Seriously DONT BUY THIS GAME. SEND THEM A MESSAGE. This is ridiculous. EA you can burn in hell.

all i can say is, if your throwing advertising at me after i paid reg price for a game. wtf. if it where free and ad supported what can you do, but its not. crazy.

...Why do they need to sell advertising in game? We bought the damn game, right?

Besides, Battlefield 2142 would be *awesome* played offline!

Its actually something like this that keeps me from buying the game. I was on the fence, liked what I'd seen, but I don't like this. I understand game companies need to find new ways to finance their ever increasing budgets, but I'm already paying them $50-$60 for the game, I'm not also going to sell them my personal information.

I was going to get 2142, but not now.

...or just block the outgoing connections of the software If they monitor your browsing habits then it's obviously a separate program that you can easily put in a sandbox.

it is official i hate EA.

how else could they send you ads without your IP?

its not like wow doesnt log your IP when you connect. or even this blog for that matter. I'm not a fan of it watching my web use, but i'm not a fan of in game ads either.

If EA must have this in their software they should blatantly notify the user during the install and give them the option wether or not to install the spyware as well.

It's a good thing I only own 1 EA game. Burnout Revenge for my 360 and I rarely play it online anyway.

I guess this wasn't newsworthy when I sent this tip in yesterday....


Anyways, The only way I will support ads in games is if the games become cheaper because of those ads. I am not going to pay full price for a game that is going to spy on me to give me ads so the developers can reap the profits....

#6 the idea that i have to go thru and disable this and click on that so that it will block outgoing connections, first why the hell do i need to go thru all that in the first place, what about not so computer literate people out there there f$%#ed. its a messed up world we live in people

What exactly is this advertising paying for? If it's server upkeep, hm, maybe I could see the logic behind it (of course, I don't count on EA to be honest about anything these days). More than likely it's just to line the pockets of the suits.

I wasn't going to get it anyway. This just makes me not want to buy ANY future EA games. If it was an optional "opt-in" kind of thing, hey, great, no problem. Having it forced on the consumer is unethical.

2142 and Battlefied 2 can both be played offline, but EA only programmed bots to work on like four or five maps for each. The games are really only worth playing online.

Unlike BF1942, which had crappy bot support but more maps on which to play against them.

BOYCOTT!!!BOYCOTT!!!BOYCOTT!!!

Only way they will listen is if 5% of Potential Buyers don't buy it.

Oh wait - this is EA. They're gonna sell craploads of it. Much like they sell loads of crap.

#7: Oh, thank God. I was waiting and hoping that one day, your previously off-the-record hate for them would someday blossom into its current form.

You DID make sure to fill out all the "I hate this dude SO much, man, I swear" forms correctly, yes? I'd hate to see your hate misdirected due to a red-tape mix-up.

I wasnt going to buy this, now Im not even going to pirate it to test it out to see if I wanted to buy it.

Good job EA.

Now I won't buy this.

@Draco

The license is not very specific, did you even read the article? Of course they need your IP address to send you an ad (along with the game packets). They might also scan your computer and send the info to some server, possibly in another country. This is wrong. You are at their mercy. They choose what to scan and how to verify that it is anonymous.

Why do companies need so much information about me to sell a product? These advertising and marketing people are creating huge privacy issues. Just make the game and leave the spyware out please. Email EA and let them know they lost a sale.

Well like most PC games, initial installation would require a patch of some sort. Thats probably when your PC will betray you to EA.

Just say no.

I delete spyware and adware weekly off my pc. Why would I knowingly purchase it?

IM IN UR PC
BROWZIN UR PR0N

Ok. I was considering picking up this game but I object to this so much it's pushed me not to do it.

Yeah, I don't get it. If I PAY full price for a game I shouldn't have to have ads and a potential security risk. They don't even have to maintain the game servers, most of them are run of consumers PCs.

The terrible thing is that I KNOW someone will create a patch or figure out a way to get rid of them, but EA will just keep patching over it or prevent somehow.

Sadly, I think people are going to buy this anyways and me boycotting it won't have much of an effect.

Between this, graphics card prices, and invasive copy protection software, I think I'll stick with console games. It's a little much trouble just for mouselook.

Cancelled my pre order because of this shit.

Oh just stop. You know you're all buying it anyway.

oh that is a BIG pile of BROTHER poo!

I was interested in this game but now I guess I'll get Medieval 2 instead. Or an extra Wii/PS3 game...not by EA.

It's a good thing I don't buy those bastards games anymore. Fuck you EA.

Well I guess my $50 is going to something else.

by the way they are going to do this to NFS Carbon as well

This is quite disturbing. I had this on order, and now I don't want it. Amazing that the major companies are more or less using spyware on us in games. Another reason console gaming works better these days.

"Oh just stop. You know you're all buying it anyway."

With BF2 I said no, and a friend bought it and coerced me into getting it. Not a chance this time.

"If you live in a country with strong laws against data collection, you'll be pleased to read that the data collection servers may be located "outside your country of residence," where such laws are less strict."

Like... the USA.

This is an outrage. I can't believe EA is infringing on our privacy. (Dear God, they might find my lolikon)

Why do we need in game advertisements anyway? Aren't we paying them enough? (I wonder if they can detect that my copy is pirated)

What if they sell my information to other companies? (What if they sell it to the FBI?)

I say we boycott this software. (I could just change my LSHOST file, but oh well)

I was planning on getting it, but have now changed my mind. Anyone else having a hard time finding some email address at EA.com to send in a complaint or two? I can't find a single email address. Weird.

"We already know EA is fond of collecting every factoid imaginable from your Xbox Live account, so this Orwellian tactic is not as a surprising as it should be."

Orwellian? Hardly. When you buy, install, and play this game, you are silently consenting to this. There's a simple solution if this bothers you -- don't buy the game.

No more EA for me. I am through with them and their greedy asses.

Exactly why it IS orwellian, just not to the extreme

If you want 2142 action, then you must submit to our evil, if not, suffer!

If you ever take the time to read some EULAs, then you will find a bit of sticky evil in almost every MMO or subscription service

Ditto for everyone, I'm no longer Pirating and Cracking EA Games.

They have gone too far, we need to boycott EA games, all of you that are saying you would boycott if it mattered are giving up to easily, you need to spread the word!

So i take this is a win for the pirates?
Free game and no spyware...

No way am I buying this now. I liked Bf2, I liked the idea of a nice sequel kinda thing. I do not like the idea of tracking people when they ARE NOT USING YOUR PRODUCT, nor do I like the idea of in-game advertising in a full-priced game. That's just blatant greed on EA's part.

I will be boycotting EA Games in general, and I encourage others to do the same as myself, if not only just for EA Games with this software. I have created a petition, which you can click this link ( http://www.petitiononline.com/bf2142ad/petition.html ), or my name in the post if you would like to sign. Here is the description of the petition:
Starting with the release of Battlefield 2142, an online PC game, EA Games has begun incorporating the IGA software with their games. This is stated in a disclaimer accompanying Battlefield 2142:
“The Software may incorporate technology developed by IGA Worldwide Inc. ("IGA") (the "Advertising Technology"). The purpose of the Advertising Technology is to deliver in-game advertisements to you when you use the Software while connected to the Internet. When you use the Software while connected to the Internet, the Advertising Technology may record your Internet Protocol address and other anonymous information ("Advertising Data").”

Not only is it offensive enough that EA Games has decided to force adware into products that consumers pay a large price for (often $50 or more), they have further made things worse by giving this software the ability to spy on our computers. Although the information is submitted anonymously, it is still monitoring what we are using our computers for. The disclaimer is also extremely vague; giving no specification of any boundary EA has set.

Adware and spyware have often been proved to slow down computers. It is another unneeded piece of software constantly running in the background and consuming memory, CPU cycles, and internet bandwidth. If every company were to take from EA’s examples, our computers would be bloated to the point of barely being usable.

EA has not given us an option to opt out of this, and their only compromise so far is for us to not use the game on an internet connected computer. Seeing how consumers have paid for an internet enabled game and one that is primarily meant to be played on the internet, this is an extremely poor compromise.

As a result of these actions by EA, I am calling for a boycott of all EA Games which feature this software, namely Battlefield 2142. It is unacceptable to force spyware onto a user’s computer in order to use a product. A disclaimer included in the box does not make this okay. Especially after Sony’s Rootkit software, it is unacceptable for companies to be doing this.

I think it'll be a matter of time before some [EA] representative comes [to joystiq] and defends this ad software, claiming, "Oh, don't worry, it's harmless. Buy our game...please? ^_^" Although I don't have a PC, I wouldn't buy this either. /pass

I was on the fence about buying 2142, not anything. Fark you EA.

Boycott? Count me in. I guess this is a great time to remind people about the wisdom of the pwnerer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4MxTUqPXHk

#22 your just one man boycotting, i am just one man thas also going to boycott, thats 2, we may be the few but if we stick to are boycott guns others will do the same, so even if you feel you arent making a difference know that you are.... speaking of PEOPLE VOTE ELECTIONS ARE COMING YOU DECIDE WHERE AMERICA IS HEADING... sorrry bout that dont know what came over me.

Well you can count me in for boycotting it. I had just added it to my amazon cart when I saw this article- thank you Joystiq for the tip!

This is outrageous, and if everyone who reads this article sends a protest letter/email to EA, we'll at least have a starting point.

The other thing you can do is to phone your representative in Congress and ask whether they can bring it up on your behalf. It's wrong for them to attach ad software with your product. I don't see how it could do any harm to raise the topic. They should be required to have the warning clearly printed on the box BEFORE you buy.

By the way, does anyone know whether there was any kind of spyware included with the demo?

I pre-ordered this game but am cancelling as well. Goodbye EA. You have lost a customer for life.

I probably would have passed on this Battlefield 2142 anyway because I have already met this lifetime's quota for money spent on disappointingly low-quality games from EA, which has made me wary of potential quality problems in EA games I have not even played (such as this one), but now I will definitely be passing on this one. It is starting to look as though I may never buy an EA game again, which is a shame because I remember enjoying quite a few of them back when I was a teenager.