Gearbox has issued a statement in response to claims Borderlands 4 uses spyware, amid renewed concern over parent company Take-Two’s terms of service.
After a similar furore bubbled up in June, the company reiterated that while it understands there have been “some concerns” about Take-Two’s terms of service, it stressed that “maintaining transparency and confidence with the community here is always our goal, and we wanted to address some of these concerns.”
“Take-Two does not use spyware in its games,” the statement began. “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.”
Take-Two provides this information to ensure “transparency to players,” as well as to “comply with its legal obligations,” Gearbox insisted.
“For example, player and device identifiers are collected in part to ensure the game is compatible with each player’s media, platform or website browser type,” it continued. “It allows us to better understand how players play games, and to personalize the user experience (like having usernames show up!). Account credentials are collected from users who choose to create accounts with Take-Two and its labels.”
The statement also touched upon “abusive mods,” which seems to be a catch-all term for hacks, cheats, or exploits. Consequently, 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. 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.”
Despite these concerns, Borderlands 4 got off to a big start on Steam, with a higher peak concurrent player number than any other Borderlands game on Valve’s platform. However, Borderlands 4 is currently on a ‘mixed’ Steam review rating, and while some negative reviews revolve around the Take-Two terms of service issue, most have to do with poor PC performance.
If you are delving into Borderlands 4 don’t go without our updated hourly SHiFT codes list. We’ve also got a huge interactive map ready to go and a badass Borderlands 4 planner tool courtesy of our buds at Maxroll. Plus check out our expert players’ choices for which character to choose (no one agreed).
Vikki Blake is a reporter for IGN, as well as a critic, columnist, and consultant with 15+ years experience working with some of the world’s biggest gaming sites and publications. She’s also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.
