Terms of Service (ToS) in Once Human Explained
If you are concerned about Once Human's ToS as well as its Privacy Policy, here you will find some explanation that will allow you to correctly judge if you want to give this game a shot.
Nowadays, we are connected with each other in more ways than we can even imagine. Thanks to technological advancement, we can use a great deal of free services that make our lives easier and more enjoyable. Are they really free though? The fact that we do not use money to pay for something, doesn’t mean the services are at no cost, because they often use other means of compensation – our data. Free-to-play games are great example of this trend, especially when we take a closer look at their Terms of Service, aka. ToS. This is something that sparked lively discussion among fans of recently released survival game - Once Human. Do you really give away your life’s worth information to play this game? Here you will learn how much privacy it costs.
Terms of Service in Once Human explained
Most of the privacy concerns regarding Once Human point to its Terms of Service, or ToS if you will, where you can find many seemingly disturbing subjects. One of them is concerning collecting government issued ID, yet it is important to note that this information is gathered only in places where it is mandated by local regulations like, for example, China. The sole purpose of it is to verify the age of the player to be in line with the law. The company then claims that such details are deleted immediately after fulfilling its purpose (as seen on the game’s official Discord Server).
In the nooks and crannies of the Privacy Policy you can also see clauses about allowing the developers obtaining the data like credit card information, which can also be suspicious… unless you want to commit and actually buy something from the store. Without getting this data, it would be impossible to process the payment. Additionally, unless you want to make a purchase, you won’t be asked to provide this information. This does not differ from any other titles which include in-game purchases.
There is also a point in the lengthy text which mentions sharing details like social media account usernames, names, and addresses, yet they are only asked if you would like to participate in the surveys provided by the creators which are completely voluntary. If you are not okay with filling them in, no such information will be ever requested.
Privacy concerns in video game industry
There is no denying that we live in great times where it’s easier than ever to enjoy games, as there are many free-to-play titles with no upfront cost. You can at least test them out before making any purchases, as yes, the developers have to benefit from them and earn their living somehow. If the game is properly created, you won’t even have to buy anything at all and still have fun. However, if you eventually decide to get something with real money, you will have to provide some of your information that will allow for processing the transaction.
What is more, games released on Steam, including Once Human, can be expected to undergo proper legal checks as this big and reputable distributor will make everything in its power to prevent shady practises on its platform. If they allowed for those, Valve’s reputation would get a huge hit, discouraging people from using Steam, which is definitely not something that Valve is striving for.
It is great that people treat their privacy seriously. Protecting our laws is fundamental for not letting corporations to use us like objects, but conscious of their rights consumers, who they have to take care of and work hard to keep us satisfied. On the other hand, we cannot allow for mass hysteria bashing every single ounce of data that is collected for legitimate reasons. It is necessary to build a successful relationship between the customer and service provider. At the end of the day, those documents are here to protect us and provide full view on how and why our personal information is processed.
