I’m a few days late on covering this, but the slightly crazy situation my friend Prince Watercress had with the website GameAnyone is, well, I wouldn’t call it over, but it’s come to a resolution.
You can read Part 1 and Part 2 at the following links – I won’t explain the entire situation here again.
The Strange Case Of GameAnyone And Auto-Generated Accounts
An Update On The GameAnyone Situation
So, we left off with Watercress having sent a second email to whomever manages email on the site inquiring about just what the hell was going on. Well, let’s move to over a week later, and he has gotten tired of waiting. That’s right, after 2 emails regarding this, nothing. Not even a stock response.
Great web admin work there, guys!
So, what was our favorite Echidna fan to do?
Claim the account. It’s the only option he had, as you will recall this phantom account was causing issues with other content creators who do use GameAnyone to actually be able to share their own content there. Claiming the account would at least allow him to remove content he didn’t create, thus letting others who do use the service share their videos without issue.
Still, it’s stupid that he had to do that, and for all intents and purposes this counts as a “capture” to the site – they got someone to properly sign up, for whatever it’s worth to them. Signing up for a site doesn’t mean you will regularly use it but they seem to be figuring it will get some people to stick around who otherwise woudln’t use the site at all.
Still, it’s something that shouldn’t have been the case. They should never make accounts on behalf of of someone, creating an “opt out” scenario which, honestly, isn’t even that – it’s “opt in or don’t because we don’t give you an option to not have an account at all.” No respect for the individuals right to not have an account there, oh no – if you do Let’s plays, we’re just going to set you up with an account because, you know, you totally want one, right? Right.
It’s a kind of strong-arm tactic that’s pretty damned sleazy. I know, in the grand scheme of things this isn’t important, but it’s still not right, regardless of how important it may or may not be.
So, that’s really it. I don’t think there’s anything else to say, between the previous two articles and this follow up.
I just suggest, maybe, if you are someone involved in “Let’s Play” videos and the like that you at least see if you have a phantom account on GameAnyone and if so, take it over and delete everything you can on it. Or use it, I don’t really care, but if basically forcing people to “join” the site by making phantom accounts like this is the only way this site can get members? Count me out. I want nothing to do with them, and I will hope this is the last I have to write of them.
Apparently they have a history of being not too great on a whole, either….
You just really think you could get at least some reply out of them, but given the above… maybe that’s asking too much.