Once Human is NetEase’s new foray into the world of MMOs, but their title was severely review bombed within hours of release over major privacy concerns.
The game has some really invasive terms of service where it requires players to submit “first and last name, title, prefix, email address, telephone number, (instant) messaging account, postal address, date of birth, age, gender, country/region, and government-issued ID, such as passport information.”
For a game that’s just gone live, the community is pretty small, and a majority of them have already dispersed because they can’t trust what they’re expected to agree to.
Players have also labelled this incident as an “identity theft speed run” while others have also pointed out that the game installs two more softwares without your knowledge.
Since launch, Once Human has had a peak of 88,000 players according to Steamdb since launch, which is comparatively low for a live-service title, especially if its free to play.
Following the backlash, the developers tried to ease up player concerns on Discord by mentioning under which circumstances they would collect the data.
They said that they would collect Government IDs when “the local laws require us to do so, when the identity of a user’s parent must be verified to obtain consent for their child, or when the user wishes to correct their age information.”
They also added, “ID information is deleted immediately after we have fulfilled the purpose for collecting the ID information in the first place.” The developers clarified that they would collect “information such as social media account usernames, names, and address in user surveys that users voluntarily participate in.”
Despite the developers addressing the issue, players are still concerned about their privacy, which might have a major effect on the player base in the longer run. They also feel that unless the developers correct their invasive terms of service, it’s unlikely that Once Human will see a lot of players.
