If I were to say that I, Trasak’s Player, does not want VR to share my online status with Zoltar’s player or any of my account data which includes the list of characters I have licensed from them they must comply. Players in general would need to have the option to have their character data hidden from other user and would need to their direct permission for VR to include it within the game. They would also need to be able to revoke that permission at any time. Not giving permission may prevent a user from using the service or part of the service that is dependent on it.
This is paraphrasing from other synopsis of the law and as I’m not licensed to practice law it is my personal interpretation and not in any way legal advice. (my lawyer friend said I need to add that phrase anytime I am talking about a law)
I think you are grossly misunderstanding GDPR. To whatever limited extent GDPR might apply to non-personal information (i.e. excluding your email/credit card info/etc), a notification in the terms of service that by logging into the service, other players will see you will more than cover VR.
Hell, just on the freaking Pantheon Website, I can get all this info about you:
All without any permission from you. Arguing that GDPR forces an MMO to hide your character info unless you give explicit permission to the individual is like arguing that a web forum needs to hide the posts that users make by default. The point of an MMO is that players are playing online together, which inherently means other players will see if you are online. Options to hide are nice, but certainly not required by law.
zoltar said: It seems like in the vast majority of mmos I’ve played, you are able to add someone to your friends list without the game requiring their permission. In fact, I’m having trouble thinking of an MMO where you have to send a request to add someone to your friends list.
This is correct based on character name. If you send me a bnet friend request nothing happens until I accept. That's exactly what we're talking about.
I don't care if you know character a is online. You shouldn't be able to see if I'm on character b unless i want you to.
Also eq allowed people to go anon and role. Effectively hiding them from being located, but still able to be seen online.
First, kinda creepy, poor Bonechips has been outted as a forum friend, and partially highlights the fact that I would like to be able to break down my profile further in what is shared and what isn’t. But I did select to have my profile public. There was an option to keep it private but I chose to make it public to facilitate discussion. I could at any time push it back to private and you would no longer be able to see it. That passes the GDPR user control test.
Regardless I will bow out of this discussion as I do not think it would be fruitful to restate my non-professional opinion or restate my personal preference. If there is some form of social media within Pantheon I will do my best to truncate it or refuse to feed it data if I cannot control who sees it. If it is invasive enough to always show all of my account information to everyone who decides to search for me then I may actually choose not to play Pantheon.
Porygon, Blizzard's Real ID system uses a person's real name and email address. And it works across all of their games. That's why they have to provide an additional level of security to it. And just to clarify, when I talk about account name, this would be separate from login ID. Obviously making that public would be stupid.
Trasak, I removed your info already. Listed the type of info instead.
oneADseven said:I really appreciate the value of /anon -- when it comes to character/account status, I would prefer to see them separated. Privacy isn't something that people need to justify a need for. If someone wants privacy for any reason they should have it. Implementing layers into the character/account status would allow folks to decide who gets what and that's reasonable. I would rather not see the account status on a friends list at all if it had to be universal.
100% This.
I don't get the whole politician analogy, no one is arguing that VR (who would be the government in that) shouldn't have access to all out account & character information. But much like in public in real life, it should be up to me to decide what I share about myself with an individual and what I do not.
If I meet someone new and we exchange numbers to hang out sometime I would never want that to entail also giving them my full name, address, date of birth, names of pets & relatives, etc. If I add someone on a game that I just met then I don't want them to know anything other than the name of the character I added them on until I get to know them better.
Privacy should be the default, sharing is the option.
zoltar said: It seems like in the vast majority of mmos I’ve played, you are able to add someone to your friends list without the game requiring their permission. In fact, I’m having trouble thinking of an MMO where you have to send a request to add someone to your friends list.
WildStar works on a friend-request basis, even when friending on a single character. I appreciate it greatly for the level of privacy it brings.
Your in-game character data does not belong to us, it belongs to the developer.
EQ EULA
We and our suppliers shall retain all rights, title and interest, including, without limitation, ownership of all intellectual property rights relating to or residing in the Disc, the Software and the Game, all copies thereof, and all game character data in connection therewith. You acknowledge and agree that you have not and will not acquire or obtain any intellectual property or other rights, including any right of exploitation, of any kind in or to the Disc, the Software or the Game, including, without limitation, in any character(s), item(s), coin(s) or other material or property, and that all such property, material and items are exclusively owned by us.
World of Warcraft
Blizzard’s Ownership