Now this is something that may interest a lot of F2P gamers and fans of Hi-Rez Studios’ titles, SMITE, Global Agenda and Tribes: Ascend. Reddit’s user ‘ACEmat’ has reported that Hi-Rez violates its EULA by letting a scanner running and monitoring for blacklist software even when its games are closed. In case you did not know, The Tribes/Smite/GA EULA states Hi-Rez has the right to monitor for blacklist software while the game is open. However, evidence has shown that Hi-Rez monitors your computer for blacklist software even when Tribes/Smite/GA is closed, which violates the agreement in the EULA.
As the Tribes/Smite/GA EULA suggests, Hi-Rez Studios has the right to run such software only when those games are running:
“Consent to Monitor. WHEN RUNNING, HI-REZ MAY MONITOR YOUR USE AND PLAY OF THE SOFTWARE PRODUCT AND COLLECT DATA REGARDING YOUR USE AND PLAY OF THE SOFTWARE PRODUCT IN ACCORDANCE WITH HI-REZ’S PRIVACY POLICY, A CURRENT COPY OF WHICH MAY BE ACCESSED AT http://legal.hirezstudios.com. IN ADDITION, THE SOFTWARE PRODUCT MAY MONITOR YOUR COMPUTER’S RANDOM ACCESS MEMORY (RAM) FOR UNAUTHORIZED THIRD PARTY PROGRAMS RUNNING CONCURRENTLY WITH THE SOFTWARE PRODUCT. AN “UNAUTHORIZED THIRD PARTY PROGRAM” AS USED HEREIN SHALL BE DEFINED AS ANY THIRD PARTY SOFTWARE PROHIBITED BY SECTION 2. IN THE EVENT THAT THE SOFTWARE PRODUCT DETECTS AN UNAUTHORIZED THIRD PARTY PROGRAM, THE SOFTWARE PRODUCT MAY COMMUNICATE INFORMATION BACK TO HI-REZ, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION, YOUR ACCOUNT NAME, DETAILS ABOUT THE UNAUTHORIZED THIRD PARTY PROGRAM DETECTED, AND THE TIME AND DATE; AND HI-REZ MAY EXERCISE ANY OR ALL OF ITS RIGHTS UNDER THIS AGREEMENT, WITH OR WITHOUT PRIOR NOTICE TO YOU, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION, TERMINATION OF THIS AGREEMENT AND YOUR RIGHT TO CONTINUE TO USE THE SOFTWARE PRODUCT .”
However, as the video shows, that’s not the case here. The big problem is that some people may get banned for not even attempting to hack those games, which is something that really worries us. Not excluding the fact that a program is collecting info for everything we’re running in the background.
Hi-Rez Studios has not made any official comment about this whole thing (and we don’t expect them to do so).
In other news, Tribes: Ascend seems to be dead. As the developers confirmed, there won’t be any dev updates for the next six months. Some maps may get released, but that’s all we’ll get.
“There are no major dev updates planned for Tribes: Ascend in the next six months.
For the next six months our primary development focus is SMITE. Beyond that it is GA2. And beyond that a TA2 would be more likely than a major update to TA; but to be clear no devs are currently working toward TA2.
Per the development blog on our forums, the recent TA work has been Kate developing some additional maps. If time allows then these new TA maps (along with some bug-fixes) would be finalized and deployed but no committed date yet.”
In short, be careful what you’re running if you’re currently playing the aforementioned games!
John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
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