The zombie-filled FPS Once Human was released on July 9th, and though there were several fans ready to dive in head-first, some were turned off by the allegations of the title being considered Spyware.
A lot of video game titles these days utilize Easy Anti-cheat systems, including massive games such as League of Legends, and Fortnite, and a decent amount of titles found on both the Epic Games Store and games made by Ubisoft. The different anti-cheat software grants kernel-level access to the company utilizing the software, which means they have pretty deep-rooted access to our PC at any time.
The terms of service for Once Human were called out for being particularly malicious, some stating it was asking for basically everything except your social security number. In response to the hefty allegations, the developers took to X, formerly known as Twitter to say a few words. They state,
Dear Metas,Thank you for your attention and continued support of Once Human. We are truly grateful for all your feedback!We would like to take this opportunity to address concerns we’ve seen regarding the game’s privacy policy and confusion about the use of the NetEase… pic.twitter.com/oVTs4lgQ6P
— Once Human (@OnceHuman_) July 10, 2024
The main concern was a bit of the terms and services that mentioned having access to someone's government ID, but the devs say that this would only be exercised if necessary. However, this still doesn't sit well with many gamers, as they feel as though granting this information is leaving them open to malicious or possibly dangerous people.
The developers seem to be actively trying to calm things down about this situation, but with over 140k people still playing the game, it appears not everyone is worried about their information’s safety while playing the title.