BioWare Tracking Player Behavior in Mass Effect 2
BioWare is using player stats to develop the next installment.
BioWare's Casey Hudson, Executive Producer for the Mass Effect franchise, admits that the company is collecting data from gamers who are currently playing Mass Effect 2. Hudson reassured players that the collection process is completely anonymous, and the acquired data will be used to help design the next installment in the series.
"The only data that we get are in terms of events--little things that happen in the game," Hudson explained.
"Let's say if we want to know whether players skip lines of dialogue, we can have that become a little event that gets sent up. It's all completely anonymous, so all we get is raw numbers for how many times these kinds of events occur. Then we can start getting ratios and comparing proportions and things like that. It becomes this mass of numbers, and then we have to try to figure out how we would interpret that."
Recent statistics gathered by Mass Effect 2 snooping revealed that the Engineer is the class least played, whereas the Soldier seems to be the overall favorite. Roughly 50-percent of the people who started Mass Effect 2 actually finished the game, whereas apparently two PC gamers completed Mass Effect 2 twenty-eight times. 15-percent of the in-game dialogue was skipped as well.
"Ultimately what it means for players is that we don't have to guess anymore about what players are doing," he said. "We can actually learn about what they like and what they don't like and just try to focus on building the good stuff."
Mass Effect 2 hit the Xbox 360 and PC back in January 26, 2010.
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I thought to be legal they would have to tell the consumer about this and the consumer agree to it.
Since when do Bioware get to decide which information is inocuous or not, that can be very subjecive.
Okay this is only a game but it sets a precident, what if microsoft were to build a logger to report back on your windows activity....
I thought to be legal they would have to tell the consumer about this and the consumer agree to it. Since when do Bioware get to decide which information is inocuous or not, that can be very subjecive.Okay this is only a game but it sets a precident, what if microsoft were to build a logger to report back on your windows activity....
It's probably in the End User License Agreement (EULA) which you 'accept/approve' when you install/buy/run the game.
Getting info for building better games is OK, but where it is mentioned?...
I have to admit, I didn't read the agreement. I will read it tonight...if it isn't mention...
I think it is illegal to collect datas without agreement!
There is an option to turn this feature off in the game, so this really isn't news to me.
Hmm...I guess I have to start paying attention to small things..