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.

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.

Technically, yes. WINE/Proton aren't sandboxed so it would be possible to pull some information at least. I've heard people install the flatpak version of Steam to isolate network calls using flatseal, so that's one workaround potentially.

NOTE: I'm just talking about generic data collection. The DRM/anti-cheat stuff could flag you as using Linux and then the game just refuses to run. I know the new ToS talked about banning VMs so maybe they lump linux users into that (at least for online play).

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.

But how do you play with friends again

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.

We should have the Lenny version of a subreddit where we just post what games are free this week

Out of the loop. What did gearbox do that time?

Signing up for revolution

Even on MacOS?

We have one

Don't claim it is a free trojan

The reason its free is because they added a data miner with root level access.

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.

The TOS doesn't give the game executable magical powers to do things it wasn't written to do.

The game executables haven't changed. All they did was add a generic TOS. That doesn't magically give the game the capability to get kernel level access.

You are forced to agree if you want to play it, this is how shady companies operate. Now that you have agreed to it there is nothing stopping them from adding it in an"update".

If you think a shady ass company like epic wouldnt do that you are very naive.

So you agree that saying "they added a data miner with root level access" was a false statement?