EU consumer groups slam 'manipulative' video game spending tactics.
EU consumer groups slam 'manipulative' video game spending tactics.
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.
SLAMMED!
Love how terrible writing has become. 😂
The grand slam!
If only there were less sensational words to describe what happens.
So manipulative is in quotes but slam isn’t. Quality writing there.
The EU consumers:
Why would slam have to be in quotes?
Because its not actually slamming it, but the tactics are actually manipulative.
Manipulative is in quotes because it is a direct quote. Slam isn't a direct quote.
Children in Europe spend on average 39 euros a month on in-game purchases
Really?
Stupid parents give their kids unlimited access to mobile payments.
It’s like basic parental controls are a black art only few master
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Only took them what, 20 years?
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.
Probably in relation to the Chinese govt. banning these practices too. We'll see a lot of governments following shit soon hopefully.
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).