Vista security too tight on casual games, claims WildTangent

While the software is generally regarded as harmless, it's often installed without express consent (and remains self-updating); WildTangent also reserves the right to collect personal information for use in tuning its products.

Aka.... spyware.

Watch as I play the world's smallest violin for you, WildTangent.

They're known to consort with spyware firms. Consequently, you can take anything they say with a boulder sized grain of salt.

If a spyware vendor is complaining that Vista's security is too tight and making lame red herring arguments to support them, then Microsoft must've done something right.

Vista blocks Wild Tangent? Microsoft just went up a notch in my book.

I should also mention that, amidst all the negativity, one of the things that Microsoft seems to really be advocating with Vista is having a really big focus on keeping workstations free of crapware.

Wow, I sure am glad to hear this. I was sorry the first time I ever saw something from Wild Tangent come up on my screen, and subsequently more sorry when I found out that their crappy games come laced with spyware and adware. Good riddance to them.

My feelings exactly guys. I despise WildTangent. If I want to play those games (and I don't) why do I need some crappy software, chock full of spy/adware, to play them? Why not make these 'fly by night' games a direct exe that just plays the darn game?

Wild tangent gives the legit small indie game developers a bad name. No one should have to put up with installing portal software just to d/l and run a game.

Great for blocking Wildtangent, shame it will affect the small (non spyware) guys too).

@ncxcstud: "Why not make these 'fly by night' games a direct exe that just plays the darn game"

As an EXE, every single game could have unique spyware. The solution is to run casual games in a sandbox, like, oh, Flash.

Yeah, this is actually great news. I can't stand having all those WT games pre-installed :-/

FUCK Wild Tangent

Yeah, fuck them.

"Wahh wahh wahh! Vista makes it too hard for me to invade people's computers and privacy! Wahh wahh wahh!"

Shall we get some cheese to go with their whine? Perhaps Limburger so it stinks like their software.

Piss off, Alex. As much as I should love you for being the man behind the XBox, I despise you for pushing that WildTangent nonsense.

Indeed, world's tiniest violin for WildTangent. Fuck them.

Is this the same company that brought us the insipid BonzaiBuddy? If so, they can die in a fire, along with that annoying purple beast.

wildtangent=system resource eating spyware. I could careless if it's a game or not. Why does your software need to run ALL THE TIME? It should only be running when I am playing games, not in the background at all times of the day. This is a huge pet-peeve of mine, it seems that in this day and age, every piece of software you run wants to run in the background. The end result is a slow ass computer because you have 60 running processes while the PC is at idle.

Yeah that crap WildTangent is putting out is spyware. +1 for Microsoft

The funny thing about Alex St. John is that he used to work for MS YEARS ago..I remember he used to write a column for Maximum PC (Then called Boot)..It's a shame he turned to producing such shit...

Microsoft has done such a good job at reclassifying their spyware as "OS Features" that you guys are COMPLETELY inured to it.

Do you want Passport?
Do you want Passport?
Do you want Passport?

Are you sure?
Are you sure?
Are you sure?

Here's to the power of keeping quiet about spyware! Apparently objecting publicly to it is the ultimate anti-spyware with you guys.

I don't think many of you read the article. The only reason why WildTangent games have incompatibility with Vista is because they don't have an ESRB rating. It has nothing to do with the spyware/adware it has. A big company like WildTangent will have no problem getting ESRB to rate their game fast. I don't know about indie developers. Might get stuck in loopholes. (and i don't know if ESRB charges to rate your game)

Hey Wildtangent, Spyware company says "What?"

Wow...I am actually giving Microsoft props for something?! Kick some ass Bill!

I was just coming to post what ShortFuse did (#20). The games are "blocked" because there is no ESRB rating and Vista Parental Controls presumably treat an unrated game strictly (as they should). This has nothing to do with blocking spyware.

Its like drug dealers complaining to the local police about too many crackdowns happening. STFU wildtangent!!!
http://www.rolesor.com

To listen to Alex St. John whine about his Wild Tangent crapware being blocked is music to my ears...It's spyware, and kudos to Vista for blocking it.

#20 & #22

I called this argument a red herring argument for a reason. WildTangent is whining about it not because they're concerned about the inability of kids to play unrated games, but because kids can't play their unrated spyware games on their parents' Vista machines. Oh noes! Won't someone please think of the children?

Yahooo! Yay! WooHooo! Yippiee! (heard across land by IT guys everywhere)

I don't know what Internet crack you guys are smoking up here. WildTangent isn't spyware, is never installed without express user permission, has never served pop-up ads, and has never installed a background process without asking the users explict permission to automatically check for game updates. No major commercial malware products list us as spyware or malware.

All of which is beside the point because Vista doesn't block ANYTHING we do. Our software works great in Vista. I posted a press release alerting consumers and other game developers that Vista broadly breaks many downloadable games. We spent a year getting compatible with Vista and are the only ones that have a catalog of all the popular downloadable games that actually work well in Vista.

WildTangent makes and sells games, that's all we've ever done. Nutty people...

-TheSaint

Benjamin (comment #1) my boulders are bigger than yours - and I have two!

I had to go RIP wild tangent from my registry so it would finally stop self updating (even though I unistalled it) and generally acting like some sort of horrible Terminator precursor.

Every morning when I turn on my computer I get "Wild tangent could not execute its functions because its registry file is corrupt or missing."

Thanks Vista. You get a +1 A'aight in my book.

First of all we've NEVER shipped a game that installed an updater without the users express permission, so the only reason you could possible have one running on your machine is if you or another user in your family asked the game you installed to self patch when it was installed.

The only time we hear about our games being hard to remove is when somebody has run a spyware removal product on it or tried to manually remove it instead of just using the uninstaller first resulting in a broken uninstaller. The updater also always came with its own control panel app to simply turn it off.

The irony here is that all that stuff still works GREAT in Vista, the problems we encountered with VISTA is that it breaks the games themselves not the support technology for delivering game patches dynamically.

Needless to say we moved away from self patching games years ago when it became clear that spyware hysteria was making consumers see spyware everywhere. Now we just ship a game download manager that people can use to manually get updates for games as they become available. It makes it much easier for consumers to understand patching technology when they have to request patches manually.

-TheSaint

personally I enjoy playing wild tangent games, and altho I have a had a few probs playing Fate on Vista. I have never had a spyware/adware problem with wild tangent.