But some of the ideas on what needs to be done is just silly.
Here is some of the ideas the Norwegian Consumer Council suggested: - All things in games should be shown in real money value, not in game currency that you have to but for real money, and the price should reflect the most expensive way to get the currency. - All transactions in games should have the same rights as in real life(if you buy an item in game, you could use your right of withdrawal). - Users should be able to choose how much the want to buy of premium currency/spend.
While it might have good intentions, they have serious issues. I sell bundles of in game currency. I don't allow users to select just how much they want to buy. I don't do this as part of an evil plan, but because it makes sense. Bigger purchases give more, because the percentage lost to fees are lower. Tiny amount can not be bought, as it would not make sense considering the per transaction cost.
I don't price things in real currencies, cause after the purchase is made, it's not real money, and if it were, I'd be a financial institution and break the rules of all major card networks. It also would cause issues when it comes to inflation adjustment. If an user buys 100 "coins", they can buy something for 100 coins. If I adjust for inflation then I adjust the price of coins, not how many coins are needed to buy something in game. That would not work with real money.
Regulation is welcome, but don't do something dumb. Let most thing be as they are, but put strict rules in place on kids making purchases, that way a grown up who hopefully understands money can approve or deny the purchase.
If you offer something that cannot be handled like that and absolutely has to be "in game", it's probably because you're trying to extort the players by frustrating them or try to exploit psychological weaknesses to make users pay more than they want to and you should stop that.
So if I look at your in-game purchases, I’m going to find that they aren’t all priced to make the user buy the next-larger increment of currency… right?
As a gamer, I don't think they should ever feel the need to purchase anything with real world money in a video game, even with a parent. Purchasing the game should be the last time a parent ever has to worry about spending actual money on it.
So you sell $100 of in game currency for $85. It's all the same except 1 coin equals one cent when you buy it in the smallest bundle.
> I'd be a financial institution and break the rules of all major card networks.
It's measured in dollars but it is a gift card. It's not that serious.
Has anyone other than Bobby Kotick and the other previous ABK shareholders benefitted from the acquisition? Xbox hasn’t gotten any more successful as a brand, the consoles aren’t selling, Game Pass subscriptions only keep getting more expensive (which I’d imagine leading to retention issues), they need to put more and more games on rivaling platforms, they've shuttered studios they've previously purchased, and these days I imagine they’d rather use that cash on AI instead.
For more serious offenses I agree that should be the norm, but we're talking about mobile games being annoying. Even with the "won't someone think of the children" angle it sounds excessive. What have we really lost from mobile Call of Duty not being better?
> Has anyone other than Bobby Kotick and the other previous ABK shareholders benefitted from the acquisition?
Me, as a consumer. I haven't purchased a game in over five years and I've played a ton on Game Pass. And the diversity of games I've played is greater than before, there's many indie games I wouldn't otherwise have tried. The catalog is high quality and hasn't descended into garbage like Netflix over the years. It's been too good a value to feel possible and however long they want to keep it up, that's great.
But we have to be honest here, these micro transactions are what consumers want. There is a reason that gatcha games (and paid mechanics of those games are implemented in the games mentioned in the article) are so successful and so popular. Consumers of mobile games, unlike consumers of PC games, enjoy these mechanics, gatcha games are going so far, that the core system of the game is not the gameplay (which is often disregarded as an automated activity), but rather the gatch mechanics.
Yes, these systems are stupid and insane. But they are giving consumers exactly what they want.
Personally I am very paternalistic and would support a total ban on these mechanics, together with legal limits of how much money people are allowed to spend on activities like these. Of course making any of these activities available to kids, should be banned as well. This is obviously an extremely unpopular position, since, as I said, consumers really enjoy these mechanics.
Also, the fact that it's called gotcha (got ya) has always had the hair up on the back of my neck.
No. It is not just "gambling" it is a very specific form of gambling, which is unlike most other forms of gambling. E.g. for most other gambling activities, the expectation is that the reward is monetary (see e.g. sports betting, roulette).
This should be clearly demarcated from micro transactions, where a predetermined reward is offered for a fixed amount of money. Lootboxes, where a digital reward (which may or may not be resellable) is given and gatcha mechanics, which are a very specific genre of gambling for digital rewards.
I see no reason why all of these should be treated the same.
>Also, the fact that it's called gotcha (got ya) has always had the hair up on the back of my neck.
Pure coincidence. The name comes from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gashapon
is this satire?
The tools currently exist to "protect" children in game. Abdicating your responsibility as a parent is not a problem for the state to solve.
It says that the parental settings (when enabled!) are just letting children do whatever they want by default:
- buying overpriced objects - chat without any restriction online - play without interruption for long time
I think the first one is probably the most poignant: piping children into disguised gambling addiction by default seems like a major fault. Borderline illegal, if you ask me.
It looks a lot like a phony feature "let's add a parental control, it will make people feel like we're trustworthy and bring back more revenue. And please don't disable ingame purchases by default, this is our cash cow".
Surely, HN of all places recognizes that the EU fines Meta/MS any time they have a shortfall in their budget.
Am I supposed to be upset at this?
I'm trying to imagine how you envision regulation without going after the biggest individual apps that enable child financial fraud & sexual grooming.