With your personal attacks, yeah.
I’d love to know what those games are. I’ll need options if this game falls to evil! LOL Seriously though, feel free to DM me with those other games you’re talking about. Conan is my weakness purely because it’s CONAN. But even I have my limits, REH fangirl that I am.
What if the world exploded tomorrow and Crom just laughed, would FC fix it by sticking the pieces back together using ichor? I can ask hyperbolic slippery slope questions too.
That answer makes no sense. Did you give them PII unsolicited in the survey? If you did, then yes they have your data because you gave it to them. If you didn’t, then they don’t, because the only way they would have gotten it was if you ignored the question and typed that data into text boxes they provided to answer survey questions. There’s no need to ask FC if they have it because you already know the answer.
The difference between our ‘theories’ is quite a bit. I’m basing my musings on my experience working with surveys like this, though I will admit I haven’t had to do any analysis of computer/console gaming related products. I openly explain it speculative based on my anecdotal experiences and the requirement to do the generic questions before one can get to the CE specific questions. I also don’t see it as a big deal at all and I’m not here demanding FC answer my speculative hypotheses. There’s a grand canyon between us that defies comparison. We’re not in the same club.
Except there are entirely reasonable explanations that have already been provided and at least one testimonial in this thread that other game surveys are similar that you choose to ignore or disregard while you go on a fishing expedition trying to make it out like something nefarious is going on.
Well put. It boils down to many of us losing trust in Funcom. Gaming is based on trust so to speak. We buy games from devs and companies that we trust. And many just want Funcom to know this is a path towards becoming like Electronic arts etc. Early in EA days, they had a huge cult following on sports games. They could put out a Rugby game in US an it would sell. They have lost trust along the way, and now the license is more important than thier name. That is my worry with not trusting themselves (Funcom) to do a less invasive poll for the data.
@Taemien and @Palm522 I think you guys are on the same page more often than not. Taemin has a calmer, more reasoned response and is perhaps more accepting of the state of things but he’s absolutely not blind to what’s going on nor does he condone it. Palm, you understand the slippery slope this MAY be heading towards and you’re impassioned in your resistance. As a result you two keep talking past each other. Also apologies if I’m not using the appropriate pronouns, I’m just guessing that you both might be dudes. But seriously, talk about the game, the survey, and what you want to see FC do rather than arguing with each other which has the effect of making people just not want to read. Rather like my epically long winded posts. 
That’s very debatable. Unfortunately, this is not the place to debate it and I’m not good enough to debate it successfully 
I don’t think that’s the extent of our power. I don’t buy into this modern conviction that the Invisible Hand is the only way the society can evolve. (By the way, I’m speaking in general, not just about this survey.)
Take the Amazon Sidewalk, for example. If you don’t know what it is, go Google it, because there needs to be more awareness of that crap anyway.
A lot of people won’t even think twice about it. More reliable connectivity, what’s not to like, right? But if you stop and think about it, they’re selling you stuff like “smart TV” that will try to connect to a network and “phone home” even if you explicitly don’t configure it to use your network. Regardless of how much or how little you value your privacy, this behavior exposes you to some very real risks.
Does this fall under any existing legislation? I don’t know, I’m not a lawyer, but let’s assume that it doesn’t, for the sake of discussion. What should be done about it?
If it’s true that “our only power lies in our wallets”, then we’re pretty much screwed. As COVID has proven, there’s always plenty of people who don’t care about risks or problems until something really bad happens to them, and even then they might end up blaming anyone but themselves. So I have no doubt that, unless Amazon screws something else up, this Sidewalk thing will become a success. And what will happen after that is that the majority of the home device manufacturers will either partner with Amazon or come up with their own version of Sidewalk.
A common rebuttal is “if you don’t like it, just don’t use it”. Instead of making my wall of text even longer, I’ll just recommend watching Moxie Marlinspike’s keynote from DEFCON 18, called “Changing Threats to Privacy”. Specifically, pay attention to the segment on “no network effect”.
Anyway, I’ve gone way off topic here and I apologize. Like I already said, I don’t think that there’s anything to be gained in this particular situation we’re in. But I just can’t resist talking about bigger issues surrounding this 
These forums are full of shrinks it seems. Everyone is judging the other one for his reaction or way to express itself instead of having a reasonable approach on the matter. Does not matter that we got a mediocre survey, it matters only which of you is right or how you see things.
OP is right on target. I wonder how many took the survey multiple times…
Funcom could have come with an explanation,or to give reasons of “why?” such a poor survey.
Take or leave it is what the OP got.
Smells like F2P and CashStore.
MOst bugs have been fixed? There are bugs that existed before you even started playing and still exist. There are bugs that make a guest appearance after every 2nd patch and then there are actually new ones. The game idea is absolutely brilliant, the execution is 2nd rate at best.
There is no reason to bash every valid criticism in this forum… You are not doing the game, the community nor yourself a favour
Right, I don’t disagree with anything you said except about it being unethical. If we start talking business ethics, if a company has legal and industry accepted means to increase revenue and they choose not to, even when competitors are utilizing said means, that’s considered unethical. The problem here is that in practical terms it’s not considered illegal or unethical. But should it be? I would agree with you that certain practices should be reigned in. The regulation of the tech world is way behind, but even in the most forward thinking countries these things are not restricted to the degree that I would prefer. I’ve accepted that as a reality. And I’m old enough to know that the pace of change isn’t such that I’m going to see that change in my lifetime meaningfully. Oversight will always be playing catchup compared to the rate that tech progresses. That’s a different conversation that I’d enjoy having, but it’s a bit of a wander from the topic as a whole.
Heh, I can suggest the ones I bounce between.
I mean as an individual. Collectively we can do a lot, but that requires enough people in agreement working in concert to achieve change. I’ll definitely look up the Amazon Sidewalk thing. I’m expecting something similar to the Ring fiasco with them cutting a side deal with police unbeknownst to the purchaser. This type of thing will eventually hit a head that will result in legislation, but the US lags behind when it comes to consumer protection/advocacy with these types of products. I’ll also watch that keynote you linked. Thank you for the reading/watching material even if not strictly on topic 
That’s exactly how I feel about your ‘what if’ question.
That’s not how that works. You’re getting worked up over absolutely nothing here based on … what? Where did you even get the idea that they were ‘mining data in the background’ or that it would be personally identifying information?
You glossed over a whole host of other points there just so you could try to pretend our positions are similar. They’re not. But if it makes you feel better to believe that they are have at it man.
That’s the thing, even if they did go in that direction I don’t see that as nefarious. That’s business. I mean, they’ll immediately lose any potential future money I would have spent on their products had they not gone that route. I’ve played games that have done that, changed payment options and shifted content around locked behind paywalls that were more than what I was paying prior to the changes to access the same content. And it came with boosts and all kinds of other stuff to circumvent the heavy restrictions that went far beyond what was originally possible. And I’m talking games that had a sub cost, not just a once and done like CE. Jerking me around to nickle and dime me isn’t going to make me mad, it’s just going to make me no longer a customer. Doesn’t matter what product or service we’re talking about.
I’ve said this before and you glossed it over. There is a reason they ask the questions they asked. It has everything to do with how you answer the following questions (if you get that far). As such it allows them to make correlations based on the former set of questions and the latter set of questions combined. If you state you are generally happy/unhappy in life and then answer the questions about CE that matters because the former can bias how you answer the latter. But asking the slippery slope questions you are trying to compare it to doesn’t make any sense because those questions aren’t going to result in biased answers about the latter in a meaningful way that they can utilize to normalize results. And that’s just the most obvious way to me that they could find value in asking those questions and how they could use those answers in combination with the CE specific ones. There are many others I can think of and I’m sure many I’m not. If you can’t understand or see any reason why they would ask those questions, it’s because you don’t want to understand it or see it. But I don’t see any reason to continue to run circles around the point while you intentionally miss the connection.
The proper spelling of the word is “immersive”.
Why trust a so-called big company to give surveys if they can’t even spell their own name?
From all the banter back and forth about it, the company doesn’t know how to conduct a proper survey.
But what I find more ironic than anything, are those who fell for it.
I wouldn’t be posting about it.
Two words raise a big red flag: Compliance Culture.
Reads like a 3am self-help tv info-mercial or HR template, Lmao
Meet our new friend.
Ew. Knew there was a reason I don’t do Twitter.
Well, my money is on us not hearing a single other word from Funcom on this matter. I doubt we’ll even ever find out if they had the sense to be angry at Immersyve for sticking them with such a shoddy survey that was riddled with amateurish errors. I would be mildly interested to know if Immersyve went back in and corrected those many errors at least but I don’t know if I’m up to taking the damn thing a third time. LOL So yes, it seems FC’s answer is, “Stick it, we don’t care if you leave.”
Will I? That will depend on the game’s future development and if, on private servers, we can bypass and/or ban from our servers any “time saving” or “pay to win” or “bypass frustration because your time in a game is valuable enough to spend money on in game to…not play the game you also already spent money on to play.”
I am disappointed…but completely unsurprised. Modern businesses know no shame and they aren’t here to create art and make things fun for you. They’re here to get as much of your money as they can by any means they can. And honestly, that’s good to know.
Well I got banned for 2 weeks for stating my concerns. So always got to think about if they will get banned here. it happens.
Alright because I am curious, try to be fair, and am also apparently machoistic, I have taken the survey for a THIRD time. So, for starters, and in GOOD news, there’s this:
So, yes, they have finally addressed the privacy concern. Apparently they are NOT collecting our IP addresses and selling them off. Hurray. Now you can all go take this endless thing and I STILL encourage you to do so.
Also, pretty much all of the errors I noted on my first run through have now been corrected. This actually now works/reads like a professional product. Also good news.
The personal questions about your happiness, etc are still there and still do not have opt outs. However, with the assurance that IPs are not being collected we can probably be more comfortable with answering them. I feel the reasons they ask these kinds of questions are still not legitimate and may even be nefarious but I am now less concerned than I was initially. And because I know someone will ask… Why do I consider the personal/psych eval questions to be potentially nefarious? For some of the reasons I’ve already talked about. Knowing the state of mind of players gives companies an edge in knowing what kind of psychological manipulation to employ against them in order to get players to act against their own self interest. And I maintain that this is unethical.
There are still all the questions that probe to see if you’ll get to a point where you’re willing to accept microtransactions and cash shops, etc. So be on guard for those and I hope you’ll join me in firmly rejecting all such monetization schemes. Be clear that what will get you to open your wallet is a quality product that performs as it should with new, high quality content released on a reasonable schedule. And the return of our beloved cultural DLCs! 
But, overall the survey has been improved and if you can force yourself to wade through it you should. I’ll be adding this to my OP.
Of course, it seems a little silly that I’m the one who has to tell you all of the above, especially about the privacy issue, instead of Funcom. But hey, you’re welcome. LOL
Totally impressed by your overall information and documentation of this survey. I am seldom swayed by others opinions on a forum, but you have by far exceeded my outlook on the issue.
Do not get me wrong, I opted out of the survey after it asked me my gender…lol. As if that has anything to do with a game.
What most people do not realize is that a A survey is a research method used for collecting data from a predefined group of respondents to gain information and insights into various topics of interest.
This “survey” went way beyond that, becoming intrusive into areas that have nothing to do with our interests, but gleaning personal information for a different purpose.
I for one, will not become the “unperson”. George Orwell
Perhaps you’re right. At least I can find no reason to claim that you’re wrong.
But players are not a homogenous group. People from all walks of life play games. You can take this thread as an example, look at the huge variation in approaches and points of view. And we’re not even discussing our preference regarding games, here. In all likelihood, if we all answer truthfully to the survey’s questions, Immersyve is going to have a hard time pinpointing any tools to manipulate this particular target audience.
I do think that a “prefer not to answer” option would’ve made the survey a lot more approachable. That said, many of “those” questions are something I find valuable to ask ourselves every now and then. I understand that other people may find it unpleasant to have to think about their own happiness or financial situation, especially if they’re going through difficult times in their lives.
In any case - if anything, these debates regarding the survey have proven that the community has its fair share of critical thinkers who can see through what the survey is trying to do. (Yes, of course it’s collecting data that can be used to better sell products to customers, possibly by means of manipulation.) So, go forth and fill the survey with that in mind, and give them answers based on how you’d like to see the results go. At least if the community opposes microtransactions strongly enough, the company may take that under advisement when making decisions.
It’s also really nice to see that despite our occasionally unnecessarily hostile tone, Funcom does read our feedback and acts upon it, as evidenced by the improvements done to the survey. (I assume that rather than an Immersyve agent scouting the forums, it was the Funcom community management staff who relayed our feedback to Immersyve.)