Jonathan Orr, Jonathan Harvey, John Gladman

Jonathan Orr, Jonathan Harvey, John Gladman

11/5/85

ITS 351

Final

Online Gaming and its problems

Since the advent of videogames there has been a strive to make it a more group-friendly activity. The first videogames introduced were multiplayer games. The game

Pong, for example. It isn’t a surprise, then, that people would want to make it a community-based activity. In any group activity people like to feel like they are a part and have their input. Be it a group that is interested in sports, movies, music, or anything else. People that have the same interests always want to be together to enjoy these things and discuss them. This is why the feeling of being part of a group (gamers) is an important part of gaming going online. Not only is there a website to accommodate someone’s interests, you can actually do the activities over the computer with friends as well. These are the same people that subscribe to blogs, as well. Playing videogames online is a very exciting idea for gamers and many don’t think of the issues revolving their privacy.

After video games were invented, community-based ones followed shortly after even though there were technological restrictions. Games like Mazewar and text-based games were among the first to be online though a connected server. Mazewar was one of the first games that connected peer-to-peer through a modem. In the 80’s, text based games also were able to be put through over networks. As games became more and more advanced, so did the technology. America Online was created in the late 80’s, and soon after Neverwinter Nights was released in 1991. Neverwinter Nights was the first graphically online role playing game. In addition to being the first graphics-based game, the game also marked the first appearance of online ‘clans’ and ‘player versus player combat’ in multiplayer games. (1) Other games began to pop up with the same sort of gameplay such as Everquest and Ultima Online. Most of these games were originally based on dungeons of dragons and other role-playing games. Strategy games also began to pop up in the early nineties, which would later spawn games like Warcraft. These games employ the use of an army, for example, and a small map in which each player tries to conquer. Once middle class citizens could afford to pay to connect to the internet, and after the technology allowed it, many of these games began to grow in popularity. Today, these games are still incredibly popular, the most well known one most likely being World of Warcraft. In addition to playing the game itself and conversing on discussion forums provided by Blizzard, World of Warcraft players often participate in the World of Warcraft virtual community in creative ways, including fan artwork and comic strip style storytelling. (2) Since this game is no doubt the most popular, there are bound to be problems associated with it. In fact, there are actually over nine million people who subscribe to the game worldwide. (3) There are many instances in the game of people abusing what the game allows. There is one in particular where a user created a “blood plague” which as acted in the game as an epidemic would in real life. This killed many avatars (created personas) of the users in the game. No one was actually harmed in real life, but this shows how people can abuse an online community. Some may even consider this as a terrorist-like attack suggesting that the person who created it could actually harm people in real life. According to a security consultant, "Not only does it present an in-game dynamic that was not expected by players or Blizzard developers, it reminds us that even in seemingly controlled online atmospheres unexpected consequences can occur," Martin said. "While not as serious as a classic computer virus, it reminds us that computer code can impact us and we're not always safe, regardless of what precautions we take." (4)

Other issues, still, have been encountered in this particular online community. There is once instance of a child dying because of their parents’ addiction to the game. Being part of this community actually took a person’s life. Issues like this become a serious thing to examine when people are this addicted to them. Users of the game also encountered spam problems. The company that runs the game, Blizzard, began to offer free demo of the game, offering a free account. Subscribers began getting messages in their virtual mailboxes, which offered upgrades for real money. This means that people were being solicited to gain more items in the game for real money.

We see this issue arising in phenomenon Second Life as well. Second Life actually simulates an economy, though. Users create an avatar, which may or may not look exactly like the actual person, which is a huge privacy issue. Users may enjoy the idea that they can have a “second life,” but may not think of the ramifications of creating a character that looks close to or exactly like their actual features. Second Life’s economy can be translated to real money. People can accumulate “linden dollars,” second life’s fake currency, and then translate them into real money. A user, Allin Graef (under the avatar Anshe Chung), actually created custom animations for second life, sold them in the game to other users, and then bought more second life land. Allin is now a real-life millionaire. Although no one was really harmed by this, people are spending real money for “fake money” to buy “fake property” which is quite an odd concept. The Second Life economy is obviously thriving.

There are privacy issues to be examined, though. Through the creation of an avatar, people may not realize the problems that arise from their creation of a version of their actual self. Not only is this an issue, but everyone runs the risk of their information being stolen from any online community. Such was the issue with Second Life when their users personal information was hacked into. This incident reminded me that your online life which could include blogging, your online photos, email, calendar, search queries, phone conversations via VoIP or in this case your Second Life information is not totally separate from your first life, your real life. (5)

Today, a vast majority of people are online, and a majority of those have given their information out to at least one organization. Not only are people’s information in huge website’s databases. They’re in the gaming world, too. Sega’s Dreamcast was among the first home gaming console to offer online gaming. Soon after, the Playstation 2 and Xbox consoles also has the ability to go online. Today, the 7th generation game consoles (Nintendo Wii, Xbox 360, and Playstation 3) all have refined the machines abilities to go online. Games that are run on the Steam/Valve engine and others like Bungie (which runs the game Halo) take up a huge market in online gaming.

We have seen that with technology pushing innovation and speeds upward, many users have turned to online games for entertainment. Now more than ever users are going online and playing Massive Multiplayer Online Games. The majority of online games require some kind of an engine to run the game. You can easily sign up for these engines and begin playing the game online. The question is, what information are the game engines collecting and what is the information being used for?

Valve, which was founded in 1996 in Bellevue, Washington is the owner and creator of Steam, their Electronic Distribution Platform (9). Valves first game released, Half-Life has won over 50 Game of the year awards, and was voted the “Best PC Game Ever” in November 1999, October 2001, and April 2005 in PC Magazine (Valve). Valve games account for more than 80% of the PC online action market (Valve).

Valve created Steam for its online users. The benefits of the Steam engine include integrated tools for publishing content directly to customers, flexible billing, ensured-version control, anti-cheating, anti-piracy, game-server browser functionality, and in-game instant messaging platform (9). The biggest benefit to gamers is buying the game online and being able to download and play almost instantaneously. With the growth of Steam, many more developers are releasing their games on Steam. Some of the developers include 2K Games, THQ, id Software, Activision, and Strategy First (9). Valve has done great things for the online gaming community. The have created ease of use features, great games, anti-cheating system, and anti-piracy system. On the other hand, you must register for Steam. You give up the regular information needed to register for a website or email. Now because they are a retailer in games also, you give your credit card information to purchase one of the games. This begs the question of; what information are they keeping and how are they protecting it? With ten million registered users there is plenty of information to be recorded.

To understand more about the information Steam collects, you must start with the Privacy Policy. The policy begins with “By using Valve's online sites and products, users agree that Valve may collect aggregate information, individual information, and personally identifiable information …Valve may share aggregate information and individual information with other parties” (9). Now first you might wonder what aggregate information is, but Valve lets you know that aggregate information “is information that describes the habits, usage patterns, and demographics of users as a group but does not describe or reveal the identity of any particular user” (9). Next is explains what the individual information is, “information about a user that is presented in a form distinguishable from information relating to other users but not in a form that personally identifies any user or enables the recipient to communicate directly with any user unless agreed to by the user in advance of such communication” (9). This statement seems to be misleading. It will collect information that distinguishes you from all other users but it won’t make you personally identifiable. I don’t see many ways that Valve can distinguish me from all other users without making me personally identifiable. It makes mention of the fact that it won’t share personally identifiable information unless it is voluntary, but then is says that to use some of its services you must share the information. The next statement in the policy caught my attention the most, it says “personally identifiable information will be processed and stored by Valve in databases situated in the United States” (9). The part that was most worrisome was it didn’t make mention of any sort of protection. I guess you are to assume your personal information is being protected. According to Dailytech “Valve's Steam content distribution system has apparently been hacked. The culprit allegedly got deep enough into the system to steal credit card information and financial information on Valve” (10).

With all this information being kept, it is possible to opt-out. The policy states “Valve gives users the option of discontinuing receipt of promotional email communications from Valve. Instructions for discontinuing receipt of promotional email communications from Valve will be provided in such subsequent email communications to users” (9). This doesn’t provide much help in discontinuing the collection of information from Valve. It is important to not that is uses the term promotional so it sounds as if personal information collection will continue.

Steam also uses an anti-cheat system known as Valve Anti-Cheat System or VAC. I couldn’t find any information about how VAC worked; it was very tight lipped when it comes to this system. This is because many people were finding was to bypass the older VAC and run cheats or play steam games that they had actually not purchased. Most cheats work at a software level, you run a program that will auto aim for you or alter the game configuration files. The only way to monitor these would be for software to check what is running on your computer, or to check the validity of the configuration files. Every time you connect to Steam it possibly could be running a check on your computer to see what you are running or checking the files of the game. In the privacy policy it states that steam, upon buying a game will automatically download and store a CD key on your systems hard drive. If they check a system key every time that you log on, it might be safe to say that they monitor the hardware you are running. This in turn could raise a serious privacy concern, Valve looking at your files every time you connect to Steam.

Looking at the privacy concerns from a Utilitarianism view may shed some light on the situation. There is no doubt that Steam offers some great benefits. It allows you to chat with friend online. You can chat with friends who are in game already or just out of game. It provides you with a buddy list of friends who are online playing games, and allows you to easily join the game server they are on. It allows you to play your games from any computer. You can log on from any computer and download and play games you have already purchased. Another benefit of Steam is automatic updates, which can be handy if you don’t enjoy hunting down patches and installing them manually.

Some of the disadvantages of Steam could include the fact that you must you Steam to activate any of it’s games, meaning you need the internet to get any of the games to function. Steam doesn’t provide an offline feature to play games. Meaning you have to have the internet again just to play your game. You cannot get to your games until you log onto the steam servers. If you must use Steam to play the games, and Steam collects personal data, that could be a negative. Another problem is with the VAC, is you are caught cheating you lose your account for good. This means money you spent on the games is basically forfeit because you can’t play them offline. This might sound good for people who play legit, but what happens if someone steals your account and cheats with it. You no longer have an account or any of your games.