EU consumer groups slam 'manipulative' video game spending tactics
www.euractiv.com
European consumer groups on Thursday (12 September) accused the world's biggest video game companies of "purposefully tricking" consumers, including children, to push them to spend more.
    • macniel@feddit.orgEnglish
      82·
      2 months ago

      The grand slam!

      If only there were less sensational words to describe what happens.

  • tartan@lemmy.mlEnglish
    307·
    2 months ago

    So manipulative is in quotes but slam isn’t. Quality writing there.

  • Suzune@ani.socialEnglish
    16·
    2 months ago

    Children in Europe spend on average 39 euros a month on in-game purchases

    Really?

    • lepinkainen@lemmy.worldEnglish
      161·
      2 months ago

      Stupid parents give their kids unlimited access to mobile payments.

      It’s like basic parental controls are a black art only few master

      • RightHandOfIkaros@lemmy.worldEnglish
        10·
        2 months ago

        To be fair, basic skills for being a human seem to have become a black art that only few can master. So expecting them to be responsible parents is actually probably a bit too high of an expectation. This isn’t an excuse to be a bad parent, of course.

      • TheDemonBuer@lemmy.worldEnglish
        71·
        2 months ago

        Of course parents not taking appropriate precautions doesn’t absolve the companies of responsibility. Unethical behavior is unethical behavior, even if there are things consumers can do to protect themselves from it. After all, the precautions wouldn’t be necessary if the companies didn’t engage in this behavior in the first place, so these precautions aren’t really solutions only mitigations.

      • PunchingWood@lemmy.worldEnglish
        43·
        2 months ago

        And because of them a bunch of games on Steam and other platforms are banned in my country. I occasionaly check SteamDB and see a popular game or new release and I can’t find it in the store because apparently it is blocked in my country.

        Wish there was a way for us to just see all games, because this usually involves games that have lootboxes that are entirely optional and I will never buy, but because some undisciplined kids and terrible parents the rest of us have to pay the price for it.

    • Railcar8095@lemm.eeEnglish
      101·
      2 months ago

      I can’t believe that.

      Is that the average for every underage on Europe? Specific range of ages? Filtering out those who don’t spend/play at all? It’s a crazy number to throw with no extra context.

      • Suzune@ani.socialEnglish
        3·
        2 months ago

        I seriously thought that it’s a myth that someone buys these premium currencies on free to play games. Like someone who buys this WinRAR license.

        I’d assume that on average a kid buys 6 AAA games a year. That would be more probable for ~39€ a month. In this case they’d have mixed up many different things here.

        • Grangle1@lemm.eeEnglish
          2·
          2 months ago

          Most people don’t, or only throw something like 5 bucks at games like that here or there. But some F2P games are pushing 10 years or more in existence, so somebody’s paying to keep the servers running. The backbone of that industry is the small population of “whales” who spend their life’s savings to get the superior rare new cosmetic or in-game currency to gamble their life away to maybe pull enough copies to max out their waifu. Then they’ll use said cosmetic or waifu for about a month before the next super-ultra rare amazing once-in-a-lifetime hat or weapon comes along, or another waifu who totally eclipses their original one is released, then it’s rinse, repeat ad infinitum until the whale is flat broke and their life is ruined. But at least they maxed out their waifu and got to the top of the rankings in the leaderboard.

  • Sylvartas@lemmy.worldEnglish
    4·
    2 months ago

    As a professional gamedev : good. Except if they aren’t tackling similar issues in online gambling (am at work so I didn’t read the article)

    Edit : read the article, they basically only mention displaying the real money equivalent when buying “premium” currency, which is only the tip of the iceberg, but also pretty easy to legislate I guess.

  • merthyr1831@lemmy.mlEnglish
    2·
    2 months ago

    Probably in relation to the Chinese govt. banning these practices too. We’ll see a lot of governments following shit soon hopefully.

  • Semjaza@lemmynsfw.comEnglish
    1·
    2 months ago

    Lot of people more annoyed that language is a living, changing thing than the predatory nature of in game purchases (but we all knew the latter already, so this isn’t gonna be news to us).