That's cool. Really, really cool. Should lead to a better experience for everyone.

I don't like them getting information such as 80% of players using a male Shepard. I play a female Shepard, and they already shun her as much as possible now.. With that data, they'll have even more reason to.

surprise? they are watching you, recording your habits and watching for emergent gameplay to put into a sequel/expansion/DLC...and if you didn't know that you're a moron.
Look at SC2: the entire multiplayer has to be the laziest thing I've ever seen. The gamers are basically making it for actiblizz, and I bet you your hat you'll see some of those "published"
custom games implemented in some form in the "sequels".
Without any form of compensation or credit given to the original "publisher" because after all, actiblizz owns whatever you put onto its network...or what it detects when it is watching your comp to make sure you aren't cheating.

CriMs0nC0bra:
I don't like them getting information such as 80% of players using a male Shepard. I play a female Shepard, and they already shun her as much as possible now.. With that data, they'll have even more reason to.

Those stats would tell Bioware to make a female playthrough more compelling though, not less so. They want to try to balance out the choices as much as possible by offering incentive, not pandering to the popular opinion, as you can see when the developer talks about more people playing Solider.

Smart move, although it was to be expected.

AAAAAGH SPYS IN MUH XBOX!

just read about this on rockpapershotgun

Looks like i'm a somewhat typical player

male default face
Infiltrator
completion time with all DLC 45 hours
2 playthroughs
No import save from ME 1
All loyalty mission complete
all side quests complete

I like the idea of behind the curtains feedback, but I hope they don't take things the wrong way. They should remember that the freedom of choice is centural to the games fun, even if not so many people choose an option they shouldn't remove underused parts of the game to keep it streamlined. That was apparently the initial problem with the design team of Deus Ex 3.

CriMs0nC0bra:
I don't like them getting information such as 80% of players using a male Shepard. I play a female Shepard, and they already shun her as much as possible now.. With that data, they'll have even more reason to.

not really, they could go back and look at why people choose John more than Jane and try to fix it.

OT: I also have a female shepard [have to get a 100% game completion somehow], and I will be VERY dissapointed if a Krogan, Grunt, Wrex, or any new addition for ME3, isnt a romantic choice.

Big brother? Heh, Bioware doesn't know who i am, just how i play.

And yes, I slept with Jack people. And I am proud.

Logan Westbrook:

"More people played the soldier class than all of the other classes combined," he said. "If you know that, then you can start thinking about future games. Is that good? Is that a problem? Should we look at the other classes and start thinking about ways to make them selected as often as soldier? As part of asking these questions, we can design games in the future a lot better."

I can answer that right now, Assault Rifle. In fact, that was for ME1, ME2, Reverent machine gun.

Also, I played the Vangaurd and Infiltrator as I enjoy their special abilities, the soldier in ME2 doesnt have that good of speacial ability. And Bioware, if you are reading this, BRING BACK THE LEVELING AND SKILL ELEMENTS FROM ME1, AND DROP THE AMMO POWERS!!!! Seriously.

*Edit*

Kalezian:

CriMs0nC0bra:
I don't like them getting information such as 80% of players using a male Shepard. I play a female Shepard, and they already shun her as much as possible now.. With that data, they'll have even more reason to.

not really, they could go back and look at why people choose John more than Jane and try to fix it.

OT: I also have a female shepard [have to get a 100% game completion somehow], and I will be VERY dissapointed if a Krogan, Grunt, Wrex, or any new addition for ME3, isnt a romantic choice.

I usually play a female shepard, because I dont like the male shepards voice actor... and for Garrus. WHAT!? He's badass.

Zynga do this and people think that it's sinister but EA do it and they are disappointed that Bioware haven't them hooked up to a cat scanner to work out how they can be manipulated into paying more for less.

tlozoot:

CriMs0nC0bra:
I don't like them getting information such as 80% of players using a male Shepard. I play a female Shepard, and they already shun her as much as possible now.. With that data, they'll have even more reason to.

Those stats would tell Bioware to make a female playthrough more compelling though, not less so. They want to try to balance out the choices as much as possible by offering incentive, not pandering to the popular opinion, as you can see when the developer talks about more people playing Solider.

I dunno dude, me and both my Mass Effect playing friends rolled female shepard. Firstly because male sheppards voice acting grates my nerves so hard. I can't even put my finger on it but something is unnatural about his inflection. Since i played a female sheppard in 1 in my mass effect canon sheppard is a lady, and will stay that way. I think this data will be used more for "why didn't people give a crap to listen to this dialogue, can we make our narrative more engaging here?" Or "How come people skip this mission, is it more frustration than the fun/reward deems tolerable?"

I'd like to see them do a broader stroke game after ME3, but rather than go Dragon Age style and let me pick several races but still have primarily the same story, just make a game centered around the Krogan rebellions, or the rachni wars. Center a game around a Krogan, or Salarian. Just call me up when they release the Blasto game. This one has forgotten if it's heatsink is over capacity. It wonders if the criminal scum considers itself fortunate.

thefreeman0001:
i cringed when i saw that pc players tried to secure mirandas "loyalty" more then 360 players.

True that, I'm a PC player and Miranda is the ONLY loyalty I didn't have going into the final battle.

hyperdrachen:
Just call me up when they release the Blasto game. This one has forgotten if it's heatsink is over capacity. It wonders if the criminal scum considers itself fortunate.

Ecstatic, that would be amazing.

While I have absolutely no problem with them collecting this information to help make future games better or to have awesome stats to show, I am very disappointed in the players. This is one of the best games ever. Almost everyone should be importing a game, and the class system should be a lot more balanced. Why so many soldiers, they all kick ass people, try them for once.

Wait, let me get this straight.

PC gamers all went for the sexy chick everyones had wet dreams about,
and 360 players went for the frogman that was grown in the same manner as Michel Jackson's son?

Thats sad, and makes me wish i didnt own a 360.

Soldier the most played class? That just seems... odd. Why pick the most boring class?

I'm surprised that there's an article about data mining in games, and no one mentions Valve.

If I read the code in the source SDK right, the source engine records every action the player makes and sends a gameplay report back to Valve later. And then there's steam...

I'm fine with it, just so long as the devs who gather this information actually use it to improve gameplay. It'd also be nice to see some of the Mass Effect information available for view.

thefreeman0001:
i cringed when i saw that pc players tried to secure mirandas "loyalty" more then 360 players.

Actually, it's not really -that- cringe worthy, as the Loyalty missions don't automatically lead to romancing the character, that actually takes quite a bit more dialogue.

Were that the case, it -would- be slightly...odd, that 360 games chose Grunt over Miranda. xD Not that there's anything wrong with that. ^^' Though it could point to console gamers preferring giant, warrior type characters over PC players preference for...err...umm...confident intellectual females with huge...character development?

oranger:
Without any form of compensation or credit given to the original "publisher" because after all, actiblizz owns whatever you put onto its network...or what it detects when it is watching your comp to make sure you aren't cheating.

Yeah cause no one has ever made a custom map and got a job out of it. OH WAIT league of legends. Thanks for the laughs though.

Logan Westbrook:
Hudson said he had been surprised to learn that more than half of all players had imported a save from the first Mass Effect

That surprised them? Huh...

Actually, that kid of explains quite a bit. Always thought surprisingly little effort was put behind relationship continuity (or whatever you wanna call it), seeing how the import feature was one of the game's biggest selling point for me. Maybe if they had had more faith in the feature, it wouldn't have turned out as watered down.

Announcement of Mass Effect 3: "We took a lot a feedback from the community, and found that almost everyone fucked Tali. For this reason, Tali will now be the main character of Mass Effect 3, and will walk around completely naked."
*shows gameplay footage*
"Yes, that's right, under that suit there was a smoking hot blonde the entire time!"

Will they gather that I thought it was shit?
And that I thought it should have more than three skills? (No, there are not six. Putting special ammo in a gun is not a skill)
And that not being able to quicksave in combat was fucking annoying?

Ugh... Whilst I kind of understand why they do it, I'm not quite sure I like it... Couldn't they at least have asked for permission first?

sounds good to me, its impersonal, and gathers useful stuff for making mass effect 3 even more awesome.

However i hope it did tell them that having all powers have a global cooldown is F**cking irritating, and makes playing a biotic much, much less fun than in the first.

Arachon:
Ugh... Whilst I kind of understand why they do it, I'm not quite sure I like it... Couldn't they at least have asked for permission first?

It's called the End User License Agreement. You acquiring the game gives them permission to do this.

hyperdrachen:
AAAAAGH SPYS IN MUH XBOX!

You can sometimes get of the slippery little bastards by poking toothpicks throught the air conditioning holes and impaling them.
Just giving you some advice y'know.

As long as there's no personal information involved, I think this is a great idea, because it's an easier way to find out what works and what doesn't than listening to a small but vocal minority of whiners on forums or something.

I definitely contributed to that soldier demographic, since there is no problem that cannot be solved with more dakka. I tried playing as an adept, but I felt like I was just sitting around with my thumb up my ass when stuff was on cooldown.

I think I know why PC players did Miranda's loyalty mission.

Too see this:

In skin-tight black leather.

Just sayin'...