Gearbox Software has responded to Steam users regarding concerns over Take-Two’s Terms of Service changes. If you missed it, Borderlands 2 was recently given away for free on Steam. While this was meant to be an exciting free game for players, the promotion ended up resulting in negative reviews from fans and it getting “review bombed” by Steam users.
At the moment, only 9% of reviews in the last 30 days are positive and Borderlands 2 is sitting on an “overwhelmingly negative” rating as a result. Why? Because Take-Two’s new Terms of Service changes. Essentially, the changes to the Terms of Service and EULA claimed to condemn the use of mods, cheats and VPNs in Borderlands 2.
To make matters worse, the new terms also gave Take-Two, 2K Games and Gearbox Software the right to harvest player data and private information. With both changes added to the Terms of Service, players hit back at the publisher and Gearbox. Many of them slammed the poor business practices while at the same time, boycotted the upcoming Borderlands 4 game too.
As a result of all this, the latest Steam post was updated by the “developers” of Borderlands. The statement covers all the concerns by players and attempts to clear the air. It says that the use of mods is prohibited to protect the integrity of the game experience for all players. However, it only prohibits mods that allow users to gain an unfair advantage in-game.
As for the selling of private data, the statement doesn’t really deny the fact that Gearbox and Take-Two collect and sell data. Instead, it confirms that data is collected from players and used to identify certain characteristics and tailor their experiences.
One Reddit user pointed this out saying that while Gearbox is trying to clear the air, the most important part of the problem wasn’t addressed;
“Unless I’m blind, I didn’t see anything about not selling our data. And before you start, I know Google and Apple, and a ton of other companies do it, but it’s still not OK. And if they want to do that, then I don’t feel bad about the pushback. Just because Company A does a bad thing doesn’t mean Company B just gets a pass”.
So right now, it seems that Gearbox and Take-Two are in hot water regarding these recent changes. This will no doubt affect game sales for Borderlands 4 given how shady the response has been.
Source: Steam
