Hey all,

Thank you so much for your interest in the game. We want to clear up the discussion around Data Collection and be fully transparent on what we are tracking or using within the game. We hope that the below information will assist with any concerns you may have.

We also understand people will want to have the ability to disable data collection so we will be following up with a build soon so you have the peace of mind. We agree that we need to improve the current transparency around the use of data in the game and we take this seriously and want to set the record straight.

Unlike some other games we do not make you provide us with email addresses or social accounts to login to our game services. Our only goal with the data we collect is to ensure the game is as good as it can be and that we’re in touch with what players are saying, as well as what they are doing during their gameplay sessions. This is imperative for us to ensure through the rest of Early Access that we’re working on the right things at the right time. We do not sell this data to anyone or use it in any other context.

We use several different tools to accomplish this, and some are temporary and will be replaced with new systems in the future. Below is a list of every tool we use to collect data and why we use it.

DDNA (DeltaDNA) - This is our analytic platform and is purely used for tracking gameplay data such as how many people are winning, where people are dying, gold / wood / resources used etc. We understand that the tagline of DeltaDNA is to assist with “Free to Play” and is predominantly a mobile analytics tool, however, that isn’t it’s only purpose. We do use this on our mobile titles, but have reworked it to support what we need from Age of Darkness.

There is no personal data linked to this and we cannot use this data for any other purpose than understanding how our players are playing Age of Darkness, and how we can make it the best game possible.

When the game starts up a user is specified with a randomised ID that is not tied to any other platforms outside of the DeltaDNA platform. Currently we do have the ability to know which country a user has come from through the IP address used to send the data. VPN’s will stop this feature from working correctly as it will be based on the VPN’s location. The ability to see game usage data based on country allows us prioritise countries for localisation of languages and see if specific countries are having issues in the game or with tutorial popups etc.

Since day 1 we have been sharing some of this data with our players in our Discord channel. We think this is not just great for helping guide us in where we should be prioritizing design, but also fun and interesting for our community to see. Below are some examples.

{LINK REMOVED}https://discord.com/channels/855351373595672597/856578626770436166/896539882883805184 - Nighmares Killed
{LINK REMOVED}https://discord.com/channels/855351373595672597/856578626770436166/896539954816114738 - Victories by Difficulty


This data is important to us to allow us to balance the game during early access. We do believe that it's your choice to allow us to use this and we are currently working on getting an option to disable this tracking.

To further restrict the data capture to Delta DNA we have turned on the COPPA compliance flag. This treats the data to further restrictions to ensure it meets the very strict COPPA compliance requirements. This is predominantly used for games targeting children but for safety we have turned this on for all AOD users to minimise data capture and provide maximum data protection for you all.

More information can be found below:

{LINK REMOVED}https://deltadna.com/blog/faq-items/is-the-deltadna-platform-compliant-with-coppa-the-childrens-online-privacy-protection-act/

{LINK REMOVED}https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/business-center/guidance/complying-coppa-frequently-asked-questions-0

Sentry (Crash Reporting) - We have a crash reporting tool in Age of Darkness called Sentry. This allows us to get crash logs and information around the crash (such as the line of code that is causing it) to allow us to improve the stability of the game.

The users PC specs that are shared with us are below:

CPU,
Graphics Card,
RAM,
OS version and build,
Local language/Region.

These are used so we can find specific hardware issues in the game. As a smaller team trying to deliver something big, this kind of data collection allows us to ensure that we’re releasing something that meets our quality standards. A machine and User ID (randomly generated by sentry) and Epic ID (if you have one). The Epic ID is provided by default via the Unreal Engine (the engine we made the game in). This allows us to work with users who are having issues and find specific errors reported by them.

We will have the ability to turn these off in the settings also in the next update. We genuinely hope that you’re open to keeping this on, as it greatly increases the amount of hardware we’re able to support.

Google / Email - We use only one google product in Age of Darkness, which is Gmail. This is connected to our feedback and bug reporting option in the settings menu, which allows us to gather feedback from players easily and quickly. If you don’t submit anything, nothing will be sent to us. We do have plans in the near future to change this system, so more to come here in the future.

Achilles.exe - When we start any new project, we use a code name to refer to the project. In hindsight,we do understand that the naming of the game is a little concerning. Please note this is our initial internal project name for Age of Darkness: Final Stand.

We hope this clears up any confusion and we deem to be fully transparent in the usage of data to ensure Age of Darkness is the best it can be!