this post was submitted on 24 Nov 2023
43 points (93.9% liked)

PC Gaming

8568 readers
453 users here now

For PC gaming news and discussion. PCGamingWiki

Rules:

  1. Be Respectful.
  2. No Spam or Porn.
  3. No Advertising.
  4. No Memes.
  5. No Tech Support.
  6. No questions about buying/building computers.
  7. No game suggestions, friend requests, surveys, or begging.
  8. No Let's Plays, streams, highlight reels/montages, random videos or shorts.
  9. No off-topic posts/comments, within reason.
  10. Use the original source, no clickbait titles, no duplicates. (Submissions should be from the original source if possible, unless from paywalled or non-english sources. If the title is clickbait or lacks context you may lightly edit the title.)

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] TWeaK@lemm.ee 4 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

EA is worse with data collection imo. Or at least just as bad.

Steam has always done a little bit of it, particularly their hardware surveys, but even then it's never felt so creepy when they do it.

[–] ono@lemmy.ca 15 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

Steam's hardware survey gathers a narrow set of hardware info, shows you what it finds, and asks permission before sending. It is completely ~~transparent~~ forthcoming and optional. That is not hoovering up your data.

[–] TWeaK@lemm.ee 4 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, the one thing I would say is that you can never be 100% certain what data is being gathered by closed source software, especially if there is an encrypted communication channel. Saying that though, Valve are decently trustworthy.

[–] ono@lemmy.ca 3 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Agreed; I would much prefer games and their storefronts to be open-source.

Of what we have today, though, most of Steam's competitors are far worse in this area.

Special nod to GOG, which lets you download games with a web browser. (Does Itch do this, too?)

[–] Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 11 months ago

And what gives about hardware.
The personal data is the scary stuff.
The payment history, the invested money, browsing history, mouse movement tracking, other programs installed on the pc and so on.

[–] canis_majoris@lemmy.ca 2 points 11 months ago

At least the hardware survey is voluntary.