Comments on: Battlefield 2142: Spyware included

By: Brent

Brent — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 02:39:50 +0000

They said they decided on ingame ads for financial reasons, they needed money. Since when does EA need money?? Even people who don’t play video games have heard of EA.

You listen to the radio for free; you get ads. You watch TV for free; you get ads. You get a web host for free, you get ads. If EA is getting payed everytime someone looks at an ad in their game, why should I pay ANY money for the game?

And if I may continue, all this “EA clarifies about the hissy fit people are having about the so-called spyware” is bullshit. “Oh yeah, if the company says they’re not doing anything wrong I can trust they’re not, I mean, who would know better than the company?”
Anyone who feels “clarified” by what EA says is a simpleton.

By: M threadgold

M threadgold — Sat, 09 Jun 2007 01:24:00 +0000

Ive stopped playing this game now, all it does is crash my PC; If I want to play games Ill use my 360 from now on…fuck EA

By: Kathryn

Kathryn — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 01:24:58 +0000

I play BF2 regularly, and have played 2142 a couple of times at a cyber parlor. A friend of mine pre-ordered 2142 and was so disgusted with it he sent it back the next day. Why in the world would EA put that kind of stuff inside a game? Did they think we wouldn’t notice or care? Even if it’s what you would call “low level spyware”, it’s still a GAME putting spyware on your system.

By: Ed H

Ed H — Mon, 06 Nov 2006 12:13:14 +0000

As it stops writing of .ini files outside the windows folder, this patch doesn’t stop access to OS ini files, quite the opposite. Any poor program that calls its config files .ini gets shafted (and alot do!). I dont approve of the IGA stuff, but it doesn’t look like its doing nasty low level things.

By: David Russell

David Russell — Tue, 24 Oct 2006 19:33:49 +0000

Hang on, I thought you meant Windows INIs, not any INI file at all. Obviously not

By: Colin Riley

Colin Riley — Mon, 23 Oct 2006 21:59:08 +0000

Low Access? It’s writing an INI config file for itself! You know, those text files?

By: David Russell

David Russell — Mon, 23 Oct 2006 21:35:33 +0000

The point is, what the hell does a game need that sort of OS access for? The obvious answer is that games don’t, spyware does.

By: Colin Riley

Colin Riley — Mon, 23 Oct 2006 20:28:56 +0000

I am deffo not a BF2142 fan on the whole, but to clarify, the MS update breaks BF2142 because it secretly updated another part of the API which bf relies upon:
KB917422 MS06-051 no longer allows you to read or write INI files from anywhere other than the Windows folder.
Quite a drastic ‘Fix’ (quite an odd fix ehh?) which is breaking a whole lot of other programs.
Also, the ‘Spyware’ does not monitor browsing history. All it does is an IP location lookup to target the ingame ads by country/continent.