Gotham Knights Will Spy On You To Make Sure You Sign Bizarre Agreement
A Reddit post leaked information suggesting that DC's upcoming RPG Gotham Knights will spy on its users if they fail to agree to the end-user license agreement.
Following disappointing reports about the lack of one of the important functions in the upcoming Gotham Knights, the fans have recently stumbled upon a very disturbing Reddit post. Unfortunately, the post was subsequently deleted, but the information conveyed could be interpreted differently, as it’s both nefarious and just another Thursday — it really depends on the individual’s standpoint on the matter of user tracking, as it appears the game may do just that.
According to the now-deleted Reddit post, the upcoming Gotham Knight’s Third-Party EULA (Third-Party End-User License Agreement) doesn’t grant gamers ownership of the game despite purchasing the game in either physical or digital form. Additionally, the now-deleted post also stated that the game has spyware implementations that monitor users for EULA voidance and infringement. There are several things happening here, and we’d like to invite you, the readership, to help up unpack the mysteries of the deleted Reddit post.
Let’s start things off by saying that the Internet has become a sea of lies, and flies are always after breadcrumbs left by the bigger bugs. This would imply that the information conveyed by the now-deleted Reddit post regarding Gotham Knight’s EULA is fake, just an attempt by an internet troll to gain their 15 minutes of fame at the expense of an upcoming gaming release. In that case, well there’s no such thing as bad publicity unless you intentionally make the game in which Batman has died, and the gameplay doesn’t adhere to the traditional RPG mechanics.
But what happens if the information conveyed in the now deleted post is accurate, and Reddit mods have deleted it to avoid legal issues with Warner Bros. Games and Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment? That’s what we’re trying to unpack here. The part about EULA not granting gamers ownership of the game is most likely correct because nobody ever owned a piece of Intellectual Property other than the legal entity that created it. This applies to everything ever; a book, a piece of music, a movie, or a video gaming title such as Gotham Knights and others.
The truth is that IPs are owned by the entities that have created them, and end-users or end-consumers only bought the medium that contains IP and the rights to enjoy said IPs for private, non-commercial purposes. Even the SIM cards in our phones aren’t our property; go ahead and read your carrier’s contract, we’ll wait. So, the only point of contention would be the spyware implementation within Gotham Knights that spies on gamers and their adherence to the EULA.
However, different companies have, for years now, spied on the users of their goods and/or services — completely legally. Let’s circle back to the phone analogy; once users buy new phones, they have to agree to the manufacturer’s Terms and Conditions which imply location tracking, even if the phone is without cell service and the location settings have been disabled. So, every owner of a smartphone, be it Android or iOS, has agreed to have companies track their movement and behaviors.
All the tracking and spying done by massive tech companies are neatly packed in TOS and EULA, which users have to agree to if they want to use a certain product or phone. So, why would Gotham Knight be any different? If the rumor is true, the company might be trying to protect its IP, nothing else.
It could very well be a clause stating that the creation of gaming mods isn’t allowed, and the company has ground for legal actions against modders because modders have violated the TOS or EULA they previously agreed to. Nintendo has done it for years now!
So, if the purported information turns out to be true — and nobody actually knows without any official confirmation from WB — it can be made entirely legal and without any repercussions for the developer or publisher unless the collected user data isn’t used for nefarious purposes by the company. Whatever the case may be, a vast number of players have already canceled their pre-orders of Gotham Knights in light of the FPS cap, and it’s probable that the cancelations will continue in light of this rumor, whether true or false.
