Escape from Tarkov – Developers take rigorous action against dataminers

The Russian developer studio Battlestate Games, responsible for the hardcore survival shooter Escape from Tarkov, has announced and already enforced tough measures against the unloved dataminers.

Battlestate Games vs Dataminer

In a statement, the studio comments on the issue of “illegal datamining” and announces consequences for those who do not comply.
This is how the studio writes:

Data mining is defined as extracting information from massive datasets. In other words, it is the illegal infiltration of in-game code and databases in order to extract information that is intentionally hidden from users.

First of all, it should be said that datamining itself is in no way illegal. Of course, the results of the data mining can still become a problem for the developers, for example if someone uses the knowledge gained from it to create cheat software.
However, the statement does not mention this possibility.

Rather, the developers are concerned with changes in the game that they would like to keep hidden for longer or completely. These include changes to ammo values or boss spawns, new quests and changes to them, or new rewards that are not yet linked to any content.
The dataminers would thus destroy the “wow effect” and make the game “much more predictable,” it continues.
Instead, players should stick to the official sources, such as the game’s wiki.

They would constantly work on their own transparency and try to share more information with the community, it continues.

As a consequence for not adhering to these guidelines, Battlestate Games now wants to take rigorous action against those people who publish or disseminate results from data mining processes.

From the time of this statement being published we will start taking action towards all the personalities sharing the datamined information. This will restul in all the in-game accounts involved in dataming and/or sharing data originating from datamining being banned and platforms getting involved receiving warnings and further actions taken afterwords.

What exactly does the announcement mean?

So far, Battlestate Games hasn’t exactly made a name for itself as a transparent game developer. Many changes were made in secret and the community often had to puzzle for a long time, only to have guesses as to what exactly had changed.

This then entailed datamining the game files to track the changes. Some websites and Twitter channels became the go-to place for many players to know what exactly had been changed during the last server maintenance.
With the data obtained, it was possible to track the effectiveness of weapon attachments, ammunition and armor and know what was worth playing.
In a game where you lose all your equipment when your character dies, not a small factor.

So if you run one of these channels or get your website’s data from it, you are now not allowed to update it or distribute it any further.

But content creators and gaming websites are also affected, because it is often difficult to determine whether it is a datamining leak or experience data.
Even someone who likes or forwards such a post is already violating the regulation.

Feedback from the community

The Escape from Tarkov community reacted promptly to the new announcement. The feedback was largely negative and accused Battlestate Games of another misstep.

Many players accuse the developers that datamining would not be necessary if the developers were more transparent and shared information.

The extremely vague wording of many tasks and quests was also criticized, as was the lack of communication from the developers regarding events.

Some also pointed out that Escape from Tarkov’s files are not even encrypted in a big way, so there would be no attempt on the part of the developers to really address the issue in this regard.

First (temporary) ban occurs

One of the better-known names in the Tarkov scene, the streamer and data miner LogicalSolutions, was even permanently banned after being a thorn in the developers’ side in the past.
In the meantime, the content creator has been unblocked again, but actions like these still leave a bad taste in the mouth.

Now it remains to be seen how the developers will deal with the predominantly negative feedback – and to what extent the rule will really be enforced in the future.