Once developer Human Starry Studios responded to player privacy concerns, after many reviews of the anticipated survival game “Mixed” on Steam focused on its aggressive End User License Agreement (EULA).
Once Human, which was published by Chinese gaming giant NetEase, collects personal data from players according to its publisher’s privacy policy. The list of collected data is quite long – as well as gameplay-relevant information such as your name, contact information, marketing preferences and game details, which are all collected through the game itself, NetEase also collects information “through our services or from other sources. “
This section seems to cause the most concern. In many cases, NetEase tries to collect information that is not materially different from many other game publishers – things like name and contact information, marketing and communication data, social media accounts, game accounts like Steam or PSN logins. There are also sections Privacy Policy dedicated to collecting social network aliases and accounts and geolocation information. In some US states, NetEase is also able to collect information such as mailing address, physical characteristics or description, protected characteristics such as race or gender, browsing history, occupation and ethnicity derived from profile pictures or avatars.
Several negative reviews of Once Human mention the privacy policy, EULA, or other terms of service. While there are concerns about the lack of servers or characters (the latter of which the developers have already addressed), the vast majority of players who rate Once Human poorly are doing so based on the personal data it collects. many of them have only played the game itself for a very short time.
In response, the game’s developers released a statement on their official Discord server (via Steam). The statement reads that “NetEase takes user privacy very seriously and adheres to privacy principles such as data minimization, purpose limitation, and transparency.” It points to the issue of government-issued IDs, saying it will only collect this data where it required by local laws, [….] when a user’s parent’s identity must be verified to obtain consent for their child, […] or when the user wishes to correct their age information.” If this data is collected, NetEase says it will delete it immediately after the purpose for which it collected the information is fulfilled.
Starry Studios also points out that NetEase explained to players “how [they] he can exercise [their] rights to manage [their] personal information,” through in-game customer services. The privacy policy was also recently revised, with a new version “coming soon.” However, the developer says that “we’ve heard your concerns and will continue to improve how we describe our privacy practices.” In the short term, this is likely won’t change much – NetEase is a publishing giant whose influence is felt in all kinds of games around the world – but it can help stem the tide of negative Once Human seems to be off to a decent start with a peak of 80,000 players, but ‘Mixed’ sentiment on Steam could mean a very bad news for a game so early in its lifespan.
Hours before launch, the hyped survival game Once Human is reminding players that its seasonal server wipe “provides a fairer, more relaxed and freer gaming experience.”