SWAT4 fans have been on the offensive, following news that the new 1.1 patch contains a feature adding advertising to the game and collecting players' data, including IP address and how long they play for. The new patch implements Massive streaming ad support, which changes some of the in-game textures to adverts for real products. It also gathers information about players, detailed in their privacy policy.
Massive's website claims that, "over 90% of 'core gamers' do not mind in-game advertising in their games." This has hardly been the response from the SWAT4 community, where the changes, once identified , have been met with much reistance, with calls for an opt-out for gamers. While some members of the community appear indifferent to the changes, others object to the changes. Debate has been relatively widespread, reaching even the 10-david forums. Jolt's SWAT4 forums though remain, as ever, comment-free.
The popular fansite, swat-4.com has closed down due to lack of support from the developers.
It is with regret that we have made the decision to close SWAT-4.com down for good, mainly because it was becoming increasingly difficult for us to support a game that has had no news about Swat 4's future in terms of a patch or upgrade. We fear it may not turn out the way many of us hope for.
It will certainly be a shame to lose such ability from the SWAT4 community. Lets hope a patch comes soon, eh?
You heard me right! Gamespot DLX are running a free 60 minute trial of SWAT4! So all you guys who haven't bought it yet (and have a decent t'internet connection) can download it here. This is the full game, just with a 60 minute trial, and at a whopping 919MB, hopefully the 60 minutes doesn't include the download time.
Update: It appears this is only the single-player game.
