A tweet sent out by the Unity engine folks earlier about their stats page mentions that all Unity games automatically send your data to them on the first launch. This is interesting and worrying.
It's interesting because we have another avenue of checking up on how Linux is doing, and worrying because they send out software and hardware information without notice (and I never knew this!).
Linux seems to be pretty low overall:
Windows Player: 95.5%
OS X Player: 4.3%
Linux Player: 0.1%
Source
It's interesting as we can see that for Unity based games, Ubuntu and Linux Mint are top of the Linux distribution food chain:
Ubuntu: 61.4%
Mint: 15.0%
unknown: 12.6%
Linux 3.2 (Canaima 3.1): 3.1%
Manjaro: 2.0%
Arch: 2.0%
Elementary: 1.6%
Debian: 1.2%
Suse: 0.8%
Source
Quote taken from their official page:
I don't want to worry anyone here, but it's important that people know this is happening. Any bugs in this could easily send over private data by accident. Worse things have happened, so should this really be something that goes on silently?
There is no opt-out of this data collection either which is also a bit worrying as, again, it's all done behind the scenes.
How many of you knew Unity games did this? What do you think about it? I would be interested to see if people are as worried as me, or if they feel Unity should be trusted with our silently collected data? Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
It's interesting because we have another avenue of checking up on how Linux is doing, and worrying because they send out software and hardware information without notice (and I never knew this!).
Linux seems to be pretty low overall:
Windows Player: 95.5%
OS X Player: 4.3%
Linux Player: 0.1%
Source
It's interesting as we can see that for Unity based games, Ubuntu and Linux Mint are top of the Linux distribution food chain:
Ubuntu: 61.4%
Mint: 15.0%
unknown: 12.6%
Linux 3.2 (Canaima 3.1): 3.1%
Manjaro: 2.0%
Arch: 2.0%
Elementary: 1.6%
Debian: 1.2%
Suse: 0.8%
Source
Quote taken from their official page:
QuoteWhen installed, a Unity game submits anonymous hardware details. This is done only once, and does not contain any personally identifiable information (see the privacy policy for what exactly gets sent). We compute statistics of this information. This can be incredibly helpful for Unity game developers in helping them to make good content decisions and optimize performance of their games.
I don't want to worry anyone here, but it's important that people know this is happening. Any bugs in this could easily send over private data by accident. Worse things have happened, so should this really be something that goes on silently?
There is no opt-out of this data collection either which is also a bit worrying as, again, it's all done behind the scenes.
How many of you knew Unity games did this? What do you think about it? I would be interested to see if people are as worried as me, or if they feel Unity should be trusted with our silently collected data? Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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These days, before I buy a game, I check to see if it was/is made with Unity3D. If so, I treat it as if it doesn't have a native linux version at all. Automatic phoning home without user consent just reinforces that.
Their Linux user base isn't that big because Linux users are hardcore and don't want to play the mcdonalds of gaming at the top of their list.
I couldn't care less about them collecting impersonal metrics to understand their audience, its just not a very nice thing to do without a disclaimer or request for permission.
That really is a slap in the face and I'm truly disappointed- to put it very mildly.
So far, I was really happy with Unity3D based games on Linux because in my experience, they worked very well. That has just changed.
I don't think the problem is the information they collect (or rather claim to collect); I'd probably provide it would they've asked for it. The problem here is that companies obviously think these days it's alright to do it without asking for permission and informing their users first (not to mention the possibilities such a backdoor opens).
The more sh!te of this kind I read, the less interested I feel to turn my computer on at all. Guess technology has just taken a direction that I don't support and am not willing to follow.
If that were true, Steam for Linux would be dead and unused. It's much more of an issue for hardcore-linuxers.
But steam might be the reason for this low number. I guess most (linux) steamers have dual-boot windows, too, and many games there before there's a Linux version. Depending on how exactly the already-sent detection works, this could make the linux-version not-report on first start.....
Also, if you're gonna complain about unity data collecting, complain to Facebook, Apple, and even Google.
https://twitter.com/quickfiredustin/status/522021503337246720