Battlestate Games, developer of Escape From Tarkov, is drawing a hard line against data mining. The studio said in an announcement today that it will begin banning all accounts of data miners and those who share the information they discover.

"Data mining is the extraction of information from huge data sets. In other words, it is the unauthorized intrusion into in-game code or databases in order to extract information that is intentionally hidden from users."

Data mining is not, broadly speaking, illegal. How you mine the data may matter, and what you do with the results, such as using it to reverse engineer cheats and sell them online, can definitely get you into some trouble. But while developers may not like the idea of an enterprising gamer tiptoeing around a tulip and revealing its secrets to the world, it is not illegal.

It is also interesting to note that it is not the possibility of cheating that is the concern here, but what Battlestate wants to keep hidden, from specific boss spawn opportunities to new quests and rewards that have not been officially announced, which the data miners seem to be revealing. The studio says that sharing this type of information reduces the "wow effect" and makes the game "more predictable," and that it is unfair to developers to have their future plans ruined by data miners the moment an update is released.

Instead, Battlestate said that Escape From Tarkov players should only use official sources to expect future features and changes and to find specific data about the game. He also promised to try to be more transparent about future plans by "providing as much information as we feel is sufficient to keep players up-to-date."

And to convince those taking this particular path, Battlestate warned that from this point on, anyone even remotely involved in data mining would be hit hard. The studio said, "As a result, any in-game accounts involved in data mining and/or sharing of data derived from data mining will be banned and the platforms involved will be warned and further action will follow."

This is harsh and, predictably, has sparked a backlash against the studio. Schwertkeks said on Reddit, "Without the wiki and ammo charts, you won't be able to play."

"Imagine planning a big party for everyone and getting mad when someone hypes it up," replied Redditor AftT3Rmath." I can understand if it's a surprise party or something, but instead of telling the publicist, 'Don't let anyone know about the upcoming Red Wedding,' you shoot the publicist."

One of the milder responses, known on Twitter as LogicalSolutions, at the center of the conflict known on Twitter as LogicalSolutions. He linked to a Tarkov-Wikia profile containing hundreds of individual data items and asked why it was okay to share that data - at least some of which was presumably data-mined - on a wiki but not on a personal Twitter account.

LogicalSolutions also recently had a social media tussle with Nikita Buyanov, head of Battlestate Studios, which may have contributed to sparking the studio's sudden action:

Since Battlestate Games is a Russian studio, it is possible that some of the wording in the announcement is the result of a less than perfect English translation. However, there seems to be no ambiguity in the core of the statement: if you extract or share data that has not been officially announced, you risk being banned from the game altogether. If you extract or share data that has not been officially released, you risk being banned from the game altogether. In extreme cases, for example, if you retweet interesting information without checking to see if it is from an official source, this penalty could also apply, the studio said.

I contacted Battle State about new information on "Escape from Tarkov".