SE5 bad reviews and problems.

[Atrocities]

Suicide Junkie said:
Tracking sites you visit has no bearing on whether it is adware or not. It is the simple fact of having Ads built in.

Ads + software = Adware

You know we really need to point out that most of what we do now is tracked in one form or another from cell phone carriers to the GPS system in your car. That data is tracked, monitored, and sold. The cell phone industry tracks your colling paterns, cell sites signals to track your movements, and times of day or night that your phone is on and used. They then sell this info to ad companies who then stratigicially place bill boards in those high traffic routes and know when to call you on your phone for sales oppurtunities.

The GPS in your car is also used for the same thing. On Star was recently critizied for this. Cannot find the article or web site but I do recall hearing about it on the news a few months back.

[Yimboli]

Correct AT. I recall discussing this in an electronic navigation class in undergrad. If I find that stuff I'll post a link ...

[Combat Wombat]

On the 2142 note how can it make relevant in-game ads without tracking what you are doing on the internet. If it doesn't do that then it must just generate generic ads for everyone, if so then why does it need to do anything outside of run the game?

Exactly it does moniter what you are doing.

[Atrocities]

Can you imagine a time when your playing a game and up pops an ad for the porn site you just accidently visited? ROTFLMAO... Or worse, your kid is playing Barnies Great Gay Cookie Monster Adventure with Big Bird and Erne and up pops an add for a porn site for which you are a paying member of. Can any one say "Moooooooooooooooooooooooommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmeeee eeeeeeeeeeee!"

[RonGianti]

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/10/19

[Xrati]

LOL, I like the "Play on Words."

[Jeku]

"Do you have verifiable source of evidence, or is that an anti-rumor rumor?"

Like I said, I work at EA so I did my own little investigation when the game was released. I didn't want to be associated with a company that installs adware or spyware. There are also articles on Gamespot and IGN that distill the incorrect rumour as just that, a rumour.

"Even if it doesn't track sites you visit, it is still a despicable practice (ad banners in products you explicitly paid for)."

Actually it's not. Think about it. World of Warcraft charges you what, $10 a month? The Battlefield franchise charges you a one-time fee of $50, in which you can play *forever* without another cost. EA has to pay to keep their servers on, and given there is almost 100,000 players logging on every DAY, you can imagine that this gets expensive.