Next Fest: No Spoilers

Before I got started on my review of the Nighthawks demo this morning, I thought I'd better play the last remaining demo on my list, Æther&Iron. Next Fest ends today and sometimes demos become unavailable immediately after.

To that end, I fired up Steam, hit Play and the first thing that appeared was the screen you see above. I've played a lot of demos. I wouldn't swear I've never been confronted by an EULA in the opening moments but it's certainly not anything I'd expect. If you're hoping to persuade people to give your game a try, I'd have to say it's not a great way to open.

Over the last forty-five years or so I've been playing computer games (Does anyone call them that any more?), the last quarter of a century mostly online, I've signed hundreds of EULAs. I used to be in the habit of reading them all the way through, carefully, but as time went on I became more and more resigned to simply clicking the acknowledgement box and taking the contents as read.

I was encouraged to start doing that when I learned that, under UK law, at least, the Unfair Contract Terms Act of 1977 provided a fairly reliable safety-net against any unreasonable clauses in these kinds of agreements. I did a short course in law when I was studying for some insurance exams back in another lifetime and I had a passing familiarity with the way the law worked in that particular area from my studies. 

Then, in 2015, that act was largely replaced by the Consumer Rights Act, with which I am much less familiar. I'm a lot fuzzier on the whole thing now.

More importantly, perhaps, most EULAs these days make quite specific stipulations about the national, regional and local laws that apply and about which jurisdictions would be used in case of legal action, making it somewhat uncertain whether UK law would be the primary factor in any case. It would be comforting to be able to say no-one would ever be extradited over something they'd done in a video game but given some of the attempts that have been made in the past, I would hesitate to say it's never going to happen. 

Not being clinically paranoid, I don't really expect any such action to be taken because someone did something silly in a video game but there is a slightly more realistic possibility that some publisher or developer might take exception to something someone might say about their game in a post or to some image used to illustrate it. Games developers and designers have occasionally dropped by the comments section here to mention that they've read a review so it's always somewhere in the back of my mind that anything I write might be seen by the makers of the game I'm writing about.

More cogently, I'm also somewhat interested in what happens to what I post, after I've posted it. Having been so frequently critical of the entire copyright system as it's existed since the eighteenth century, I'm aware it's somewhat hypocritical of me to want to hang on to ownership of my own work but hypocrisy is a failing I'm wiling to acknowledge in certain circumstances. 

It's not so much that I care if people copy my work and re-distribute it, which has happened occasionally, albeit not to my knowledge recently. I'm not making any money from it and I very much doubt anyone else would be able to, either. My objection isn't to so much with re-use of my work, with or without credit, as it is to the dictatorial proposition sometimes found in EULAs that all my base are belong to them. 

I still rarely read EULAs all the way through these days but I do often scan them quickly to see if anything stands out as unusual. If I come across one of those clauses that effectively read "Everything you ever do, anywhere, that remotely involves our game in any way, isn't yours, never was yours and never will be yours, so don't come crying to us about it if we take it and use it, in or out of context, anywhere, ever, you whining little baby",  it's quite likely I'll decline to play that game at all, let alone write about it.

As I said at the top, though, it's hardly something I'd expect to have to think about when loading up a demo. Demos are commercials. Advertisements. Promos. They're supposed to lure you in, not put you off. They exist to generate publicity, don't they?

Consequently, I thought I'd better have a quick squint through this one, just in case. And what I found was very interesting. 

I haven't read every word but I have skim-read the whole thing and given the sections that particularly caught my attention a bit more attention than that. It's not draconian or over-bearing or objectionable in any way. It's quite a friendly, even jolly EULA, as they go. 

And I can see what they're doing, I think. Maybe all EULAs are like this now or will be soon. 

For a start, the document makes very clear indeed that you don't, won't and never will own the game you're about to play, regardless of whether you've paid money for it or on which platform you've chosen to access it. 

I do like that short, declarative opening sentence: "We own the game". No room for quibbling there. Later, there's another clause that says they may at any time stop supporting the game and that's an end to it. I imagine this is exactly the way the Stop Killing Games campaign was hoping developers would react. Nothing like a bit of clarity to calm things down.

There's a fair bit more about access and changes to the game and platforms and availability, all of which makes it very plain that you, the player, have some very limited rights only, to play whatever version of the game is made available to you, for as long as it's made available, where it's made available. And that's it.

Again, very reasonable. It just codifies in advance what has always been the reality of online gaming, that being that you have to have an up-to-date, patched version of the game to access the official servers on which the only legal version of the game will be running and that the service can be suspended or terminated at any time, with or without notice. Anyone playing any MMORPG will recognize that as their existing reality, I'm sure.

For a demo, though, it feels a tad over the top. A demo is generally a throwaway experience, isn't it? Is anyone really expecting to be able to keep playing a demo indefinitely?

I wouldn't have bothered much about any of that. Par for the course for games, if not for demos. I was more interested what I could or couldn't say about it. And there's a lot about that in the small print, some of it quite unexpected.

It tells you what you can and can't do if you stream the game (Demo, I should say.) on Twitch or upload videos of you playing it to YouTube. It tells you how you can monetize your content via Patreon and how you can't.

I found these sections surprisingly chatty for a legal document but the intention was obviously to be helpful and supportive. Developers want people to make content about their games (By which they mean videos and streams, mainly.) and these devs also understand that people make a living doing it so they're willing to meet content creators halfway over monetization.

There's also a lengthy section about making Mods that I won't address because I know bugger all about Mods, neither creating them or using them. I will say that I can't remember seeing that aspect of the ecosystem being addressed in such detail in an EULA before but that's likely to be because I would have skipped right past it as irrelevant.

So far, I hadn't seen anything that would prevent me from ticking the box and playing the demo. Or writing about it afterwards. And then I saw this:

"If your User Content contains "spoilers" of the story of our game, your content must contain an appropriate "spoiler warning" either at the beginning of your User Content (If your User Content contains spoilers throughout.) or at the beginning of a segment of your User Content (If the spoilers are contained within a segment of your User Content.)"

That, I'm afraid, is a condition up with which I am not prepared to put. Not for a demo, anyway. 

It's a demand for editorial control, isn't it? It's telling the reviewer on what terms they may review the product. The fact that the request is entirely reasonable, in the best interest of the reviewer's readers or viewers and no more than any well-mannered, properly socialized reviewer would do without any prompting from anyone, is entirely irrelevant, especially when the demand is allegedly enforceable by law.

Also, it's a demo FFS!

If I was reviewing the finished game, I would without question employ spoiler warnings before getting into any detailed discussion of the plot. Not to do so would be plain rude.

But for a demo? The whole point of a demo is to showcase the game, drum up interest in it, get people excited and in the case of Steam encourage them to add it to their Wishlist. The demo should be specifically designed so that spoilers aren't relevant. You want everyone to know what's in it or else what the hell is the point? If you can't manage that, then it's your problem, not the reviewer's.

There aren't any spoilers in this post because once I read that clause I decided I wouldn't bother playing the demo at all. It's a shame because it looks like something I'd enjoy but, hey, there are lots of games out there. It's not like I'm going to miss one. 

I might even still try it when it releases, supposedly next year. I won't get any reminders about it because I'm not going to wishlist it either but if it's a big hit no doubt I'll get to hear about it anyway. I'd have a lot fewer qualms about signing that EULA for a full game than for a demo although I still think the spoiler clause is unwarranted and presumptuous. 

The last thing I have to say about all of this is something that actually annoyed me more than anything I've mentioned so far. When you get to the end of the document there's a line thanking you for reading all the way through, which I couldn't help but read as ironic, although maybe it was meant to be taken straight, but there's no way to exit the EULA without agreeing to it.

Seriously? You're thanking me for reading it all but I'm not allowed to say "No" to what I've read? WTF!

There's no Decline option. Escape doesn't work, either. I had to close the demo from the taskbar to get back to Steam. That really pissed me off. I'm still cross about it now.

I did at least get a blog post out of the experience so there's that. The Nighthawks post will have to wait until Wednesday now. Or maybe Thursday. It's going to be another busy week and this hasn't put me in any better a mood for it.

This Train Terminates Here

I woke up this morning to an interesting, if unexpected, email. A company by the name of Cognosphere had sent me an invitation to download a new "space fantasy RPG" called Honkai: Star Rail. It sounded very intriguing, being set, by some manner or means, on a kind of space-train, known as The Astral Express. I was keen to find out more.

The email came with all the necessary buttons to press for registering an account and downloading the game, so I began pressing them. At that point I wasn't quite sure who the developers were or what games they might already have made but it seemed like a safe assumption it  must have been something I'd at least tried, since they'd gotten hold of one of my email addresses from somewhere.

There was one big clue. Honkai: Star Rail is part of something called the HoYoverse. That didn't ring much of a bell with me, although I thought it might possibly have something to do with Genshin Impact.( It does. See Note #1 below.)

It didn't seem like something that mattered enough to go look into it before I downloaded the game, so I just got on with it. I'd gotten to the point where the tiny zipfile I'd downloaded had unlocked an installer and I'd picked a drive location from the advanced options, when the inevitable request to accept the Terms of Service popped.

Terms of Service and EULAs are really boring to read. They're long and full of legal jargon and most people just tick the box to say they've read and understood them without actually bothering to do either. Sometimes I do that, too, especially with new games from developers whose games I already play.

With new games from sources unfamiliar to me I tend to be cagier. I wouldn't claim to read every line of every paragraph but I always at least skim the whole thing and close-read, often several times, the specific sections relating to what I can and can't publish about the game, here on the blog. These days, if there's a strict NDA or draconian rules about screenshots or video, I decline to accept the terms and cross the game off my list.  

The TOS for Honkai: Star Rail is exceptionally clear and well-written. While it uses a lot of legal language, it does so in very good, plain English. None of these things are fun to read but this one makes getting through it about as painless as it could be. 

Several key prohibitions are highlighted in bold and prefaced with straightforward explanations and warnings about why users should pay particular attention to them. Where appropriate, long lists of examples are included. All in all, it's a very impressive example of the species.

As is altogether too common these days, it includes a section relating to use or reproduction of "materials" from the game, the list of examples of which include, among many other things, stories, storylines and visual images of various kinds. It's forbidden to reproduce, republish, display, transmit or perform several other communicative processes on any of these aspects of the game without first receiving express written consent.

That, I figured, would really put a crimp in my writing about the game here on the blog so I declined to sign the TOS or to register an account or download the game, to do any of which would have implied acceptance of the terms. It may seem a little over-cautious but you'll note I'm not even quoting verbatim from the TOS here, let alone reproducing images of it. Can't be too careful.

Still, I would like to play the game. It's not every day - or every decade - you get the opportunity to ride a space train. I could, of course, just download it, play it and keep quiet about it, but where's the sense in that? I don't play these games for fun, you know! Well, I do, but much of that fun comes from writing about them. 

As I said, the TOS is exemplary in its accessibility so it shouldn't be surprising that it concludes with an email address to which you can refer any questions you may have before accepting it. It did surprise me, all the same. It's something I'm not sure I've seen before.

Since they'd been so kind as to include a way to contact the legal department, I thought I might as well use it. After all, you don't get if you don't ask. Here's the email I sent. I'm pretty sure it's safe to reproduce, seeing as how it's all my own work:

"Hi,

Could you please confirm whether the prohibitions on copyrighted materials in this section extends to screenshots from the user's gameplay when published online in a personal blog for the purposes of illustrating either an account of the user's activities in game or in a review or commentary on the game? Similarly, does the prohibition apply to video of that nature posted in a user's social media channel for those purposes?

If these actions are so prohibited without express prior written consent, can you issue such consent to me for those purposes or advise me how and where to apply for such consent?

I'd like to try the game but I'm not interested in doing so if I can't also write about it and show screenshots on my blog.

Thanks in advance for your advice."

We'll see what that gets me, if anything. Until then, I guess I won't be playing the game. And even if I do, you won't be reading about it here.

By the most extreme of contrasts, yesterday I also signed up to test an in-development mmorpg, Monsters and Memories. Currently at a very early stage of development and being produced by a pretty small team, M&M is a rather cosy-looking entry into the somewhat crowded field of retro-repro Classic MMORPGs. 

I've had my eye on it for a while but it's been too early to mention anything much about the project beyond that it exists. The days of getting all excited over some concept art and a few promises are long gone for all of us, I imagine. 

This weekend, though, Niche Worlds Cult, the amusingly self-deprecatorily named company behind the game, is running an open stress test. All you have to do if you want to try it is sign up. So I did.

The process is very straightforward. Just give them an email address, confirm it and download the game. Even that's part of the test so you're helping out whether you actually get to log in or not. There are two fixed sessions, which could be extended if things go well, but the proposed schedule is

Friday, April 28th, 9pm-1am EDT -- (3am-7am CEST)

Saturday, April 29th, 1pm-5pm EDT -- (7pm-11pm CEST)

I'll be sound asleep for the first of those but the second sits nicely across Saturday early evening for me so there's a good chance I'll be able to give it a go. If I do, I'll be able to record anything that happens here, with screenshots, because when NWC say open testing they really mean open:

The test is purely a technical one with any gameplay possibilities being merely incidental:

PLEASE NOTE: By registering for, downloading, or logging into Monsters & Memories, you acknowledge your understanding that this is a technical "stress test" of an early development build and not a pre-alpha, alpha, beta, or any other form of test indicative of the game being in a ready-for-release state. 

Even so, should there be anything to report, I'll be able to do so freely and without reservation. In a helpful clarification that appears during the registration and download process but which I unfortunately didn't screenshot and now can't find, it's explained in very clear terms that testers are free to record and discuss their experiences on whatever social media suits them. 

NWCs position seems to be that all publicity is good publicity, an old saw that's very much lost its teeth in recent times. In the case of games seeking to draw attention in an extremely competitive marketplace, though, I can't help but agree. I wish EULAs and TOSs would include some provision for "personal use", allowing players to share their in-game activities through social media. It seems counterproductive to make it harder than it need be for word of mouth to do your marketing department's job for them.

Note #1 - Cognosphere is the new (As of a year ago.) publisher of Genshin Impact. I remembered the GI publisher as miHoYo, which is how I came to connect it with the HoYoverse in the first place. As the linked article explains, it's not a substantive change of ownership. Cognosphere is "a company owned by miHoYo, registered in Singapore as opposed to the Shanghai-based miHoYo." This seems to be a response to the Chinese government's increasingly strict regulation of China's video game industry. 

Note #2 - Whether the Cognosphere TOS is significantly more restrictive than the miHoYO version that would have been in place when I was posting about the game and using dozens of screenshots, I have no idea. I guess either it is or I didn't read the old one as attentively as I did the new. I can confirm, though, that the current Cognosphere TOS for Genshin Impact looks pretty much the same as the one for Honkai: Star Rail, so I guess I won't be blogging about Genshin Impact any more, either. Not that I was planning on it.

Note #3 - All images in this post are taken from Monsters & Memories. For obvious reasons.

C.O.N.F.O.R.M.

I just finished reading a lengthy and quite fascinating article at Gamesindustry.biz entitled "Ten risks associated with the new EU Digital Content Directive". It has some potentially major implications for the kind of games I play and blog about, although I suspect it's a potential that will mostly go unfulfilled. Which is probably just as well.

The proposed directive, due to be implemented in the individual member states of the EU by July next year, primarily exists as a piece of consumer protection legislation. Some of the issues it seeks to address, like "Not delivering on advertised and publicly communicated qualities and features" are very familiar from other aspects of consumer law.

That stuff neither surprises nor bothers me. As described, at first it all just sounds like typical consumer rights stuff:

"The Directive requires suppliers of digital content or digital services to comply with certain objective requirements for conformity. Such objective requirements include that the digital content or digital service shall possess the qualities and performance features, including in relation to functionality, compatibility, accessibility, continuity and security, normal for digital content or digital services of the same type. In other words, a game that does not function as it can be expected by the consumer does not meet the requirement".

But note the inclusion of the word "continuity", soon to be joined by another c-word: "conformity" . As the post goes on to explain in some detail, this means producers of a game that operates as a service have to notify customers in advance of any change to the nature of the game that would cause it to cease to conform with established expectations. 

Following such a deviation from conformity, players will be entitled to refunds for the portion of time for which the game has deviated from the norm. So far, so good. Your game introduces a major change. You don't like it. You ask for your money back. They re-imburse you for the period from when the change happened to when you told them you didn't like it. 

Presumably there will be some reasonable period after which, if you go on playing the game without asking for a refund, you'll be deemed to have accepted the change. Otherwise we could all play for years then say we didn't much like that feature they added three expansions ago so we'd like six years of our sub-money back, please.

 

Let's leave the fine detail to the lawyers and anyway it's not the money-back if no longer satisified guarantee that intrigues me. It's the concept that a change you don't personally welcome can be reverted - not just for you but for everyone. 

Instead of just demanding a refund because the game has changed in a way the player doesn't like, the player can instead demand the change be reversed:

"Such a claim would require the game company to remove unpopular modifications again.

Players can demand this unless re-establishing the original state of the game would be impossible or would impose costs on the game company that would be disproportionate, taking into account all the circumstances of the case including:

1. the value the digital content or digital service would have if there were no lack of conformity
2. the significance of the lack of conformity"

There's probably enough get-out clauses in there to justify replacing all the expensive character models with stick figures but let's stick to the underlying assumptions rather than the practicalities. Should players really be entitled to have their games reflect their own personal tastes as a matter of right? After all, as Wilhelm often observes, every removed or replaced feature was alwayssomebody's favorite. 

And even if we excise individual refuseniks from the legal mix that leaves plenty of potential mass revolts. I can immediately think of several examples where changes to a game I play were deeply unpopular with a commercially significant number of players. It's very easy to imagine a sufficiently large and motivated group organizing for pushback, using this legal right, to have unpopular changes removed from the game. 

The imposition of the desert borderlands for world vs world gameplay in Guild Wars 2 or the removal of PvP servers from EverQuest II would be two examples. I'm sure everyone reading this could come up with examples from their own experience in pretty much any MMORPG ever because if there's one thing a long-running "game as a service" can be relied upon to do it's to piss everyone off over something, eventually. 

We've all seen many player protests over the years, ranging from in-game marches and sit-ins to forum wars and ddos attacks. Some of those have been influential. Changes have been reversed, the aforementioned desert borderlands debacle being one of them, but by and large companies tend to sit tight and wait for things to blow over. Whether the addition of a theoretically enforceable legal right will change that is hard to say. It depends just how enforceable it turns out to be. 

In the end, it's not whether or how much this directive might materially affect the games we play that interests me so much as the underlying assumption that what the players are entitled to expect from their games is "conformity". Not just conformity to a general, acceptable standard of purpose-worthiness, something upon which you'd think we could agree, at least until someone raises the awkward question of Early Access or Paid Alpha, but the idea that, once begun, an online game should continue in the same direction of travel forever, without deviation or digression. 

I'm not at all sure that's what I think I'm paying for when I renew the direct debit on my annual subscription to Daybreak's All Access or my occasional monthly sub to World of Warcraft. Yes, I want the games to remain recognizeably the same ones I originally purchased but I also want to see innovation and change, even if that change is controversial. 

For example, the introduction of mercenaries to EverQuest and EQII incontravertibly altered the fundemental proposition of those games. It was no longer necessary to team up with other players in order to complete content that had until then required a group. Some people loved that. Others loathed it.

Flying mounts, too, have been considered game-making or breaking propositions in various MMORPGs, as has the removal of the automatic right to use them in later content, once introduced. Changes to the extent or nature of PvP have caused uproar in several games, most recently one that hasn't even launched, Amazon's New World, although in that case, since the game had yet to take any money from anyone, perhaps it didn't count. Or perhaps it did...

"The directive also applies where the consumer is not required to pay a purchase price for the game but instead provides or undertakes to provide personal data to the trader. With this requirement, the Directive targets business models where the consumer "pays" with personal data instead of money."

Not that I'm suggesting Amazon would want our personal data or have any use for it if it could get it...

As I suggested, I don't really think much is likely to come of this directive in a purely practical sense, although where the EU regulators are involved you can never quite be sure, but it does seem to pose some existential questions about the nature both of games as a service in general and massively multiple role-playing games in particular. The law of unintended consequences lies beyond the remit of any court in the EU. Or the universe.

Know Your Rights

Genshin Impact. It's the cool new game that everyone's playing. Belghast is playing. Tobold is playing. TheRoyalFamily is playing. 

I was thinking of playing, too but so far I haven't even downloaded the game. Not because the download can be very slow, or so I hear. No, because I'm not sure if I should.

Before I started, I thought I'd just better read the small print. I'm one of those strange people who reads the instructions before plugging something in. I also take a look at the Terms of Service or the End User Licence Agreement before downloading or installing a new game. 

Okay, to be realistic about it, I don't always do it and I rarely read the whole thing. If it's a new game from a developer whose other games I already play, I take it on trust that the terms and conditions will be similar enough not to warrant a close reading. I still might skim-read them all the same, just to see if anything leaps out.

When the game comes from a company I've never heard of, though, then I take a good look at what I'm committing to by clicking those consent boxes. Or, as is more common these days, giving implied consent, merely by allowing the software to reside on my machine.

Genshin Impact has an exemplary T.O.S. It's clear and easy to follow and important parts are emphasized. The one element that's turned out to be quite controversial, the bit about the anti-cheat software, is near the top, and the advice on what to do if you're not happy about it is highlighted in bold:

"If you do not agree to any term of this Agreement, please do not, either directly or indirectly, use or access to the miHoYo Services in any way."

 

I thought about that. I'm not really bothered about anti-cheat programs as a rule. Over the years I've played plenty of games that use some form of anti-cheat software. Usually I just let it ride. I don't cheat so they don't affect me directly, by intent. I don't want other people to cheat if it's going to impact my own gameplay, so I can see how they're in my own interest. And I can't say I've ever noticed them slowing down my P.C. or anything like that.

Of course, we're all probably a little antsy right now about data collection. It's been a bit of a thing of late, hasn't it? It's never been a particular concern of mine but you don't have to be polishing your tinfoil hat to be just a tad uncomfortable about installing software from a source about which you really don't know all that much, so it can report back on your activities to someone you really have no idea who they are.

Especially when that software runs all the time, even when you're not playing the game. It seems that raised red flags for quite a lot of people. Enough, apparently, to get it changed. 

So now the anti-cheat program only runs while you play. That seems reasonable, doesn't it?

Only, being told in plain language not to play the game if you don't like the rules makes you think. It made me think, anyway. So I read the rest of the T.O.S. Carefully. All of it. And I found a few things I liked a lot less than an anti-cheat program.

There's a lengthy section on Intellectual Property rights I was none too keen on, for a start. I've run into this before. There was another game, an MMORPG I won't name (mostly because I'm not sure I can remember the exact title and I don't want to go research it right now) that I was thinking of playing until I read the Terms and Conditions and found they included signing away all rights to anything you ever wrote about the game anywhere, ever. 

 

As a blogger who only plays most games in order to write about them, that could be a bit of an issue. I'm already well aware that I don't own any of the screenshots I use and I'm fine with that but not even owning the amusing captions I give them? Really?

Genshin Impact doesn't go that far. By playing the game you agree to give up any and all rights to any "User Contribution" you make on any "websites, forums, communities, networks, or other interactive features" that form part of miHoYo Services, "including but not limited to any text, forum post, chat post, profile, widget, message, link, feedback, email, music, sound, graphics, picture, video, code, audio visual or other materials".

The rights you give up "irrevocably and unconditionally grant miHoYo a global, fully paid up, royalty-free, perpetual, transferable, sub-licensable and unlimited right and license to use, copy, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works of, reformat, distribute, manufacture, sell, license, sublicense, transfer, rent, lease, transmit, communicate, publicly display, publicly perform, provide access to, or otherwise practice such User Contributions or any portion thereof, in any and all media, formats and forms, known now or hereafter devised." Which, I think you'll agree, is pretty comprehensive.

As far as I can tell, though, there's no attempt or intention to control or claim anything you might write or draw or record on services not supplied by miHOYO. Such as, for example, a blog hosted on Blogger.

No problem, then. It did make me wonder just what other games I play have to say on the subject, though. 

 

Daybreak's T.O.S. is very similar (Check 9: Submissions). So is Blizzard's (see D.4 - User Created or Uploaded Content).

Guild Wars 2, weirdly, owns your Account ID and Display Name, which might come as a surprise to those of us who've been using the same ident for longer than the game's been around. ArenaNet also owns all rights to any suggestion you ever made to them about how to run their game, something I'd be more than happy to cede if they ever felt like putting any of my ideas into practice.

Most disturbingly, they also lay claim to all our character names and "characteristics related" to them, whatever that means. I guess there's no re-making your GW2 characters in any other games even with the names changed.

"You acknowledge, and further agree, that You have no IP right related to any Account ID, any Account Display Name, any ArenaNet Message Board ID, any communication or information on any ArenaNet Message Board provided by You or anyone else, any information, feedback or communication related to the Game, any Character ID or characteristics related to a Character ID..."

Sometimes you don't have to play the game or even install it to sign away your rights. The Genshin Impact T.O.S. confirms that just looking at the website constitutes consent to the terms of the whole agreement:

"By making a registration or application for the Account, downloading the software of miHoYo Game(s), playing the miHoYo Game(s) (including but not limited to updates, upgrades, patches), browsing our websites, accessing various online operation or maintenance services, or otherwise accessing to any services provided by miHoYo, you are deemed to have read, understood, and accepted all the terms of this Agreement. " (My emphasis).

In other words, just by reading the T.O.S. I've agreed to be bound by the T.O.S.

I guess I might as well play the game, then. It's supposed to be pretty good.