A number of developers are being targeted by gamers over what they see as spyware being installed alongside the games they paid for. Titles like Hunt: Showdown, Conan Exiles, Elder Scrolls Online, and Civilization VI have all been found to contain a program called Redshell which collects information about a system such as its operating system, IP address, and browser version and uses that to enhance the developer's marketing efforts.
The purpose of Redshell is said to be to help track how well advertisements and marketing for gamers are doing at bringing certain gamers to the table. Redshell developers also pledge that no personally identifiable information is collected as part of its harvesting process. That's not something gamers are willing to discuss the nuance of though, as many of them have been calling for boycotts of games until developers respond.
And some already have. The developer of Dead by Daylight, said in a statement (via Kotaku): "We integrated Red Shell with the goal to track the efficiency of our marketing campaigns (how many players clicked on our advertisements on social media platforms and then purchased the game afterwards). There was never any intention to sell data to third parties."
Despite that promise though, it claimed to have heard the calls from gamers and would be removing Redshell in the upcoming 2.0 update. They're not the only one either. 16 games have now removed Redshell following outcry from gamers. That list includes Elder Scrolls Online, Conan Exiles, Hunt: Showdown, Battlerite, Secret World Legends, all Total War games, and Warhammer: Vermintide.
Considering the backlash from gamers, we wouldn't be surprised if more follow suit soon. If you want to know whether your favorite game has Redshell installed, you can look for files named just that, or check out the list of confirmed titles that
