I state in this other thread (http://www.dexterity.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=1524) that Alien Flux sends logging information back to Puppy Games when it's run. It's probably been the single most useful tweak I've made to Alien Flux since I released it. It provides far more useful information than my website has ever gleaned by looking through those logs. I'm even using the information to help customers; shortly we'll be able to direct them straight at the drivers their machine is lacking to boost its performance and increase its stability.

But this might be seen as perturbing by a few people.

Now: consider that I could just as easily have just got AF to fire off an URL in the background when it's launched. The effect is identical.

Also consider that merely by surfing to my site, IE has helpfully told me just as much information about you as AF does, although a slightly different set.

Also consider that I'd be quite able to shove a cookie down your IE and start doing clever marketing tricks on you, the guinea pig, just as Steve P. is doing on his site right now.

Also consider that using all manner of other software from the internet does stuff on the internet that you might never have even considered.

What AF does is extremely benign. It doesn't even attempt to open an internet connection. It just sends a log when it starts, telling me what OS and graphics card the user has, and how long they've played the game for. I don't need this information but ultimately it's there to improve the games.

You might want to climb on some kind of privacy high horse again and make noises about firewalls and phoning home and other scary stuff but I urge you once again to place yourselves in the shoes of Mr Joe Public and ask yourselves what the difference would be if I:

a) used a cookie to track Joe's movements on my website and keep a log of when he visits and what he does and what tricks work on him

b) used the browser to send me my stats instead, which he couldn't stop any more than he could stop it doing it when it runs

Have a good think about it and don't go getting all moral on my ass when you reply. Think like a businessman. The stats I've got are pure gold. They might be the most valuable statistics ever collected by anyone here, but by their very nature they're harmless to the consumer. I consider it part of the license to play our free demo - you can play for free, so long as your computer tells us what graphics card it's got.

In a nutshell, I'm saying: get that logging stuff into your games, NOW. If you start to lose customers, take it out. If you start to gain customers as a result of acting on the information - you owe me a beer.

Cas :)

Sure, it's a dream for any businessman to know as much about his potential customer as he can, but what most people find annoying is, that you (this doesn't mean that I expect you to do that ;)) can do a lot more with a program executed on a customer's pc than you would be able to do with stats and cookie tracking while surfing. You could easily read files, read out the registry etc.

This is one of the reasons why people don't like programs that phone home. They get distrustful especially if the author don't let the people know about this.

Its one word that annoys most users: spyware.

Sorry Cas, but it fits right to the category.

I fully admit we're not nearly as open about it as we should be and indeed, wording is being modified in the license. But assuming that it's written in there and the privacy statement makes itself clear about where the data goes, you've got to admit it's a darned useful thing to stick in a game.

And no! It's not spyware! Spyware finds out about things that are unrelated to the program downloaded. Imagine if the game needed to be online to play and had to download a chunk of code, just like, in effect, a browser running an applet. The conversation merely continues.

Cas :)

The data you're tracking is benign and I understand exactly why you want it.

I'd still be pissed, as the downloader, if I found out my demo was phoning home without telling me.

And if it did tell me, I'd probably not install, or at least opt-out. Even if it's clearly marked "Anonymous usage statistics, we swear blind not to do anything evil with this" I will not enable such an option on almost any software. (Only if I both trust the software maker and feel that they might gain something worthwhile from it will I do it.)

Yes, popping a URL will get you lots of information - but it doesn't feel as intrusive. I know roughly what sorts of data are being sent when my computer hits a website. I don't know what a bit of software sneakily contacting its master might be doing.

Popping the URL every time the game opens (or closes) might be a less 'offensive' method of polling. People get very upset very fast when any mention of spyware is made, even if they don't have much/any technical knowledge on the subject.

It's not about having it written down in your license, you should know that most people never read a license ;)

It's about being really honest to your potential customers, perhaps write a statement above the download link that your game logs some things like the graphic card and playing time and sends this log to your server.

If you do that, way more people will understand whats going on and can choose if they accept that your game sends a log or not.

We've not yet received any feedback from users about the logs though, good or bad. I venture that most users don't have any outgoing firewall protection, and that the ones that do, and raise a stink, could very easily be told that a) it's benign and what is actually sent, which we're going to put in our license and that b) can easily be disabled simply by disconnecting from the internet and c) we could then go on to explain all the other things they're doing they they might have considered safe but aren't and then try and sell 'em an affiliate copy of ZoneAlarm Pro and AdAware ;)

Once again I'm sticking my neck out here and doing instead of guessing, for the benefit of y'all :) So when I'm strung up by an angry mob, don't forget to help me out!

Cas :)

Here's an analogy that sums up my take on this. If I walk into a department store, I'll mostly like be recorded by surveillance equipment. I can look up and see the camera globes all over the ceiling. I can accept this because I walked into the store. But if I buy an item at that store or get a free sample of something and take it home, I expect the surveillance to end. If I found a hidden camera in my purchase that was transmitting data back to the store from my own home, that's something I'd consider an invasion of privacy.

As a user I expect to be logged with cookies when browsing the web, and if I don't like it, I can disable this behavior in my browser settings. Amazon tracks everything I do on their web site, and I don't mind this at all, since I can see how this information is being used to improve their service. For instance, a new book came out by David Allen (author of Getting Things Done), and Amazon told me about it via my custom Amazon home page because their database knew I was interested in those kinds of books. So I bought a copy.

However, programs running on my very own PC that try to phone without telling me make me nervous, especially if I can't see what information they're sending. I do consider this an invasion of privacy, unless I explicitly agree to it and consent to what information is sent back. I can make some general assumptions about what web sites can track with cookies, but a program running on my PC could be transmitting just about anything. And this I dislike and distrust very much.

From the store's point of view, I'm sure it would be of great benefit to them to sneak surveillance equipment into their customers' homes. But it's pretty clear that customers aren't going to approve.

Anything that doesn't politely ask the user to let the program phone home, (with the option to say no and long before a firewall alert) and let the user know exactly what it is doing... is spyware.

It will do, ultimately.

About the store analogy... which is quite a good one but one that can be seen to work another way. If you had actually bought the game I can see quite reasonably that you'd want to be able to turn logging off. If you're merely evaluating the demo I believe you're still in my shop, looking at the box and asking the sales staff questions. Will it run on my computer? Yes, it will - here are the drivers. We see you like this model, sir - you've been playing it for a while! Would you like to purchase the full version?

At any rate - I'm as suspicious and sneaky as any other person, and I myself am very dubious of what software does behind my back. But I don't think I'll be allowing the demo version to have it turned off; it'll just be explicit in the license agreement. It's the price for playing the game for free - you don't own the game, and therefore we've never let it out of our sight/site. If you don't want to tell me your graphics card - fine, play someone else's game. From the logs I have got, I can see already that isn't what's happening anyway.

What does the Board think of this different analogy ("never left the store") and exchange of information for free play?

By the way, It's no coincidence car salesmen come with you for the test ride...

Cas :)

You have all rights to do with your game what you want to do, but the user should be aware of what you do and like you say not play your game if he don't agree. But for this you must really let the user know whats going on, not just in the license which no one reads ;)

My 2 cents

BTW: I don't know how this is in the UK, but here in Germany car salesmen don't come with you for the test ride :)

"By the way, It's no coincidence car salesmen come with you for the test ride... "

I'm pretty sure this has more to do with car stealing than seeing how the user drives and suggest another car or a better driving school :)

Also, about the store, at least in Portugal, the cameras are there so people don't steal, not to see what people like and try out. But it is illegal to put cameras in certain locations of the store (changing rooms) where privacy starts to matter. You can say your changing room maybe the software that holds your credit card info :)

Anyhows, as a costumer, I would be VERY pissed if your game would be sending you info when I was running it. Lets face it, whoever here, except for important products like, I don't know, heart monitor software or something, read each and every paragraph of a licence? If I was running your game and my firewall started bitching the application was trying to send outgoing data to some server, I would block it, quit the program, and probably go to download.com and fill in a "this software contains spyware" review. Ok, I wouldn't, but I have seen two programs that have reviews like these because of this behaviour.

Why not simply popup a window at the start asking politely if the user minds sending OS, GFX card, etc information to you so you could try and help them in the future or whatever? I wouldn't mind pressing yes.

Another thing, no matter what, Alien Flux and Puppy Games is rather small compared to just about anything out there, this gives the "SCAM" mentality to many people as being an unknown person(s) trying to get something valuable out of your computer.

This may sound stupid, BUT, and lets just suppose, someone actually hacks your program (specially cause it's in java, so I reckon it may be even easier, maybe I'm wrong) and collects different data and sends it to a different server and starts distributing it in some server as your game demo? What now ? Just a far fetched supposition ;p

My 2 pennies.

Originally posted by princec

And no! It's not spyware! Spyware finds out about things that are unrelated to the program downloaded.


Actually according to the definition of spyware, it is spyware.

Spyware is any technology that aids in gathering information about a person or organization without their knowledge.

http://searchcio.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid19_gci214518,00.html



Notice that the definition doesn't make a distinction between harmless and harmful data being sent over. The point is, it's being sent without the knowledge of the user, and thus it's spying. Even if it's harmless info. A while ago, Blizzard Entertainment got lots of bad press because they were sending back computer stats from StarCraft (after you downloaded a patch). They ended up putting a check box at the end of the process letting the user opt out. I trust them so I don't opt out. But you have to earn the trust first. :)

In reality you should really make sure the users know about this. The least you can do is put an option in the installer where they can click on a check box to turn it off. Yes, this is your game and you can just not let people play it if they don't want to send back stats if you so wish. I personally think that's a very bad decision in terms of PR and just in terms of being competitive. Frankly, the customers will just go somewhere else if they're not welcome at your place. And I learned in a Marketing class I took in college that something like 80% (might've been more) of customers who have a bad experience with a store/company etc. will just leave without complaining and will never come back again.

Disclosing your data collection practices in the license agreement is a good start, but it's not enough. You should explicitly ask for permission during installation after giving the user the chance to review the data your program has collected. You can always cancel the installation if the customer refuses to send you the data. It may cost you some sales, but at least you're being honest.

"Think like a businessman. The stats I've got are pure gold. They might be the most valuable statistics ever collected by anyone here, but by their very nature they're harmless to the consumer. I consider it part of the license to play our free demo - you can play for free, so long as your computer tells us what graphics card it's got."

That logic, in itself, doesn't convince me. By precisely the same logic, and "thinking like a businessman," you could collect any amount of data that's "harmless to the consumer" (by your standard) and promptly sell off any and all of this information to third-party strangers.

When your players start up the game, you could pop up a dialog saying, "Can we send the following information about your system back home? Here's exactly why we want it, and we won't sell it to anyone." [Y,n] If the user gets to decide, that sidesteps the spyware issue entirely.

I won't get all moral or even logical on you, I'll just tell you exactly what I do in this situation as a consumer.

If I download any game or application whose function should not require an internet connection then I run it and my firewall pops up a warning that the application is attempting to make an outgoing internet connection, I refuse it and permanently block the app with the firewall. BUT, if I run the app and it pops up its own dialog saying "we'd like to collect some anonymous customer data for statistical purposes" I happily oblige and might even fill in some brief additional information if prompted ("why did this game interest you?", "if you're not going to buy the game, why not?").

Take what you will from that. IMHO if you're straightforward about the data collection and ask nicely you may get even more valuable information than you're already getting. Maybe if you add some kind of incentive you'll even get those dialup users to connect just to allow you to collect the info.

Well, let's just wrap this up with one final trick...

"Alien Flux is checking the internet for updates, patches, and bug fixes..."

And there you have it. I know really that you're all desperately jealous of my stats; so have a good think about how you can implement it without upsetting your customers. More ideas welcome!

I still notice very few people are complain about how much information IE is collecting on them without their knowledge...

Cas :)

Originally posted by Dexterity
But if I buy an item at that store or get a free sample of something and take it home, I expect the surveillance to end. If I found a hidden camera in my purchase that was transmitting data back to the store from my own home, that's something I'd consider an invasion of privacy..

Well it's not as bad as Buying a software then wanting a refund and then discover we can't get the refund because one need to fax a letter of destruction...
At least his technology is serving the customer. It can only help him make better games.

Now think that each time you go to a store and you pay by credit/visa card your purchase are tracked, your banker and big manufacturers knows exactly what brand of toilet paper you get and miraculously send you targetted marketting to your mailbox...

pat.

And another thing... if the definition of spyware is software that collects information about an individual or organisation then AF comes up rather clean doesn't it, as it only tracks information about an anonymous computer and game installation?

Cas :)

Originally posted by princec
"Alien Flux is checking the internet for updates, patches, and bug fixes..." I guess I must be ignorant, because I don't see how that implies "and sending information about your computer, and reporting how many times you played this game and for how long".

I know really that you're all desperately jealous of my stats I hope that was supposed to be a joke.

I still notice very few people are complain about how much information IE is collecting on them without their knowledge...And what data would that be? I don't know that IE gathers any info.

IE helpfully tells me what operating system you're running, and what browser you're using, and what version of the browser you're using is. It tells me where you were surfing from when you came to my site. It tells me that you've been here before, and what you looked at last time you were here. It tells me that you were surfing porn when you found a link to my site. It tells me how long you've surfed my site, and how many megs you've downloaded off me, and in what order you browsed the pages in my site. And you didn't know any of this?

So when another application comes along, and tells me what graphics card you're using, and how long you've been playing it, are you really so sure that you've got anything different here?

Cas :)

Here's my take on the situation:

When someone clicks a buy button in my game demo, it opens a browser and takes them to the buy page. The url it uses is
buy.php?game=goobs&gtc=7-10-3-2-1101000111-1001000010-1-2-0-2-1-1-1-1-9-10-3-1-379

This "gtc" variable tells me:

- When the demo was installed
- How many times it has been played
- What screen resolutions the user has played it in
- Which of the demo levels has been completed
- Which, if any, of the solutions have been used
- Has the user downloaded any additional solutions
- Has the user read the instructions
- What speed were they playing the demo at
- Was the music turned on or off
- Was the sound turned on or off
- Has the user checked out the level editor
- Has the user checked out any full game level previews
- Which buy buttons has the user pressed
- Which buy button was pressed this time
- How many times has the user pressed a buy button
- The date of this latest buy button press


This GTC variable turns up in the server logs whenever someone clicks a buy button in the game. I can then run a second program that goes through the server logs recording these values and building a database which essentially shows me how most people play the demo.

As princec says, information like this is very valuable to me. I can tell from this data that the demo is not being played in the way I imagined it would be, and I can now use that knowledge to make alterations and improvements - and then track the results using the same method.

Now, unlike princec, I disagree with the process of having the game sneakily connect to the internet without the player knowing. As a consumer I too don't like software that does that. But in this case, the user is clicking a button that they know is going to open a browser window and visit the website, so I see no harm in tagging this info onto the end of the url. And at the end of the day, I really don't think a user would mind if I saw that they had to use a solution to get past level 6. :)

I think that lot of commercial games already "spy" on the users.
The most famous case was the one of Starcraft, and Blizzard got sued about that if I remember well.

Personally, I have installed Sygate Personal Firewall (powerful and free), and every time I see that a program attempts to connect to internet, I block it :D

That's because I don't like people spying on me :)

The following program try to connect to internet without a reason: Age of Mythology and expansion, Rise of Nations, etc etc (curiously a lot of Microsoft Games eheh ;))

Unfortunately this has the fundamental statistician's dilemma all over it: it allows the sample to select itself. The very fact that it relies on those users who click the "Buy" button skews the results, and so they're really no good. You really need to know about the users that aren't clicking on the buy button, and why they're not clicking on it.

Cas :)

Originally posted by princec
Well, let's just wrap this up with one final trick...

"Alien Flux is checking the internet for updates, patches, and bug fixes..."Why do you feel you have to trick your users?

The problem, as we can see from this thread, is paranoia. Despite the application sending information that is intended to help the user (it *is* actually sending the info so you can get updates and patches), users find this to be an invasion of their privacy because no matter how unlikely they believe the application has the ability to send "other", strange, private data about them and their families or bank accounts. This is of course very unlikely, and in fact almost impossible to do; but it's the paranoia which is the important factor.

The paranoia has in part been brought about by people who have actually been putting proper spyware on your computer. Go and see Save Kobe on download.com for example - don't download the thing! It does weird shit to your system - read the comments. Or does it? I actually installed Save Kobe and ran it, to see what it really did. And guess what? It doesn't actually do anything. I ran AdAware over it and watched what it was up to with the firewall - nothing. At least, it didn't to me.

The response to this paranoia thing has been straightforward and far more subtle and underhand than the original problem, which is that people don't like to feel they're being experimented upon by marketeers trying to influence their behaviour. The straightforward response has been simply to move most of the processing serverside and get IE to do all the dirty work, completely behind the scenes, completely hidden, completely trusted. Some people are even paranoid about that; a vanishingly small number of people install clever stuff to prevent it being used. I use AdSubtract although I don't bother with the cookie killers.

Now, one thing I can say with some certainty is that the arrival of Webstart and signed code means I will finally be able to really engender some trust in my games using the digital signing and security policies built in to Webstart. No-one can hack code delivered by Webstart; it simply won't run. It guarantees where the code's from and what it's allowed to do. (Another stat for you: 15% of my downloaders use Webstart now! Not bad) It's not quite there yet as the very first thing it does is put up a warning saying "This application wants complete access to everything on your computer!" and of course - everyone just clicks, "Sure, go ahead!" which kinda makes the whole spyware debate frivolous on that front. If on the other hand it was given sole permission to look at its own resources in its own directory you'd probably feel entirely safe about letting it do what the hell it wanted. I know I would.

Cas :)

Originally posted by princec
The very fact that it relies on those users who click the "Buy" button skews the results, and so they're really no good. You really need to know about the users that aren't clicking on the buy button, and why they're not clicking on it.


I covered that in the last paragraph of the post. Ethically, tracking data on buy clicks is as far as I will go. That might make me less of a ruthless business man than you, but we all live our lives by whatever standards are important to us.

Let's try to keep the personal nature of the discussion out of the thread though. You can think what you like about it but it's not for the discussion boards. Concentrate instead on the technical issues and user involvement and end results.

Cas :)

Originally posted by RedClaw
Here's my take on the situation:

When someone clicks a buy button in my game demo, it opens a browser and takes them to the buy page. The url it uses is
buy.php?game=goobs&gtc=7-10-3-2-1101000111-1001000010-1-2-0-2-1-1-1-1-9-10-3-1-379
We had exactly the same thing in our game, but we disabled it. The fact that you only send this when user clicks on the buy button and that they can see the data itself does not change the fact that

a) they never agreed to send this to you in the first place
b) they don't really know what you're sending because they don't know how you encoded the data

IMHO, asking if they want to provide the feedback and then popping a browser window with a self-filling form is a much better way to handle this.

Better... but useless. I've had a feedback form built-in to AF for the same length of time as the logger. In the time I've had over 1,000 logged installations, I've had... 5 feedbacks. Useless. That's about as useful as the conversion rate itself, the whole point being that we're trying to improve the conversion rate.

And one of those feedbacks was a customer who typed in their code wrongly and hurled abuse at me until I told them they'd mistyped the same code 4 times.

Cas :)

Originally posted by princec
Better... but useless. I've had a feedback form built-in to AF for the same length of time as the logger. In the time I've had over 1,000 logged installations, I've had... 5 feedbacks. Useless. That's about as useful as the conversion rate itself, the whole point being that we're trying to improve the conversion rate.
What did the user had to do to access and fill the form? What I had in mind was popping a message box on game exit saying something along the lines of "We'd like to send some of your usage statistics to our server. [insert privacy/anonimity stuff here] You will be able to review and edit this data in a browser window. This will allow us to make better games in the future. [Send][Don't send].".

Obviously the wording should be better, I don't have the time to come up with something proper right now. This should give you much more feedback than a "give feedback" button somewhere in the game. You could even say that if they give you the feedback they will be included in a monthly drawing for a free game or something (but you need at least a few games for this to make sense, you don't want potential buyers waiting to see if they make the drawing).

I think PrinceC is correct about this. From a business point of view, I think it's almost a must-have feature for independent developers. The data one can get from this would be very precious. As long as you tell the user what is happening, and offer them the option of disabling it, I don't see anything immoral about it.

Just my .02 cents.

:)

I have to finish my game first before even thinking about writing such a tool into the game. sigh....

Sure, it's perfectly legal to do this, as long as the user knows about it and can choose to participate (run the game) or not.

That's one big point of the discussion, as princec doesn't let the user clearly know about this.

I use for Pax Solaris the same method as RedClaw - except my codes are only six characters long.


Original post by princec

Unfortunately this has the fundamental statistician's dilemma all over it: it allows the sample to select itself. The very fact that it relies on those users who click the "Buy" button skews the results, and so they're really no good. You really need to know about the users that aren't clicking on the buy button, and why they're not clicking on it.


No, they're quite good. These results are sqewed towards the people most likely to buy - remember how you have decided to focus on the best 6%? This method does this for you in the first place.

There can be some middle ground. Sitting in an IGC session yesterday listening to one of the presenters. They were mentionling how they have closed betas for their games, and in those beta builds they log just about everything. The testers all know that the information is being logged. Since they are indies they can't afford big glass rooms and usability sessions in their offices... but with very expressive logging they can see that someone playing through the game did great on levels one two and three, but on level 4 it took them 2x as long, and then they quit in level 6 after repeating one part of the level over and over.

This kind of information is invaluable to someone doing level design and balancing, and during a beta test, testers are more then willing to let you have this kind of information.
It doesn't exactly tell you why people are buying or not, but it does help you eliminitate a lot of the friction points that would cause someone not to buy your game.

Doesn't help the great unwashed get drivers though, nor does it help us to find out what graphics cards to target.

Without the stats I've got I'd still be wondering whether I should be targeting TNT cards. Now I know that <5% of my users have TNT-class cards I know that I can raise the bar finally to Geforces. Try that in a beta test.

Cas :)

Originally posted by princec
IE helpfully tells me what operating system you're running, and what browser you're using, and what version of the browser you're using is. It tells me where you were surfing from when you came to my site. It tells me that you've been here before, and what you looked at last time you were here. It tells me that you were surfing porn when you found a link to my site. It tells me how long you've surfed my site, and how many megs you've downloaded off me, and in what order you browsed the pages in my site. And you didn't know any of this?

I thought you meant reporting to Microsoft.

The problem is, all those things are issues people know about. It's very easy to turn off cookies, and to set up a 3rd party program that filters out referrers and the user agent. Info on this type of topic is all over the internet, in every computer/business/family/whatever-you-can-think-of magazine, on the television, etc. People who are concerned know exactly what data is being transmitted and how to stop it.

Your game, on the other hand, is a little more difficult. Nobody knows what it sends, or how to stop it or filter it.

/me pickpockets princec
<princec> Get back here, thief!! How dare you!
<hamumu> hey, don't worry man, I won't take any of the money or look at the credit cards, I was just wondering what kind of material your wallet was made of. You don't know me, but I run a wallet company, and I need to know how popular different materials are. Here, you can have it back now, no harm done.

/end dramatization

I do things exactly how Diragor described (block unrequested access, allow requested, and feel quite negatively towards those that try to sneak stuff by me). Intentionally doing something you know has a very negative public image isn't good business, whatever value you place on the results. Nobody would complain if there were a checkbox to opt out.

All good stuff. So - is anyone else going to implement it, or are you going to wait for the huge consumer backlash on Puppygames first?

Cas :)

I've had a feedback form built-in to AF for the same length of time as the logger. In the time I've had over 1,000 logged installations, I've had... 5 feedbacks. Useless. That's about as useful as the conversion rate itself, the whole point being that we're trying to improve the conversion rate.
I received a survey form in the mail once with a $1 bill enclosed. The cover letter said something to the effect of, "Hey, we know you are a busy software engineer, but we'd like to ask you to take a few minutes out to fill out this survey. We've enclosed a dollar for you to buy a cup of coffee whether or not you take the survey, as a token of our appreciation for your time. Thank you."

You know what? I took the survey. I was not obligated to do so - I didn't have to send back the $1, and I don't even drink coffee. But it impressed me. After all, as a consumer, my information is MINE to give out. It's a commodity, just like hotdogs or videogames, and it has value ... as does my time. Maybe not a whole lot of value (but in this case it was apparently worth a couple of stamps and $1), but the fact that I was being offered something in return made me predisposed to favor these guys with the information they were seeking.

I may just be incredibly naive here (I'm a newbie in the business arena, myself), but it seems to me that treating your customers (and potential customers) with respect (or, in Steve's promise from Dexterity, "Worshipping the ground they walk on") will invite reciprocal treatment from your customers. Building a relationship of trust with your customer base is a slow, difficult process (even more so than building up a customer base to begin with). And it's easy to destroy. But I feel that in the long term it will pay off with interest in customer loyalty.

So - we can't afford to give each one of our downloaders a dollar or a pound to tell us about why they do what they do. But if we genuinely respect our customers and value their feedback, we can show it by bribing them in other ways. Free content. Discounts on their next purchase (now there's feedback AND marketing opportunity rolled into one!). Stuff like that. We're game developers - we're all about fun and rewards. Surely we can figure something out :)

Originally posted by princec
All good stuff. So - is anyone else going to implement it, or are you going to wait for the huge consumer backlash on Puppygames first?

My biggest caution is back to the solid relationship with your customers I mentioned earlier. If I was a Puppygames customer, and was otherwise happy with the service and games, and THEN found out that all this time my consumer habits had been monitored without my knowledge or consent by the very games I'd been playing... I might swear off the company from that point out. Losing a one-time customer is one thing, but losing someone who's been helping to pay the rent for three years straight is something else entirely. Particularly if they become very vocal about their apparent "betrayal" - just look at some of the venom that gets spewed all over the Internet about any product or company that fails to deliver what the customer thought they were due. "Star Wars: The Phantom Menace" anyone?

It COULD be something that could sneak up and bite you later on. I'd be careful. Especially with how much bad publicity Spyware is finally starting to (rightfully!) get.

I personally wouldn't touch anything that smells remotely of spyware with a 10 foot pool. Sure, the statistics are nice, princec has proven this beyond a doubt, but the possible damage to reputation by sneaking these statistics through is just too great. There's so many companies I'll never buy a product from for exactly this reason, and there's many people that feel and act the same way.

Now I know - concrete, proper statistics. The only statistic I don't have hard data on is the proportion of people who download the game but never play when it's online, but I can make a guess based on the number of downloads I've had versus the number of installation logs I receive, and as far as I can see, this ratio is approximately 50%, so we can likely double the figures up there.

Princec says this in his other thread, but I disagree with this conclusion. You don't know how many of those people saw the connection attempt and decided the game is not trustworthy. I would guess your potential sales from that 50% are far smaller than the potential sales from the figure that unknowingly sent the statistics.

Displaying a dialog box at the start of the game (or whenever) asking the user to send this information and displaying what information is sent would allow you to keep your statistics without resorting to spyware tactics and potentially alienating a large group of people.

I also really like Dan's suggestion, and I think I'll implement such a system in my own beta. Hmm... maybe even make it a library that BetaShare users can use...hmmm... Thanks Dan.

I've got a better idea. I don't even see why I should let them play the demo if they're not going to help out. So it's simply going to say what it sends, ask, and stop on refusal. For too long punters have had a free lunch. And we're only trying to help :/

Cas :)

Originally posted by princec
"Alien Flux is checking the internet for updates, patches, and bug fixes..."Saying that while collecting data from the customer's computer is about the worst thing you could do. Not only are you sending out customer information without permission (you didn't give the customer a chance to review and decline the transfer), you're actually lying to the customer about the nature of the client/server transaction. Are you afraid of how customers would react if you told them exactly what your software is doing? If there's nothing wrong with what you're doing then why is there any need to lie?

Originally posted by princec
So it's simply going to say what it sends, ask, and stop on refusal.Much better. This is the only honest way to collect information from the customer's computer.

It wasn't a lie - that's why it's in there. It sends the video card and driver version to my server. I haven't finished coding it yet, but its going to tell them when there's a new version of their video drivers handy and offer them a dowload there and then.That's the whole point of the excercise in the first place. The other stats about playing time and number of games played were just a handy bit of information that could get sent up there too at the same time. 8 bytes, none of which can be used to identify you, compromise your system, or your private life, but which strike fear into everyone's hearts. Very interesting.

But yet - AF will soon refuse to run at all unless the log is allowed (note that it won't insist on sending it, only that it's allowed to send it).

Cas :)

Originally posted by princec
I've got a better idea. I don't even see why I should let them play the demo if they're not going to help out. So it's simply going to say what it sends, ask, and stop on refusal. For too long punters have had a free lunch. And we're only trying to help :/
I must say that's quite an obnoxious attitude. As if you are doing them a favor by letting them play your demo. If that's customer service, I want no part of it.

Hardly. It might sound obnoxious to your ears but is it really, at the bottom line, a bad thing? Who's getting free stuff? Who's put the effort in?

Cas :)

I side with it being obnoxious. They're doing you a favour by downloading and considering to buy your software.

If someone said "Don't Bite The Hand That Feeds You" to you, do you consider you're doing the feeding or the one being fed?

Originally posted by princec
Hardly. It might sound obnoxious to your ears but is it really, at the bottom line, a bad thing?
Yes, I think it is a bad thing.

Cas: "Please buy my game."
Customer: "There is about a bazillion games out there that want my to buy. What's so special about yours?"
Cas: "Here...take a look at my web site and let me show you."
Customer: "OK, sounds interesting and different. That might be fun. I guess it's at least worthy of trying out."
Cas: "OK, here you go....but I'm not gonna let you try it unless you do this favor for me."
Customer: "Screw you. Lets see what's new on download.com"

If you are looking to increase your conversion rate, I don't think this is quite the way to do it.

As far as the bottom line, a lot of companies have screwed over a lot of people for the bottom line. Just because it helped the bottom line doesn't make it right. Now you aren't exactly screwing people over, but I don't think that makes it right either.

Who's getting free stuff? In my opinion, certainly not the customer. If they were truly getting something of value for free, I think your statistics would show a huge percentage of people who have played your game 50-100 times.

Who's put the effort in? You both did, but the difference is that you are expected to put forth the effort if you want to sell something. I think the customer should never be expected to put forth the effort to help you, but they already did anyway by just giving you the benefit of the doubt and trying out your game. You then expecting more from them is, in my opinion, a slap in the face.

Well - back to the drawing board then.
Anybody else have any ideas?

Cas :)

How about displaying:

"bla bla bla privacy bla bla bla if you would be so kind to allow this application to send some selective information (which information here) to ours so we can better understand your needs, in return we offer you a 5% discount/a bonus level/free cheat code to give you all weapons for your trouble"

Now, its honest, allows the user to select YES or NO, and gives them a sense they are getting something in return. Even if it is only cheat codes.

The thing is, if most people still press no, those people wouldn't like you to do that without their authorization, which returns to the problem of if they found out, its BAD PR for ya.

I would be more inclined for them to do a survey than for me to take information from them. You could do it like the following:

* Add a "Tell us what you think" button within your game.
* Ask them if they want to fill out a survey when they quit.

Then if they go into the survey I would set it out something like the following sections:

A) Personal Stuff. Name, Age (optional), Country (Optional), Sex (Optional), Prefered type of Games, E-mail (optional).
B) Computer Details. You could have a whole heap of fields in here that are "optional" such as Video Card, Machine Specs. In this area though I would have a big "Autodetect" button that when someone presses it it collects all the information you need / want.
C) What you thought about the game. Spaces for Good Points, Bad Points, Technical Problems, Ratings for Graphics/Game Play/UI etc.

You may not get as many responses from just taking logs, but you should be able to get enough to suit your purposes. You just have to be really friendly about it ("Help us Help you" sort of slogan)

Cheers

Originally posted by princec
It wasn't a lie - that's why it's in there. It sends the video card and driver version to my server. I haven't finished coding it yet, but its going to tell them when there's a new version of their video drivers handy and offer them a dowload there and then. It's a lie of omission, because you've failed to make it clear to customers that you need to collect information about their computers to recommend "updates, patches and bugfixes", and because you've failed to tell them that you're also using the data for other purposes. Pointing users to the latest drivers is a useful feature, but you need to be up-front about whatever customer information you're collecting, transmitting and compiling.

Well I guess perception is everything.

My feeling is that we're doing indie games in order to do what we want. if Cas wants to add this to his game, he may very will piss some people off, but he's doing it to innovate his product. That's noble of him -- risking some sales to better the game. The same people who are conserned by privacy issues are the same ones who should be reading the EULA all the way though.

~Hanford

Originally posted by hanford_lemoore
Well I guess perception is everything.

My feeling is that we're doing indie games in order to do what we want. if Cas wants to add this to his game, he may very will piss some people off, but he's doing it to innovate his product. That's noble of him -- risking some sales to better the game. The same people who are conserned by privacy issues are the same ones who should be reading the EULA all the way though.

~Hanford

Actually, I think we are in this to earn money, and pissing potential customers isn't the way. If you are making games for the pure pleasure of it, then sure, but if not, then you better think twice.

Originally posted by Akura
Actually, I think we are in this to earn money, and pissing potential customers isn't the way. If you are making games for the pure pleasure of it, then sure, but if not, then you better think twice.

Sorry if I spoke for everyone. I know that I could be making more money doing something else. Perhaps Cas thinks so too.

I'm making my own games rather than working on someone else's because I want to. I want to make my games, my way. Surely Akura, money isn't the only factor for you to be working on games is it? Because if it was, you could be making more money working for a big game company somewhere and be real happy, and have more money.

My point is that if we were not driven by something other than money, then we wouldn't be in indie games. We wouldn't be trying to come up with new ideas for games. We'd be cloning Popcap's games. We'd be doing the tried-and-true model.

Everyone draws lines on what they're willing to compromise on. I did my own website, even though there had been long discussions here about how a pro-designed website will help sell game better than a weak one. Everyone here makes those tradeoffs. Cas is looking to use a controversial technique in order to help him get things right ... and potentially pissing of a percentage of customers. Bravo to him.

~Hanford

I wonder how many of you have logs of your visitors for your sites too. Like most common keywords etc...

Isn't that spyware too? are you warning your users that you are doing statistics on the pages they are visiting ?

The AlienFlux thingie is just an advanced version of web-stats.

pat.

and spyware that reports back information about what's on someone's machine, password files, documents and so on is just an advanced version of Alien Flux stats.

Originally posted by patrox
Isn't that spyware too? are you warning your users that you are doing statistics on the pages they are visiting ?

The webbrowser is the one doing the "spying" at that point, not the website, since the browser is what is sending the info. It is sent to every website whether or not the site is doing anything with the logs.

And I don't think it's fair to say any program that sends info without the user knowing it is spyware, since most users choose not to know by not reading the docs, or the EULA. If it is clearly stated that at startup the program sends info to the servers, but the user does not read that, you can't say the program is spying.

What it boils down to is where Joe Customer draws the line.
Not, I'd like to stress, where you draw the line.
If it increases your sales overall over the long run, and doesn't actually harm anyone - consider it a successful idea. If the number of angry customers is such that your sales decrease over the long run - consider it a failure.

Another interesting aside... for those customers who block the game from accessing the internet: they lose the ability to purchase it anyway, as it requires an internet connection to register. And then they'll lose the online hiscores too. The game is very much a part of the internet age; it's meant to be played always online. I will slowly but surely be edging myself towards always online games in the future so I can dynamically download content.

The distinction between applet and application has blurred. Heads may be kept in the sand for only so long.

Cas :)

Originally posted by patrox
I wonder how many of you have logs of your visitors for your sites too. Like most common keywords etc...

Isn't that spyware too?No. In that case the nature of the transaction implies that my server will know what you're searching for, which pages you're requesting, and so forth. You intend to communicate with my server so you know you'll have to tell me what you're looking for and looking at (because it's impossible to do it any other way). In that case the logging is like Dexterity's "inside the store" example.

A game sending data to the servers is different, because I as a customer do not intend to communicate with your servers, I only intend to play your game. The sending and logging of information in this case is not implied by context, so it's more like Dexterity's "in home surveillance" example.

Originally posted by princec
Another interesting aside... for those customers who block the game from accessing the internet: they lose the ability to purchase it anyway, as it requires an internet connection to register.

Wow. I think you just made a very strong argument against your current statistics collection method. People who block your game's unauthorized access might still play it and like it enough to buy it, but the ability to buy has been severed! Sounds like a lot of lost sales, even after factoring in the people who want the game badly enough that they'll go to the extra trouble of unblocking it.

On a similiar note, personally I wouldn't buy from within the actual game period, since I really would have no assurance that the transaction is indeed being done safely. If your game only allows itself to be bought from within the application, you are possibly losing even more sales.

You can't actually buy the game yet in-game, but you do have to register it to unlock it.

It seems on the surface what we need to do here is simply make plain that a game is going to send usage statistics back home in the EULA, and back this up with a strong privacy statement. It can't be sensibly called spyware if it's consented to; and those users that fail to read about what they've downloaded have very little to complain about for their own laxness of security. But to cope with users who can't grasp the idea of their own responsibilities (one born every minute as the saying goes) it might be wise to put up a dialog right from the off and say, "Game X sends anonymous usage data back to Y, and also checks for graphics driver updates and game updates." From there on it's a business decision as to how you handle a decline and what options you give the user. I'm in favour of recording the decline by simply opening an "Oh, you've declined to send usage statistics" webpage, or simply refusing to run (but my decision to refuse to run is greatly mitigated by my next move which is to remove the "playable" aspect of the demo and turn it into a cheap attract-mode recorded demo).

It may also be entirely reasonable to insist that the game had an internet connection to play it. This is, after all, the exact way an applet or Flash works. However in reality it will limit your market to those people who have always-on connections - I count 50% or so play the game with a connection.

As the distinction between "downloaded", "downloadable", and "online" blurs ever more, and session tracking already lasts longer than a single internet connection in other internet tools, it is a wise move to engender a shift in perceptions amongst users as to when a communication session begins and ends with your company. An applet is always connected; a downloadable game has in the past been a discrete unit of software but increasingly we find games that operate only online, or that auto-update themselves, and now with new technology like Webstart we're finding that there simply is no distinction between on and offline any more.

Finally I'd like to add that allowing your own perceptions of privacy to get in the way of what your business needs in order to improve may not be productive. I personally distrust nearly everything and once upon a time I'd ZoneAlarm everything out. If I followed my own personal feelings I'd never have attempted this experiment in the first place. In fact I'd never try anything like splitting my website into A and B groups with cookies - I'd be furious if I found my wife's computer displayed a different site to her consistently. But that's me - not the billion consumers that I'm trying to sell to.

Cas :)

Originally posted by princec
It seems on the surface what we need to do here is simply make plain that a game is going to send usage statistics back home in the EULA, and back this up with a strong privacy statement. It can't be sensibly called spyware if it's consented to; and those users that fail to read about what they've downloaded have very little to complain about for their own laxness of security.This kind of attitude strikes me as patently dishonest. It can't sensibly be called consensual if the information necessary to make a decision is hidden away in an EULA. You can go ahead and assume a "screw my customers if they don't read the EULA" attitude, but that's a rather ugly way to treat your customers.

But to cope with users who can't grasp the idea of their own responsibilities (one born every minute as the saying goes) it might be wise to put up a dialog right from the off and say, "Game X sends anonymous usage data back to Y, and also checks for graphics driver updates and game updates."That's the right thing to do, although it frightens me that you're presenting it as a concession to your "clueless" users instead of as one of your responsibilities as a software publisher. Pretending that you're doing this as a favor to users won't change the fact that you have a responsibility to be honest and forthright.

Caveat emptor.

Cas :)

Originally posted by princec
Caveat emptor.Allow me to translate the phrase and complete the thought:

Buyer beware, [for thieves, cheats and scoundrels abound]!

Originally posted by princec
Caveat emptor.
I think the point most people are trying to make is that the buyer very often does beware. There seem to be people out there who spend their lives hunting for spyware. When they find some they like to start bleating and the result can be that the software vendors reputation is damaged. Once damaged it is very very hard to repair.

I SWEAR I DIDNT DO THIS:



Download.com reviewer about Alien Flux


Angry customer 12-Oct-2003 12:37:29 PM
"Warning!!! Contains Spyware!!"
Warning!!! Don't install this game, it contains spyware, it sends a lot of information from your pc to the internet!!! You can install a firewall and check for yourself!!

Hm, now there's a coincidence.

Cas :)

Originally posted by princec
Hm, now there's a coincidence. Yeah, and here's another coincidence...the user comment below that:

Just don't forget to make sure you've got OPENGL DRIVERS before you go installing it!!!! They're about 8MB and they'll also make a whole bunch of other games work so it's worth getting them whatever... And the user rated the game all fives. Are you sure you didn't post that one, Cas :) ?

;) Hehe, you know, a few months ago I'd never have thought of doing that but recently I noticed that quite a lot of other games have very suspicious comments next to them too! I thought I'd add a bit more useful info in there at least. (Didn't help, still get the same ratio of people without GL drivers... sigh)

Cas :)

princec - are you really still planning to use OpenGL in future titles? Even after having 33% of people not playing your game because of the driver issue. Do you think that figure will drop as more and more people use XP or rise?

Yes, even with a 33% failure rate on Windows. I need to look after the Mac and I'm not going through the hassle of learning a new API and writing an abstraction layer just to cater for a third of the Windows market.

I'm even thinking of completely ditching the Windows downloadable version and deploying solely on Webstart as well. Although the number of downloads I get is likely to be far fewer, I have a hunch that Webstart users are better converters. A fact I'll only be able to back up with 12 months of data I suspect.

Cas :)

Originally posted by princec
Yes, even with a 33% failure rate on Windows. I need to look after the Mac and I'm not going through the hassle of learning a new API and writing an abstraction layer just to cater for a third of the Windows market.Don't think of it as a 3rd of the windows market. Think of it as a third of 90% of the market. 30% is a lot of people to cut out.

I've gotten some good anecdotal evidence that the Mac market is about 10x as lucrative as the PC market though. Many developers report a 50/50 sales split between Mac and PC despite there being a 95/5 ratio of PCs to Macs.

Actually, looking at my sales "statistic" :P I notice that Linux users are even better converters than Mac users - they're just incredibly rare...

Cas :)

I think the point most people are trying to make is that the buyer very often does beware. There seem to be people out there who spend their lives hunting for spyware. When they find some they like to start bleating and the result can be that the software vendors reputation is damaged. Once damaged it is very very hard to repair.
I had my system horribly damaged by spyware. It corrupted the TCP/IP stack --- and on Windows XP, that's an integral service. In previous versions, you could simply uninstall and re-install TCP-IP... but in Windows XP, you have to uninstall and re-install WINDOWS!

Yeah, shame on Microsoft... but greater shame on the spyware manufacturers that create a buggy piece of software that almost inextricably inserts itself parasite-like onto your system like that.

Fortunately, I had a second computer in the house, and was able to use that to hunt the web for work-arounds. A simple "repair" re-installation of Windows wasn't enough to cut it, but there was a complex sequence of actions you could take to fix it . I wasted a whole Saturday fixing my box the first time that happened.

So yeah, now I'm a LITTLE bit paranoid about spyware programs. That and I noticed how much more spam I'm receiving since discovering that garbage on my computer. Coincidence? Maybe, but I still hate spyware, and figure those paranoids who hunt it down are my heroes.

Cas,

Several months have now gone by... would you care to give us an update on how things are going regarding this issue?

Do you still have this feature implemented?

Any major customer complaints?

An overall success?

An overall failure?

Thanks,
Ed

Do you still have this feature implemented?
Yes.

Any major customer complaints?
Not a single complaint.

An overall success?
Extremely successful. I recommend everybody do it.

Cas :)

Originally posted by princec
Not a single complaint.

Extremely successful. I recommend everybody do it.


Interesting :)

I have two questions.

1) What did you end up doing, if anything, to make it more obvious it was logging data?

2) What do you think about manually writing the log file out in the cookie directory. So the next time they visit your website you can pick it up and no one thinks it's spyware?

I think number 2 sounds like a pretty good idea. What would the EULA look like for that?

Generates cookies containing usage data. or some such. most people already think of cookies as mostly harmless. What are your thoughts?

Rob - I love your cookie idea!

My question is whether or not the "spyware" correlation might have had an effect on sales of Alien Flux. Would it have sold better without people posting comments (IIRC) about it "containing spyware" ...?

I don't know if it's possible to verify what effect this might have had... my guess is that if it did, probably not much.

But again... I like the cookie idea!

The main problem with the cookie idea is that you only get the data when they come back to your web page.

Now, Maybe the people that come back, are the only people who buy anyway?

If not you could always force a browser to open your page on start of the game?

Who's gunna try this out for us? My game isn't anywhere near complete.

How about having a menu option that takes you to the webpage to obtain free updates, announcements, or new free game demos? This would give you a double benefit, as it gives you another chance to pitch to the player, and show him how much fun other people are having with the registered version.

Originally posted by Coyote
How about having a menu option that takes you to the webpage to obtain free updates, announcements, or new free game demos? This would give you a double benefit, as it gives you another chance to pitch to the player, and show him how much fun other people are having with the registered version.

I think that would be a good middle ground, but it still doesn't get away from the fact that you're not going to get the info unless the user does something. versus princec's method which gives it everytime they run it.

So it sounds like forcing a browse to your logging page, and then having all the other PR pages seperate is the best idea.

I just though about it and an added bonus of the cookie method, is that you wouldn't have to write any network code at all. I understand it might be easier in java, but It's still work. All you basically have to do is spawn an app with a command line.

All of this cookie business is just using more devious means to achieve the same result. Just be up front about it and explain. AF puts up a messagebox to tell you what it's doing when it's first run. (Well, it doesn't on MacOS yet coz it's broken, but it should do).

Cas :)

Originally posted by princec
The problem, as we can see from this thread, is paranoia.
...


Funny :)
But the ones you might see as paranoic are the one that just fight for their liberty :) ... at whatever the level...

Yes, it's interesting to note that the only paranoid people around seem to be programmers, and the Masses out there really don't care or know or understand anything...

Cas :)

Originally posted by princec
Yes, it's interesting to note that the only paranoid people around seem to be programmers, and the Masses out there really don't care or know or understand anything...


This is exactly the reason why I hate walking into a car dealership, or into a jewelry store or any other retail store for that matter where the seller might try to pull tricks on me to get me to buy something (potentially worthless) counting on the fact that I don't know/care/understand anything... Of course I personally walk in as prepared as possible, and the second I detect such trickery, I leave never to return back ever again. I also make sure everyone I know knows about that place and the very poor attitude towards customers.

Your comment I quoted above is an ethical issue really. How do you choose to be? If you were the customer at your own website or anywhere else really, how would you like to be treated? It is quite clear from the many posts in this thread how you chose to be. It sounds like I won't be buying any puppy games.

By the way, you better make sure your customers never come to this forum and figure out what you have to say about them! Otherwise even your logger won't save your butt! ;)