Every week it seems another gaming website or another gaming comic has joined the GameSpy network. Most gaming sites link to this FilePlanet for downloads. They have their own client program called GameSpy Arcade that they are constantly trying to entice me to install. They even went so far as to include it in my Fallout: Tactics demo. They’re trying to get my computer hooked into the GameSpy network, and it’s making me nervous.
Who is behind this, and what do they hope to achieve by centralizing gaming sites? What sort of persuasion do they use to get other sites to join them? What do they need with my computer? Are they going to send my Tetris scores to their central database? Do I want to live in a world where I can’t lie about my Tetris scores? Is it too late to stop them?