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USGamer: "The Epic Games Store is Spyware:" How a Toxic Accusation Was Started by Anti-Chinese Sentiment (Read Staff Post(s))
- Thread starter benzopil
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I wrote something but I'm not 100% sure it wont go against the latest mod message so I'll just leave it out.
Regarding the scraping of data it's a bit funny how forgetfull people can be. Valve did (does?) it too - if I remember correctly they monitored what websites you visited. Not sure if they do it still but it wouldn't supprise me if they did.
Good to see someone finally calling this stuff out.
You can say the Epic store sucks, fine, whatever.
You can say the Chinese government sucks, sure why not, it kinda does.
But you can't say Epic's involvement in Tencent makes them a willing or unwilling puppet of the Chinese government. There is simply no evidence. And people falling back to this baseless argument is nothing more than racism.
You can say the Epic store sucks, fine, whatever.
You can say the Chinese government sucks, sure why not, it kinda does.
But you can't say Epic's involvement in Tencent makes them a willing or unwilling puppet of the Chinese government. There is simply no evidence. And people falling back to this baseless argument is nothing more than racism.
I'm completely against the prejudice for anything Chinese owned. It's annoying whenever people try to blame everything on the Chinese with no evidence.
With that said, this is a typical article meant to dismiss criticism to the Epic store as racism and help sway public opinion. Embarrassing.
With that said, this is a typical article meant to dismiss criticism to the Epic store as racism and help sway public opinion. Embarrassing.
I have actually been thinking about the whole ethics thing behind Steamspy for a whle now.
I agree with everything except the last part. Ffs criticism of the chinese governement isn't citicism of China or its people. People are just trying to throw a baseless racism accusation to dismiss any criticism.
I don't remember anyone making accusations that Epic was spying for the Chinese government.
But now of course people who I don't even remember seeing in the actual thread are pointing fingers like it was a thing on Era.
Can't say I'm surprised.
Any discussion on the EGS here is poisoned by baseless accusations and drive-by posts. Problem is that many publications are perfectly in line with this with badly researched articles that neglect to paint the whole picture or purposefully omit that there are legimitate problems with the EGS for people (e.g. an article saying the EGS offers better prices because of the better split, which is flat out wrong and can be easily proven)
I do. It was a definite thing. Not a major thing, but it did come up.
There was also the thing where some peeps were saying Epic paid journalists to cape for them, which again, wasn't major, but was definitely something that popped through.
It's important to note that if you think the article is about you, that's going to color your response and make you super defensive. This article is more specifically focused on the people using the situation in an opportunistic manner. That is a very small amount of people.
Should I be offended every time someone says something bad about Russian government? Or you really believe that people criticizing Chinas government automatically hate citizens of China too?
This is right. I have a lot of criticism about EGS but the tencent thing shouldn't be an issue.
Do you know the guy behind it is still taking a large amount of money from Patreon for SteamSpy data? While being fully employed by Epic? Not scummy at all.
Yet people in this very topic accuse everyone who has problems with the EGS of being racist.
There's a disconnect between people who don't mind the EGS (or actively support it) and people who have problems with it and it gets tiring for me to have to defend my problem with Epic and its store in every single thread about it and probably also for people who have not problem with the EGS that this derails every thread.
I remember him crying foul after Valve set all profiles to private and public profiles were an opt-in because of the implementation of GDPR because that would derive him of his livelihood. At a point in time when he was already employed by Epic (but under NDA).
No it's an incredibly real sentiment. I've even seen streamers I watched asking their chat if the Chinese spyware thing was real because it was all over Twitter.
Tim Sweeney is truly a good guy and would probably not take part in such thing but you would be very naive to think that RPC would not take the chance to spy on EGC users. Tencent holdings and all of its subsidiaries shall not be trusted.
The problem is that no-one can say anything definitively either way.
We know for a fact that Epic was making copies of your local Steam data - even earlier than they said they were.
What we don't know is how that data was used. Almost immediately after this was found out, they shut down their Steam integration features and pushed out a new client update.
Maybe all they really did do was use it to add your Steam friends to EGS with your permission. Or maybe they were scraping all the details they could from it and were uploading that data to their servers.
Frankly I think the latter is more likely, since Steam have an official API that they could have used, but that wouldn't give them access to everything they wanted. My Steam profile is private, for example.
After all, they did not just make copies of your Steam data, they kept many copies of that data over the span of months, and encrypted that data. It's worth noting that this alone meets the definition of "spyware".
I have zero trust in anything that Tim Sweeney says, so I'm not going to take his word for it.
Do I think that the EGS Client is spyware for the Chinese government? Absolutely not. That's ridiculous.
I do think that there's a good chance they were using Steam data for more than just importing your friends list without your explicit permission to do so, however, and they need a new TOS before I'd consider installing the EGS Client on my PC again - even just to play free games.
As I've said many times in these topics, there's enough wrong with the EGS and Epic's business strategy that you don't need to be dishonest about it (I've seen a lot of people claim they don't support 2FA for example) or manufacture reasons to dislike them.
I don't think people said Epic "paid" journalists directly. But there's indeed something worthy to be called out when you take a favorable stance toward a party in which you promoted their content.
Also, it's not about the article being about "who" but more like how in the end it serves a narrative that's already unfolding through shortcuts and reaching:
"Epic being a spyware is born from an anti-chinese sentiment". It's factually wrong. It's started from users finding that Epic launcher was doing weird stuff with some Steam file. And then, people being cautious that Epic might use or access data that they don't disclose (which might still be a GDPR breach). And then indeed some users making a link between Epic/Tencent and Chinese governement. But going as far as linking the latter with racism is another reach. It's not to say some users on Reddit or other bad place may not have done so. But to paint it as the root of all criticism is dumb and dangerous. But it's also pushing a narrative that criticism against Epic will be from now on based on racism.
Tencent does not have a majority stake in Epic. It's close - 48% or so - but it's not majority.
Majority stakeholder means that one company owns more stocks in another company than anyone else. Nearly 50% is the majority, because no one else can beat that, not even the owner of the company (Sweeney).
Do you remember when Ubisoft was going insane with loans to buy back their own stock to prevent ZeniMax from doing a take over? ZeniMax owned less than 30% if I recall right.
Nope. Majority stakeholder is over 50%:
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/majorityshareholder.asp
"A majority shareholder is a person or entity that owns and controls more than 50 percent of a company's outstanding shares."
https://definitions.uslegal.com/m/majority-shareholder/
"Only those persons who own more that 50 percent of a company's shares can be a majority shareholder."
Also, you got the second part mixed up. It was Vivendi who was going after Ubisoft, and the trouble was that under French law, no entity can hold more than 30%; if they hold more, they're obligated to launch a public takeover offer on the target. Vivendi got real close - like I want to say...mid-high 20s? but it was defused by selling their holdings to Tencent and others.
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I'd say with Huawei it is half shadiness from China and half from western countries, US and Canada in particular that accused the company multiple times without presenting evidences of what they've done, and literally bashing on the company probably because they are scared by how powerful they became.
Funny thing is US market accept other smaller chinese companies well known for their built-in backdoors (Coolpad for instance) because they are not as big which tells you how hyperbolic some of these accusations are.
They tried so hard to paint a bad image of the company to scare other countries on the adoption of their 5G network (which yes, we should all be concerned about it)
Era has a pretty huge hard on for Steam/Gabe so it was to be expected.
Pointing out the problems of Huawei and the Chinese government means people are narrow-minded? The US has its issues, but not sure why it's relevant here. The Chinese government is awful. That's why I criticize it, not because I'm racist.
Out of curiosity if epic were to be pawns of the Chinese government what value would they even get from mining it's users data? I don't see how knowing that xXGoku420Xx spends 40 hours a week playing fortnite is of any value. Time and money would be better spent making a shell company and buying users personals details from facebook and similar sites who already sell that stuff.
Isn't Epic Games not releasing titles in China more evidence that Tencent may have some kind of influence over them? Isn't Tencent like 'the' digital games platform in China? Pretty much the Steam of China? If EGS were to release there the would be competing with their own shareholders.
I'm pretty sure it's been stated 2 members of the Board of Directors on Epic are from Tencent so they aren't totally hands off they are a part of every major decision the company takes.
I'm pretty sure it's been stated 2 members of the Board of Directors on Epic are from Tencent so they aren't totally hands off they are a part of every major decision the company takes.
Epic Games Store not being availalble in China has more to do with EGS being a glorified modification of the Fortnite Launcher. Fortnite being a F2P game has some tougher regulation in China and they did not it launch it themselves there (and irc is published by Tencent in their own platform together with Pubg).
It also probably doesnt help that payment methods in the region are more expensive than they want to.
Edit: also the Steam of China is... Steam (though its actual situation right now is gray legal space, they are plannign to become "fully legal" this year, with Steam China launch). Tencent platform has tried to get exclusivity for some games but havent been that succesful outside of the F2P market.
"Only, that isn't true. In a recent post on the Facepunch forums"
Could be true - BUT - I would not base the "insight" on Facepunch and someone in their Forums.
Could be true - BUT - I would not base the "insight" on Facepunch and someone in their Forums.
When you own 48% of a company, it's hard not to have an influence.
Shit, I read the first part of the thread title and thought, "wow, a journalist is finally gonna call Epic out", then read the rest and am disappointed. There's been countless thread's posted on Reddit claiming that somebody new has proven that EGS wasn't spyware and everybody just eats it up and spams "see, EGS is just another launcher. It's not a big deal."
They admitted they didn't use the API provided for them. They admitted they took too much data. And it looks even worse when you know the Steamspy dude's over there.
I genuinely don't know enough about China to understand why people are coming at this with the concern for the Chinese government though. I understand why people might be concerned about Epic mining its competitor's data. China knowing how much I play video games though? Why should I care?
They admitted they didn't use the API provided for them. They admitted they took too much data. And it looks even worse when you know the Steamspy dude's over there.
It's expected that by using EGS, Tencent acquires data on how you use EGS. That's not a big deal. Tencent also owns a huge share of Reddit. The problem is if the competition is mining data from its competitor. EGS absolutely finds value in Steam user data. They proudly told us what percentage of EGS' users don't use Steam.
I genuinely don't know enough about China to understand why people are coming at this with the concern for the Chinese government though. I understand why people might be concerned about Epic mining its competitor's data. China knowing how much I play video games though? Why should I care?
...literally what?
Did you even read that post? It's pretty comprehensive.
Wait, people think siding Huawei means you are xenophobic? The fuck. They "private company" is an extension of the Chinese government. Having them be integrated into global 5g technology is an awful idea. That doesn't mean we hate the Chinese people. Shit,I hate the Israeli government and US government but I don't hate the people, just the regular misguided right wingers who are shit.
Tencent having so much money and bring able to move their weight in Western gaming market is equally a bad idea
Tencent having so much money and bring able to move their weight in Western gaming market is equally a bad idea
Thanks USGamer for gaslighting the issue by simply adressing the wildest theory of the bunch in order to ridicule the security concerns people have.
It also comes from "no Steam no buy" mentality which means every competitor has to be attacked.
I believe that there are people like me that do not like to have a program (EGS store in this case) spy on other programs files on their hard drive and might consider it a spyware action.
That is not hatred or racism against the chinese people although there might be some right wing idiots who will say what right wing idiots usually say. This is probably a very small number of people, the idiocy of them does not survive long on Era, yet this article tries to build it as a huge issue while, at the same time, pretends that there are not any legit consumer concerns about how EGS operates.
It also provides a great opening for Sweeney to play the victim and for few people here to take their pitchforks out.
That is not hatred or racism against the chinese people although there might be some right wing idiots who will say what right wing idiots usually say. This is probably a very small number of people, the idiocy of them does not survive long on Era, yet this article tries to build it as a huge issue while, at the same time, pretends that there are not any legit consumer concerns about how EGS operates.
It also provides a great opening for Sweeney to play the victim and for few people here to take their pitchforks out.
It's worth remembering that just because USGamer is criticising this aspect of the Epic discussion, doesn't mean they are dismissing the issue outright. You can laugh at the made up reasons people give as part of the EGS pile on without having to take sides and defend Epic outright.
It's crazy how many posters want to come on and talk about how "Era" got it wrong no matter what the situation. People want to give themselves an imaginary pat on the back as if they had all the answers all along
This shit is so tiring. Do you seriously believe that people choose Steam for no reason but only to worship Gaben? Not because the features it offers and the ease of purchase for a lot of people around the world?
Yeah that shit was really fucking embarrassing in our own resetera threads and provided nothing to the conversation.
But no, criticizing tencent and the Chinese government in and of itself isn't racist or xenophobic. That's some "If you criticize Israel you're antisemetic" talk.
But no, criticizing tencent and the Chinese government in and of itself isn't racist or xenophobic. That's some "If you criticize Israel you're antisemetic" talk.
If steam/valve was a really awful anticonsumer service than that wouldn't have ever been the case. People are a fan of steam for a reason. From a consumer standpoint it has never been bad but it's a dev thing more than anything
this is blown waaay out of proportion.
the user explicitly said hes not an expert, thats just what he found and it worries him. there was a statement from epic about all this, clarifying things and adressing the concerns and thats it.
Not a single word of text or subtext implies xenophobia, just a (rightfull) scepticism towards chinese government backed mega corporations.
holy jesus..
the user explicitly said hes not an expert, thats just what he found and it worries him. there was a statement from epic about all this, clarifying things and adressing the concerns and thats it.
Not a single word of text or subtext implies xenophobia, just a (rightfull) scepticism towards chinese government backed mega corporations.
holy jesus..
I want to see some receipts of this "racism" and "xenophobia" as well, can anybody show me where people have been racist or xenophobic towards Chinese people during these discussions about Epic?
I am not saying it hasn't happened, I just want to see some proof because whilst people might be suggesting the Chinese government are spying and Epic are sending them data (which is unfounded conspiracy theory at this point) that doesn't mean what they are saying is racist or xenophobic, that simply means they do not trust the Chinese government surely?
I would even go as far to say that criticising the Chinese government is taking a stand against racism and xenophobia considering the human rights violations that government commits.
I am not saying it hasn't happened, I just want to see some proof because whilst people might be suggesting the Chinese government are spying and Epic are sending them data (which is unfounded conspiracy theory at this point) that doesn't mean what they are saying is racist or xenophobic, that simply means they do not trust the Chinese government surely?
I would even go as far to say that criticising the Chinese government is taking a stand against racism and xenophobia considering the human rights violations that government commits.
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