Siren Head is a 12 metre-tall semi-mechanical monster that, as the name suggests, has an emergency siren in place of its head. The work of artist Trevor Henderson, it’s the creepiest internet-spawned creature since Slenderman. And, like Slenderman, it’s been seized upon without its creator’s permission.

Right now there are over 20 Siren Head games on Itch.io, as well as a handful of YouTube short films. Several of these games have been streamed by Markplier and other creators, helping boost the character’s profile. But Henderson takes particular issue with its use in online survival game Once Human.

In a now-deleted tweet, replying to the use of the character in another upcoming title, Henderson replied, “‘Not the worst offender, though. That’d be this boss from the game Once Human with satellite dishes for a head named…uhh.. “Siren”‘”

He’s not wrong. When I first encountered this character I did a double take, it’s a pretty blatant copy of Henderson’s creation. Surely, with a game as high profile as Once Human, developers Starry Studio had to have contacted Henderson, and shared some of that sweet, sweet micro-transaction money with him, I thought. Apparently not.

The thread Henderson was responding to was about an upcoming Siren Head project. The originator of that project has since deleted the tweet which suggests it’s now not going ahead. Their defence was that they believed the character to be public domain. But all it takes is a quick search to discover whose mind it sprang from.

“Really easy to look the other way and pretend it was birthed out of the aether too, it appears,” Henderson tweeted. In another deleted tweet he remarked that “Even if I wanted to give permission for Siren Head to be used by other people.. in a way that makes money, the rights to do that are currently tied up with someone else.”

Does that mean there’s an official Siren Head game/movie in the works? It’s a tantalizing prospect. And if the rights are in the hands of a company with clout, could they bring their legal cannons to bear on Once Human’s creators? We’ll have to wait and see.

The Once Human’s Terms of Service Controversy Explained

As of the time of this writing, Once Human is currently sitting at a ‘Mixed’ rating on Steam with just under 5,000 reviews. Many players have mentioned concerns over the game’s terms of service. To be fair, there are some interesting items that NetEase will have access to, including:

• First and Last Name
• Title
• Prefix
• Email Address
• Telephone Number
• Messaging Accounts
• Postal Address
• Date of Birth
• Age
• Gender
• Country/Region
• Government-issued ID (Passport, etc)
• Debit or Credit Card Details
• Account Details
• Billing Address

Related: How to Redeem Rewards in Once Human

Much of this information is par for the course, including credit card details when microtransactions are in the picture. But players have highlighted an issue with Starry Studio accessing government-issued IDs. There are a few reasons in particular that they could use an ID—let’s say, for age verification purposes—but players are seemingly not happy about that.

While the terms of service are huge in many games, it seems that Once Human has struck a chord, especially considering the need for things such as ID and even nicknames on social media.

NetEase Responds to Concerns

If you’re interested in seeing what NetEase had to say about the terms of service controversy, you can find their full Discord message below:

“We wanted to take a few moments to discuss data privacy.

NetEase takes our users’ data privacy very seriously and adheres to the data privacy principles such as data minimization, purpose limitation, and transparency.

For example, we would only collect government-issued IDs for the following reasons: where the local laws require us to do so (such as for a specific promotion), when the identity of a user’s parent must be verified to obtain consent for their child (if required by applicable child protection laws), or when the user wishes to correct their age information (again, if such verification is required by law). In any case, the ID information is deleted immediately after we have fulfilled the purpose for collecting the ID information in the first place.

Similarly, we may ask our users for additional information such as social media account usernames, names, and address in user surveys that users voluntarily participate in. Users are free to provide as much or as little information in these user surveys, if they choose to respond to the survey at all.

In the spirit of transparency, we have indeed included the type of information that we may collect (which may not be the case if the users aren’t accessing the specific functionality), the purpose for which we collect the data, and how we process the data in our privacy policy. Our privacy policy also clearly states how you can exercise your rights to manage your personal information by contacting our in-game customer services. We have recently revised our privacy policy with the aim to improve clarity and transparency, which will be published soon.

We have heard your concerns and will continue to improve on how we describe our data privacy practices. If you have any specific questions or concerns after your review of our privacy policy, then please feel free to contact us.”

Likewise, Once Human has stated in their terms and conditions that this is in compliance with the Know Your Customer and age verification requirements for the online gaming sector, as instituted by the U.S. Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. With that being said, it’s well worth reading the terms of service yourself.

Is Once Human Stealing Your Information?

Now, one thing to consider about NetEase is that Once Human complies with Chinese laws. As per AP News, children are only allowed 1 hour of online play per day, which could be part of this verification process. And looking through the Steam forums for Once Human brings up talks of the CCP and your information being given to them, or that the game is being used as a Crypto-mining scheme that is running multiple programs in the background while you’re playing the game.

There are no verified instances of Crypto-mining or any sort of issues regarding the ID systems, for what it’s worth. Once Human is a fantastic free-to-play experience, but you’ll have to use your own judgement when it comes to deciding to play or not.

Once Human is available to play now.

Once you create your character, you’ll be given the choice to select a server. But if you chose to put your character on PvE but suddenly feel the deep desire to kill your fellow players, you’re out of luck. Once you’ve created a character with your account, you’re stuck with that character in that server.

This can have some upsetting complications, especially if you opt to play solo on a server instead. Some scenarios, which are seasonal events, are wholly PvP-focused. Which means you’ll be missing one of the best parts of an update. Likewise, if you find that PvE scenarios are a little too tough or even lonely without a group of randoms, you’re also out of luck. The same can be said if your friends opted for a different server, leaving you stranded with the Eldritch monstrosities.

Fortunately, this is a known bug. And I do emphasize bug. On the Discord, an announcement stated the following:

“This is important:

Be aware to choose your server!

Due to some tech issues, you can only create one character, and you can NOT delete your character. This means if you chose the wrong server, you can not switch to any other servers with your current account.”

 We can expect a fix, likely sooner rather than later, considering how much of an impact this will have on the social dynamics of the game. And Starry Studios has made it very clear that they want to bolster the community feeling of the game and even made Enternaland for you to hang out with your friends whenever you want.

But until that fix lands, be sure to select your server carefully. The only way for you to get around it is to literally make a brand new account and start fresh. And that might mean losing out on your pre-registration rewards, Twitch, and beta rewards. I recommend selecting “All Scenarios” or “Manibus” to get the most out of this early season.

Once Human is available to play now.