Malware in Games

Proprietary malware

By type:

By product:

By company:

Nonfree (proprietary) software is very often malware (designed to mistreat the user). Nonfree software is controlled by its developers, which puts them in a position of power over the users; that is the basic injustice. The developers and manufacturers often exercise that power to the detriment of the users they ought to serve.

This typically takes the form of malicious functionalities.

Among the numerous malicious functionalities that are found in games, addictiveness may be the worst, because it doesn't only affect users materially, but also psychologically.

If you know of an example that ought to be in this page but isn't here, please write to <webmasters@gnu.org> to inform us. Please include the URL of a trustworthy reference or two to serve as specific substantiation.

Microsoft recorded users of Xboxes and had human workers listen to the recordings.

Morally, we see no difference between having human workers listen and having speech-recognition systems listen. Both intrude on privacy.
Resourceful children figured out how to empty their parents' bank account buying packs of special players for an Electronic Arts soccer game.

The random element of these packs (also called “loot boxes”) makes the game strongly addictive, but the fact that players are pressured to spend more in order to get ahead of their competitors further qualifies it as predatory. Note that Belgium made these loot boxes illegal in 2018.

The only good reason to have a copy of such a proprietary game is to study it for free software development.
Clash of Clans is a good example of a gratis mobile game that its developers made very addictive for a large proportion of its users—and turned into a cash machine for themselves—by using psychological manipulation techniques.

(The article uses “free” to mean “zero price,” which is a usage we should avoid. We recommend saying “gratis” instead.)
A nonfree video game, available through the nonfree Steam client, included a “miner”, i.e. an executable that hijacks the CPU in users' computers to mine a cryptocurrency.
The game Metal Gear Rising for MacOS was tethered to a server. The company shut down the server, and all copies stopped working.
Red Shell is a spyware that is found in many proprietary games. It tracks data on users' computers and sends it to third parties.
ArenaNet surreptitiously installed a spyware program along with an update to the massive multiplayer game Guild Wars 2. The spyware allowed ArenaNet to snoop on all open processes running on its user's computer.
Learn how gratis-to-play-and-not-win-much games manipulate their useds psychologically.

These manipulative behaviors are malicious functionalities, and they are possible because the game is proprietary. If it were free, people could publish a non-manipulative version and play that instead.
The driver for a certain gaming keyboard sends information to China.
In the game Fruit Pop, the player buys boosts with coins to get a high score. The player gets coins at the end of each game, and can buy more coins with real money.

Getting a higher score once leads the player to desire higher score again later. But the higher score resulting from the boost does not give the player more coins, and does not help the player get a higher score in subsequent games. To get that, the player will need a boost frequently, and usually has to pay real money for that. Since boosts are exciting and entertaining, the player is subtly pushed to purchase more coins with real money to get boosts, and it can develop into a costly habit.
nVidia's proprietary GeForce Experience makes users identify themselves and then sends personal data about them to nVidia servers.
A Capcom's Street Fighter V update installed a driver that could be used as a back door by any application installed on a Windows computer, but was immediately rolled back in response to public outcry.
Oculus Rift games now have DRM meant to prevent running them on other systems.
Many video game consoles snoop on their users and report to the internet—even what their users weigh.

A game console is a computer, and you can't trust a computer with a nonfree operating system.
Modern gratis game cr…apps collect a wide range of data about their users and their users' friends and associates.

Even nastier, they do it through ad networks that merge the data collected by various cr…apps and sites made by different companies.

They use this data to manipulate people to buy things, and hunt for “whales” who can be led to spend a lot of money. They also use a back door to manipulate the game play for specific players.

While the article describes gratis games, games that cost money can use the same tactics.
Game Of War: Fire Age is an iPhone game with addictive features which are based on behavioral manipulation techniques, compounded with group emulation. After a fairly easy start, the game slows down and becomes more difficult, so gamers are led to spend more and more money in order to keep up with their group. And if they stop playing for a while, the equipment they invested in gets destroyed by the “enemy” unless they buy an expensive “shield” to protect it. This game is also deceptive, as it uses confusing menus and complex stats to obfuscate true monetary costs.
Nintendo remotely sabotaged all Wiis, making them refuse to work unless the user agrees to a new EULA.

We can be quite sure this EULA is unjust because injustice is the only motive for imposing an EULA.
Angry Birds spies for companies, and the NSA takes advantage to spy through it too. Here's information on more spyware apps.

More about NSA app spying.
Some proprietary games lure children to spend their parents' money.
The Playstation 3 is a tyrant.
Sony sabotaged the Playstation 3 with a firmware downgrade that removed the feature that allowed users to run GNU/Linux on it.

Sony subsequently sent police after Geohot, after he cracked the code that blocked users from changing the firmware, and we responded by calling for a boycott of Sony.

In a court settlement Sony is now paying for the sabotage.
Blizzard Warden is a hidden “cheating-prevention” program that spies on every process running on a gamer's computer and sniffs a good deal of personal data, including lots of activities which have nothing to do with cheating.