Hello my dude, Thanks for taking the time to give us a different viewpoint. I'll try to analise everything
Almost all of the data the game itself sends back to us is play stats (such as how many players are playing each game mode, the win rate on each difficulty, etc) which we use to improve the game (this is partly how we made such big improvements to the AI in 2.0.1 and 2.0.2!).
Don't care, should be opt-in. And you shouldn't even have an EULA on steam. If you notice, the developers who don't steal data, also have no reason to have an EULA because everything is nicely regulated with the default Steam Terms of Service
The game also has some basic error logging and navigation/purchase tracking on the main menu (note: not red shell, don't even go there). All of this data is completely, 100% anonymised - it's bulk data with no notion of individual user information beyond a randomly generated number with no identifiers attached to it. Being this anonymous does reduce the accuracy of the data, but user privacy was more important than fully accurate data for us.
For most of people, it's not about the data per se, but about someone taking it without asking, which is bad. If you ask nicely, people might give you data. This is basically saying: "we are stealing your data without asking you, BUT we totally anonimize it with an excel sheet and it is super totally secure, you could use this system for online voting". Yea, no.
Again: The game itself sends absolutely no personal information back to us. It does, however, create locally stored error logs which you can choose to send as part of a support request - these are theoretically fully anonymised, but does contain information that some users may see as 'personal', such as system specs. However, this information is only ever used when a player directly requests support.
Theoretically, you shouldn't worry about that. If your game doesn't work on someones system, they could contact a forum, and people would sort it out for them because it's always some bullshit like updating the driver or dis/enabling some legacy windows feature.
The only exception is the Newsletter Signup on the main menu, where you can willfully submit your email address for our newsletter.
Oh, I love newsletter groups in my games. Just as much as Facebook icons. I mean really. Are you so disconnected from reality that you think anyone would like that literal crap. What's next? Mobile games and microtransactions?
Despite this being explained to the author of the review (and them again updating it after this being explained), they have chosen to not removed the blatantly false information. I do take great personal offence to this because we are an extremely player-focused studio, and go above and beyond in every way we possibly can to make good games and keep people happy. Having our actions misrepresented, and having blatant lies posted about us is incredibly upsetting.
To be blunt: the 'alarmist nonsense' comment below is putting it mildly. I mean, come on, how on earth did you draw the conclusion that we sell your data? Who do you think we are, EA? ;)
Whining
This was my analisys of your response on steam, and now I will take a look at the policies.
You confirm your agreement to this EULA and our Privacy Policy https://wftogame.com/privacy-policy by accepting it as part of the installation/activation process
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We may vary this EULA as and when we consider it appropriate or necessary for legal reasons or to reflect changes in WFTO. If so, then we will make the revised EULA available at http://wftogame.com.
The classic scummy catch 22 where you agree to something by installing the game (which is debatable if it would uphold in court), and in advance agreeing to retroactively accept any changes to said EULA whatsoever. In what fucking sense are you any different than EA (besides not actually exploiting this, unlike them)
The privacy eula is also classic. But if you actually wanted to make people not weary of possible (which are totally possible) shifty machinations from your side, you could easily make the privacy policy like 3 sentences longer, and actually explain that you MAY collect the name and personal stuff ONLY if someone contacts support. That you MAY collect the computer data ONLY if someone contacts support and needs help. That, by playing the single player game, you collect literally nothing. Not even from the facebook or newsletter icons. That by playing online, (which should have a seperate opt-in privacy policy presented to the player in-game for him to accept or not each time (like in MGSV), you MAY collect some Extremely Anonimized Score, gameplay and player data.
This stuff is important because under your "one size fits all" policy, you can make a patch today and add redshell to everyones game, and steal all their hardware data, and even personal data if you update your EULA, which you totally can whenever you want, and everyone already agreed to follow it.
In short: My advice for you, to be a "good guy developer":
Lose the shitty third party EULA on steam completely. If others can do it, so can you. But you "have to" have it because you wanna steal data.
Lose your shitty newsletter, this isn't grade school. Have some respect. Lose everything that has nothing to do with the game.
Change your policy so it clearly outlines which parts of your services steal your data, and which don't.
Make people contact customer services over a forum like in the old days, there is no need to mash that privacy policy with the actual game.
Basically, ask fellow devs like A hat in time, Dark souls, Absolute Drift, Grim DAwn, Supergiant Games, how they manage to put out nice games without intruding upon the privacy of their customers. Some of those are established "good guy" developers. They don't need our data. Be a bit self conscious and realize that you are a small shitty studio, which tried to make a DK2 sucessor, and failed.. BUT, you try to do big boy data gathering like it matters, with a sprinkle of bad achievements, and mobile game bullshit like newsletters and a whole bunch of DLCs like they actually add something. Why not put that time in to make a good game so I actually want to buy it? I refuse to buy your game because of the EULA mainly, then secondly because it has impossible achievements which also require multiplayer (multiplayer games have a major problem, and that is that they swiftly die as soon as there is no playerbase), and finally because of the abundance of DLCs, while the reviews still saying that the game has no soul and is shallow.
Just make a game like DK2, get rid of the mobile game bullshit, and make the multiplayer optional, without achievements, get rid of the EULA, make only a few big expansions that actually add a good chunk into the game, put some soul into the game, and THEN you will be a "good guy developer" too, and people will like and buy your game.
Show this to your boss, maybe you guys will learn something.