I left the pc gaming scene about 20 years ago and only came bacj this year. I found my steam credentials from when they were initially seeking players and revived my account (I closed my email on the account back in 2009, so i couldn’t recover).
I’ve mostly been playing vSkyrim, BG 3, and a few emulated Zelda games. I finally ordered a new gaming laptop because Cyberpunk 2077 is hard to rrad on the Deck, even on a 50" tv on hi-res.
All that is just so you all know where I’m coming from, i am both a newb and a veteran!
From a business standpoint, looking ant it form the non-gaming financial point of view, the move to online-only makes very compelling sense.
It fully implements the licensing model, gives them total control over the property, enables them to generate reports that accurately identify trndsvin user populations, pinpoint steady revenue figures, and they can kill the game as soon as it isn’t valuable to them anymore, and they don’t have to worry about losing revenue from sharing, passing the copy to an otherwise paying customer for free, or a significant pirtiin of piracy loss.
Itvis the end state of the “we are mearly licensing it to you until such time as we decide ee want it back” model.
It sucks, and if i can know it is online only before buying, i will pass. All of us should. Revenue is king to them, and if they lose even a little, they will try something else.
I’m guessing his/her point involves the location of its incorporation. Any company in the “five eyes” zone can be forced to release details about its users to any member state. One must evaluate whether NordVPN keeps anything more than a few hours - days tops - to decide if it is “safe enough”. I was worried enough about this particular point that I chose a VPN that is not in any way beholden to five eyes or the fourteen eyes, which is a similar agreement.
Proton caught heat because of its release of information to the local law enforcement recently. While Switzerland is not part of the five eyes, it does have its own laws requiring a reveal in certain circumstances. I forgot the details, but I think they had an IP address that had not yet been wiped from cache, and that was enough to pinpoint the hackers being sought.
In truth, there’s no sure way to be sure. One still must trust the organization is both honest and competent enough to properly wipe any residual information. No matter who it is, some amount of information has to be in cache for some time in order to be able to deliver the service, and there also needs something tracking the workings of the system to ensure it isn’t overloaded or to find opportunities to improve it.