Vista security too tight on casual games, claims WildTangent
by James Ransom-Wiley 
{ Jan 30th 2007 at 11:43AM }
DirectX creator Alex St. John says Windows Vista "breaks" casual games. The WildTangent CEO recently described the arduous process of patching his company's network of games to ensure Vista compatibility. The effort reportedly took a year of working closely with "nearly every major casual game developer.""Parents who choose to use Vista's parental controls are likely to accidentally block access to hundreds of very popular family friendly games that happen not to have ESRB ratings," explained St. John. Casual game networks hosted by Yahoo, AOL, RealArcade, and even Microsoft (MSN Games) could all be affected, according to St. John. Microsoft has yet to comment on the allegations.
It should be noted that WildTangent's software is often denoted as spyware by antispyware applications. While the software is generally regarded as harmless, it's often installed without express consent (and remains self-updating); WildTangent also reserves the right to collect personal information for use in tuning its products.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Rob @ Jan 30th 2007 12:09PM
While the software is generally regarded as harmless, it's often installed without express consent (and remains self-updating); WildTangent also reserves the right to collect personal information for use in tuning its products.
Aka.... spyware.
benjamin @ Jan 30th 2007 11:51AM
Watch as I play the world's smallest violin for you, WildTangent.
They're known to consort with spyware firms. Consequently, you can take anything they say with a boulder sized grain of salt.
Zertoss @ Jan 30th 2007 11:55AM
If a spyware vendor is complaining that Vista's security is too tight and making lame red herring arguments to support them, then Microsoft must've done something right.
Matt @ Jan 30th 2007 11:57AM
Vista blocks Wild Tangent? Microsoft just went up a notch in my book.
benjamin @ Jan 30th 2007 11:59AM
I should also mention that, amidst all the negativity, one of the things that Microsoft seems to really be advocating with Vista is having a really big focus on keeping workstations free of crapware.
Marty @ Jan 30th 2007 12:06PM
Wow, I sure am glad to hear this. I was sorry the first time I ever saw something from Wild Tangent come up on my screen, and subsequently more sorry when I found out that their crappy games come laced with spyware and adware. Good riddance to them.
ncxcstud @ Jan 30th 2007 12:09PM
My feelings exactly guys. I despise WildTangent. If I want to play those games (and I don't) why do I need some crappy software, chock full of spy/adware, to play them? Why not make these 'fly by night' games a direct exe that just plays the darn game?
Fester @ Jan 30th 2007 12:17PM
Wild tangent gives the legit small indie game developers a bad name. No one should have to put up with installing portal software just to d/l and run a game.
Great for blocking Wildtangent, shame it will affect the small (non spyware) guys too).
Evan @ Jan 30th 2007 12:17PM
@ncxcstud: "Why not make these 'fly by night' games a direct exe that just plays the darn game"
As an EXE, every single game could have unique spyware. The solution is to run casual games in a sandbox, like, oh, Flash.
Maurice M @ Jan 30th 2007 12:54PM
Yeah, this is actually great news. I can't stand having all those WT games pre-installed :-/
Slaziman @ Jan 30th 2007 12:21PM
FUCK Wild Tangent
Kayos @ Jan 30th 2007 12:42PM
Yeah, fuck them.
Field Anony-mouse @ Jan 30th 2007 12:32PM
"Wahh wahh wahh! Vista makes it too hard for me to invade people's computers and privacy! Wahh wahh wahh!"
Shall we get some cheese to go with their whine? Perhaps Limburger so it stinks like their software.
Kane @ Jan 30th 2007 12:34PM
Piss off, Alex. As much as I should love you for being the man behind the XBox, I despise you for pushing that WildTangent nonsense.
J.Goodwin @ Jan 30th 2007 12:38PM
Indeed, world's tiniest violin for WildTangent. Fuck them.
Quentin @ Jan 30th 2007 12:52PM
Is this the same company that brought us the insipid BonzaiBuddy? If so, they can die in a fire, along with that annoying purple beast.
dsub @ Jan 30th 2007 12:47PM
wildtangent=system resource eating spyware. I could careless if it's a game or not. Why does your software need to run ALL THE TIME? It should only be running when I am playing games, not in the background at all times of the day. This is a huge pet-peeve of mine, it seems that in this day and age, every piece of software you run wants to run in the background. The end result is a slow ass computer because you have 60 running processes while the PC is at idle.
BlessedBullet @ Jan 30th 2007 12:44PM
Yeah that crap WildTangent is putting out is spyware. +1 for Microsoft
heretrix @ Jan 30th 2007 7:19PM
The funny thing about Alex St. John is that he used to work for MS YEARS ago..I remember he used to write a column for Maximum PC (Then called Boot)..It's a shame he turned to producing such shit...
liverpate @ Jan 30th 2007 1:07PM
Microsoft has done such a good job at reclassifying their spyware as "OS Features" that you guys are COMPLETELY inured to it.
Do you want Passport?
Do you want Passport?
Do you want Passport?
Are you sure?
Are you sure?
Are you sure?
Here's to the power of keeping quiet about spyware! Apparently objecting publicly to it is the ultimate anti-spyware with you guys.
ShortFuse @ Jan 30th 2007 1:09PM
I don't think many of you read the article. The only reason why WildTangent games have incompatibility with Vista is because they don't have an ESRB rating. It has nothing to do with the spyware/adware it has. A big company like WildTangent will have no problem getting ESRB to rate their game fast. I don't know about indie developers. Might get stuck in loopholes. (and i don't know if ESRB charges to rate your game)
Agent MOO @ Jan 30th 2007 1:12PM
Hey Wildtangent, Spyware company says "What?"
Frankie @ Jan 30th 2007 1:31PM
Wow...I am actually giving Microsoft props for something?! Kick some ass Bill!
Tim Marman @ Jan 30th 2007 1:16PM
I was just coming to post what ShortFuse did (#20). The games are "blocked" because there is no ESRB rating and Vista Parental Controls presumably treat an unrated game strictly (as they should). This has nothing to do with blocking spyware.
SSBR @ Jan 30th 2007 1:36PM
Its like drug dealers complaining to the local police about too many crackdowns happening. STFU wildtangent!!!
http://www.rolesor.com
Dave Smith @ Jan 30th 2007 2:23PM
To listen to Alex St. John whine about his Wild Tangent crapware being blocked is music to my ears...It's spyware, and kudos to Vista for blocking it.
Zertoss @ Jan 30th 2007 3:09PM
#20 & #22
I called this argument a red herring argument for a reason. WildTangent is whining about it not because they're concerned about the inability of kids to play unrated games, but because kids can't play their unrated spyware games on their parents' Vista machines. Oh noes! Won't someone please think of the children?
jholdaway @ Jan 30th 2007 5:51PM
Yahooo! Yay! WooHooo! Yippiee! (heard across land by IT guys everywhere)
Alex St. John @ Feb 3rd 2007 5:32AM
I don't know what Internet crack you guys are smoking up here. WildTangent isn't spyware, is never installed without express user permission, has never served pop-up ads, and has never installed a background process without asking the users explict permission to automatically check for game updates. No major commercial malware products list us as spyware or malware.
All of which is beside the point because Vista doesn't block ANYTHING we do. Our software works great in Vista. I posted a press release alerting consumers and other game developers that Vista broadly breaks many downloadable games. We spent a year getting compatible with Vista and are the only ones that have a catalog of all the popular downloadable games that actually work well in Vista.
WildTangent makes and sells games, that's all we've ever done. Nutty people...
-TheSaint
Desktop General @ Feb 5th 2007 1:00AM
Benjamin (comment #1) my boulders are bigger than yours - and I have two!
Arbuz Chokaro @ Mar 8th 2007 5:30PM
I had to go RIP wild tangent from my registry so it would finally stop self updating (even though I unistalled it) and generally acting like some sort of horrible Terminator precursor.
Every morning when I turn on my computer I get "Wild tangent could not execute its functions because its registry file is corrupt or missing."
Thanks Vista. You get a +1 A'aight in my book.
Alex St. John @ Mar 28th 2007 2:00AM
First of all we've NEVER shipped a game that installed an updater without the users express permission, so the only reason you could possible have one running on your machine is if you or another user in your family asked the game you installed to self patch when it was installed.
The only time we hear about our games being hard to remove is when somebody has run a spyware removal product on it or tried to manually remove it instead of just using the uninstaller first resulting in a broken uninstaller. The updater also always came with its own control panel app to simply turn it off.
The irony here is that all that stuff still works GREAT in Vista, the problems we encountered with VISTA is that it breaks the games themselves not the support technology for delivering game patches dynamically.
Needless to say we moved away from self patching games years ago when it became clear that spyware hysteria was making consumers see spyware everywhere. Now we just ship a game download manager that people can use to manually get updates for games as they become available. It makes it much easier for consumers to understand patching technology when they have to request patches manually.
-TheSaint
bill @ Apr 13th 2007 12:57AM
personally I enjoy playing wild tangent games, and altho I have a had a few probs playing Fate on Vista. I have never had a spyware/adware problem with wild tangent.