windows that can... do anything nefarious when you're running it on linux via WINE and Proton?

... Theoretically possible, but I've never heard of this actually occuring.

The same, but also inside another linux OS inside of a Bottle or Distrobox... or full VM... all running on a linux system that is significantly atomized with a read only core-os?

... At that point I am quite doubtful anyone is bothering to make a malicious crack that capable... when 99% of the existing game trainers and hacks that you can find or buy online... only work on Windows.

The crowd of people making game exploits and cheat engines... and the crowd of people making malicious game cracks.... that venn diagram is almost a circle... and 99% of these people do not bother to 'support' linux, in anyway, at all, with anything they do.

Is using any random cracked software ever 100% safe? No.

But neither is say, using a Windows system, with 0 cracks or hacks... but with a MSFT trusted vendor's 3rd party anti malware software... where said trusted vendor is allowed to push an unverified update to their kernel level anti-malware system... that is actually malformed, and then knocks out about 1/4 of every enterprise Windows PCs on Earth for 2 weeks.

They added spyware to it.

Here is excerpt from the tos, shared by user in steam reviews of the game.

::: spoiler important Info in Terms of Service:

• Mods are a bannable offense
• Display of Cheats/Exploits is bannable
• Forced arbitration clause and a waiver of class action and jury trial rights for all users residing in the United States and any other territory other than Australia, Switzerland, The United Kingdom, or The Territories of The European Economic Area
• You can be banned for using a VPN while connecting to online servers
• Cannot access game content on a Virtual PC

Collected Data Types:
• Identifiers / Contact Information: Name, user name, gamertag, postal and email address, phone number, unique IDs, mobile device ID, platform ID, gaming service ID, advertising ID (IDFA, Android ID) and IP address
• Protected Characteristics: Age and gender
• Commercial Information: Purchase and usage history and preferences, including gameplay information
• Billing Information: Payment information (credit / debit card information) and shipping address
• Internet / Electronic Activity: Web / app browsing and gameplay information related to the Services; information about your online interaction(s) with the Services or our advertising; and details about the games and platforms you use and other information related to installed applications
• Device and Usage Data: Device type, software and hardware details, language settings, browser type and version, operating system, and information about how users use and interact with the Services (e.g., content viewed, pages visited, clicks, scrolls)
• Profile Inferences: Inferences made from your information and web activity to help create a personalized profile so we can identify goods and services that may be of interest
• Audio / Visual Information: Account photos, images, and avatars, audio information via chat features and functionality, and gameplay recordings and video footage (such as when you participate in playtesting)
• Sensitive Information: Precise location information (if you allow the Services to collect your location), account credentials (user name and password), and contents of communications via chat features and functionality.
:::

I wouldnt touch anything this company has produced.

I think it's kind of ironic you call your friend apparently a dipshit for not knowing something you also didn't know... pot calling the kettle black & all.

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.

Then the death squads will come in, and they'll ask 'how could this possibly happen!?', getting fucking pissed or saying "we couldn't have known!" when you answer, and offer an 'i fucking told you so' in line for the camps.

You're there too, because they tagged you in everything.

Publisher made it free to propagate their spyware.

Happy cake day

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.

Thats a windows thing so it can put files in “protected” folders like program files

The unfortunate thing about the UAC prompt is that it gives the software permission to put files in protected folders, but it also gives the software root permission so it can do literally anything else without prompting the user. Except, I believe, if it tries to install unsigned kernel drivers, then the user has to click a new prompt... but you can completely compromise a machine with the permissions that users routinely give to executables that they download from the Internet.

The point is that the license agreement for this game and others owned by this company didn’t say this shit before, and now they do.

That's just not true.

Here's a Reddit user trying the same kind out outrage farming 7 years ago using Take 2's TOS and implying it allows spyware: https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/8naopt/take_two_a_spyware_apocalypse/

If you look at Valve's TOS or any other game developer who has games with an online component, you will see the exact same language regarding data collection. The language being added is to comply with laws, like the GDPR, which requires specific language indicating what data is collected and how it is used.

The data that is being collected is the same as it was 10 years ago. There's nothing new here, just a YT video that got a lot of views and social media being full of people who don't fact check anything.

from my, apparently, dipshit friend (no, this is not the only stupid thing he's done).

Reading comprehension is hard. I get it.

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.

Yes, the government is going to get you by installing spyware in a game launcher that nobody uses. You won't care a shit about or vet at code level any of the 200+ closed source games you will play in your life because they're all fine in your fantasy land, but one game launcher is out to kidnap you.