Well, no, you can extract the files from the installer and install the game manually.

Although you are technically correct (one person's data is almost irrelevant) there is a large caveat I would remind people about: this is not something that can be redacted later. If you decide in the future that you wish to opt-out of the the Great Data Vacuuming of current Interwebs, there is no way to claw back your data. (And the big assumption one makes to reach this conclusion is that the data has been anonymized.)

So the decision is not just about whether your personal data is materially significant today, it is also —— and more importantly —— whether one will want to keep data secure later, for the rest of time.

And it will change the way people are treated by companies. (Cue boiling frog analogy.)

One might be happy to provide data now, but how can it be known whether this laissez faire attitude will not come back to haunt the participants in the future?

When the updated CLV score is downgraded because the person no longer pays top dollar for their digital entertainment, so their service is reduced or curtailed. (I guess this might be termed "service motility", or the ability to change the level of attention paid to customers based on their current value to the corresponding company which provides the service.) You may be a gold-card member today, but tomorrow you could be too much effort to deal with.

Now what would that accomplish?
I'm just saying that every company that creates software uses EULA's. If you want to use the program legally, you have to accept the terms.
You might delete some files here and there, but then again, you might as well pirate & crack the program entirely. I was talking about normal customer procedures.

To which I'd counter counter: Signal to noise plus interference.

When it comes to data gathering and algorithmic processing, there's several problems.
1) Sorting wheat from chaff, but someone also threw in a bunch of decoy products. Misinformation in addition to already useless information.
2) The vast scope and size of requirements to process such a thing is quite frankly an insane prospect.
3) Even if valid data is captured, can it really be used? If my interests were profiled, the main thing they'd capture is that one of my major interests is based off a Sir Mixalot song. But how can a stuffy old song about the buttocks be used against me? I'm not into booty rap, and while sex may sell, selling things sexually is verboten to most companies in the USA due to our tradition of tyrannical puritanism.

It would bypass the thing you said HAD to be done. In actual fact it doesn't HAVE to be done. The legality of click-through EULAs is not that simple, especially in places like Europe. Also you can't just put whatever you want in EULAs and expect that doing so somehow automatically makes it "legal". You'd think GOG users would be a little more savvy about DRM in any form, technical or legal. You can't just put something like "you agree to send us all your information in perpetuity if you want to play this game" in a EULA and expect to enforce that just because you used lawyer-speak. What? That doesn't make any sense whatsoever, and where did "delete some files here and there" come from? Nobody said anything about deleting files. Copyright laws already cover the legality of pirating, which is to say, it's definitely not legal pretty much anywhere. It's not remotely comparable to disputing EULAs.

No it doesn't. On the contrary: the text you cited confirms the fact that the game is full of insidious spyware/malware and should be avoided at all costs for those reasons.

You misread my post. Regarding copywright laws... I do not wish to discuss this here. This is too broad a topic to write about it here and now.
About EULA bypassing though - I'm not sure what do you mean. You mean any EULA, or Phoenix Point's EULA?
Because PP on GOG has actually 3 EULA's. First is the usual GOG one in the installer. The 2nd and 3rd are in the main menu of the game itself. How do you suggest to dispute them and play the game still?
More still, how do you find extraccting the game's files to be an accepted legal thing to do? Your messing with software, that you are not a legal owner of. In most cases that would mean an automatic loss of privilages. So, as I see it, basically not too different from cracking.

When I say legally using the program, I mean buying it from a legal source and using it as it was intended.
EULA's are digital contracts and terms of use, and they are no different from, lets say, signing up a contract for a mobile phone service with Virgin or whatever... To be able to buy the service you need to sign the contract.
But even so, most of this stuff does not matter in court, especially European - these EULA's are mostly to deal with the software creator. In court, as you yourself said, they are sketchy. But the reverse is also true - disagreeing to a EULA or bypassing it due to some shenanigans is also not really any valid argument.

There is always the immortal point, that no one is forcing you to buy this game. You are not the legal owner of the software, just the legal user. You can't just do anythign you see fit with it. That's how software is sold all around the world as of now. If your individual country has other laws that outrule the EULA's, that's cool, but it might not be enough to make a significant difference.

Moreover - it's also a lot of hassle for someone, who just wants to buy something and play it in peace to exctract files from the launcher.

Sorry, to me that is just paranoia talk. Data gathering happens all over the place, and you can't do squat about it. Every website you visit gathers something on you. It's standard procedure - "machine to machine communications" as I heard it being called.
This is the price you pay for having the internet and using stuff like computer software.

In case of Phoenix Point I am sincerely more inclined to believe that this second EULA is there, so that the company complies with EU's GDPR. You are an American citizen, so maybe you don't know this, but for some years now everywhere you go and buy some service in the EU you have to sign multiple contracts, one of which is always the GDPR.
Phoenix Point's Snapshot Games is based in the EU, so as I see it they are legally binded to inform you of this, and they HAVE to allow you the privilage to opt-out of this.
Think rather about all those games that use telemetry readings and are not legally binded to inform you of this...
I remember when EA's Origin first launched - now THAT was malicious!

Nice link. :)

[1] It was 2004 when Google bought DoubleClick primarily for their implementation of what they would re-brand as the GooglePrefID, which follows you around the Interwebs tracking everything you do —— even if you avoid Google, like I do, in which case it maintains a shadow profile. This is an identifier that keeps track across all websites. Remember that Google analytics are used by the majority of websites (70% of everything?) and certainly anything with a Captcha, like Gog.

It's not just Google, of course, there is also Amazon, which hosts the CIA's cloud, amongst other corporate clientele. Add in Microsoft, as well as various sovereign entities of indeterminate ethical persuasion and I-forget-who-else who are all collecting data for to deep-teach their AI and you have a rapidly contracting possibility of anonymity. (Did you know that the US Library of Congress is recording EVERY tweet, for instance?)

[2] Even if this is useless now (due to SINR) it will become more useful with more data. (Google parent) Alphabet is also one of the major players in AI. All of this data is being compiled to better train their algorithms. (Better theirs than the CCP, I suppose, but the digital totalitarian overlords will never brook any opposition to their power.)

[3] It is easy to link your itinerant Sir Mixalot habits with your more formal lifestyle choices (key search terms, car ownership, insurance, medical history, telephony, credit rating, preferred purchasing methodology such as prices paid, perks received, advertisement targets, browsing patterns especially checking on competitors, et hoc genus omne).

Also, people are gregarious and like to advertize their preferences to be accepted into whatever peer group their have chosen to belong to and to differentiate themselves from those who differ. We want to be identified as members of an aspirational tribe. This makes it simpler fill in any blanks, since it needn't be exact, just approximate with the typical behaviours of those we wish to impress / emulate. What do all the other Sir Mixalot advocates like to do?

Yes, some of it is probabilistic: attempts to use correlations between traits to take your known traits and predict what other traits you have. You can see the former Lead Psychologist of Cambridge Analytica talking about this kind of marketing here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5rO29yfbFk

Phoenix Point is a really great game, that is being polished lovingly more every year. I might be biased as a huge XCOM fan, but the devs are undeniably committed to making it better years after launch.

And I see nothing here except standard Unity opt-in anonymised troubleshooting telemetry, until someone proves otherwise.

To be fair, even then I wouldn't regret my purchase, if they got my fictitious username/email linked to my PC specs or VPN IP. The horror of it all is too much to bear, compared to the value of 300+ quality hours spent enjoying the game for the price of a decent restaurant dinner.

Thanks for the feedback.
That's what I was trying to ascertain, and I would underline that part "until someone proves otherwise".
And yet nobody did. All I ever saw are generic, umbrella terms.

I looked here on GOG, I looked at Steam and tried to google the topic. No details of this supposed insidious programming ever surfaced. On Steam the game has very favorable reviews and I did not found even a passing glance of any accusations in the negative opinions. Phoenix Point's reddit only ever complains about the Epic Store.
And GOG, well it has that "most helpful" review on the game's store page, but the forums and archives show next to no discussions over it.
You'd think that the internet and especially GOG should have been ablaze by now if there is anything really troubling about PP.