Compared to the usual reviews, Sherlock Holmes The Awakened (2023) by Frogwares has actually advertising and third-party referal/trackers to offer, which are mostly activated by only through user participation.
What does this product do?
During the initialization process, Frogware servers are contacted and provide the user with free advertising, which can be admired in full beauty in the main menu.
Besides, the product also tells NVidia that someone is online, since it is now common for games with DLSS to contact their servers.
Various networks are advertised in the main menu. When users click on one of these links (Facebook, Youtube, Discord, Twitter, Instagram) they are redirected to the respective page and are welcomed by various tracking mechanisms.
Sherlock Holmes The Awakened is protected by
SteamStub DRM
Who is running the product?
Sherlock Holmes The Awakened was developed and published by Frogwares
Where are the service providers located?
Frogwares - Kiev, Kyyivs'ka Oblast', Ukraine
Google, LLC - 1600 Amphitheatre Pkwy Building 43, Mountain View, CA 94043, USA
Twitter - San Francisco, California, United States
Google, LLC & Instagram - Menlo Park, California, United States
Discord - San Francisco, California, United States
NVidia - Santa Clara, California, United States
Which trackers and advertising services are active?
GoogleAds, Google DoubleClick, Captive Portal checks, Google PageAds, Conversiontracking, Referaltracking, Graphql/Logging by several platforms, Trackingcookies/Pixel
User agreement and Opt-Out/In
As usual - Does not exist. Neither for imposed in-game advertising, nor for the tracking mechanisms that are waiting in the supposed social networks.
Price question
If displaying of ingame advertising is a must, the question would be whether this must be loaded necessarily live from a server instead of being local delivered with the regulary game files. Games (better said, products) are usually patched from time to time, should new content be needed.
Can this behavior be blocked?
Yes, without restrictions
