Gearbox has confirmed via a statement that its games do not contain “spyware” after fans had “concerns about Take-Two’s terms of service”.
The statement, published to Steam, explicitly states that Gearbox’s publisher, Take-Two Interactive, does “not use spyware in its games”, and confirmed its privacy policy applies not only to players, but also labels, studios, games, and services across all media and platform types.
Gearbox was forced to make the clarification after all of the Borderlands games were review-bombed on Steam by players who believe the updated terms were suspicious. Others were unhappy that the revised agreements made mods “a bannable offense”, along with using cheats and exploits, or even just using a VPN. A forced arbitration clause for unhappy players in the US also caused considerable consternation.
Furthermore, the details of the revised EULA have fans reporting that the latest update, if accepted, gives Gearbox “access to root access to your computer under the guise of ‘anticheat’ software,” including access to “IP address, personal information, network traffic, and pictures on your PC”, which the developer refutes.
“We know there have been some concerns from Borderlands fans about Take-Two’s Terms of Service. Maintaining transparency and confidence with the community here is always our goal, and we wanted to address some of these concerns,” the statement begins.
“Take-Two does not use spyware in its games. Take-Two’s Privacy Policy applies to all labels, studios, games, and services across all media and platform types such as console, PC, mobile app, and website. The Privacy Policy identifies the data activities that may be collected but this does not mean that every example is collected in each game or service.”
The latter half of the statement, however, was still contentious for some.
“Take-Two’s Terms of Service prohibit mods that allow users to gain an unfair advantage, negatively impact the ability of other users to enjoy the game as intended, or allow users to gain access to content that the user is not entitled to,” the statement added. “We do this to protect the integrity of the game experience for all users. Take-Two generally does not seek to take action against mods that are single-player only, non-commercial, and respect the intellectual property (IP) rights of its labels and third parties.”
Gearbox locked the thread so players could not respond, but players are continuing to make their thoughts known via the user review sections of all Borderlands games on Steam.
Last week, Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford double-doubled down on comments about the cost of Borderlands 4, by inviting “cost sensitive” fans to download Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands from the Epic Games Store for “FREE”.
These latest comments come after Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford made headlines when he told a X/Twitter commenter that “real fans” would find a way to get their hands on a copy of the game, even if it came with a $80 price tag. He later tried to justify it, all the while saying pricing was “not [his] call”.