Not so much a game dev question as it is game dev adjacent. But I’m noticing more and more games releasing that require the player to agree to some kind of user agreement or privacy policy thing before playing the game. I highly doubt most players (myself included) take the time to read through all of those terms, or even understand what they are reading before they agree to it. Why are more games shipping with terms and conditions us players have to agree to, and should that concern us?

boynextdoornews

The whole point of requiring players to agree to these documents before they play is the "cover your ass" part of the legal system. The vast majority of the time, the goal for all of these laws is to protect the publisher providing the service or product from lawsuits that may ensue from the users of that service or product. This means, for example, explaining that the service or product may stop working at some point in the future for some reason and having the user agree not to sue in such a situation. It means that a player can't sue if the game is temporarily down for maintenance on her day off when she really wanted to play. It means a player can't sue if her account gets hacked.

These agreements typically get updated from time to time, necessitating players to agree again. For example, if there weren't specific clauses regarding using bots or cheats in game before and the lawyers wanted to update the agreement such that bots and cheats are bannable offenses, then the agreement would need to be updated and the players would be assumed to understand that botting and cheating are bannable offenses. They also get updated whenever legislation gets passed to require things, like privacy and user data laws. Whenever new legislation requiring compliance happens in a major geographic region, all of the terms of service get updated to reflect compliance with those laws, which is why you get new ToS updates so regularly.

I don't think it's much of a big deal, as long as you play the game the way that most players do. You can (and probably should) take the time to read the terms of service for the games you play at some point just to understand them, but if you play like a normal person and don't make a nuisance of yourself to the community, the normal chances of running afoul of the ToS are pretty low.

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