A European consumer watchdog wants you to be able to buy exactly as much in-game currency as you need, not fixed chunks
A European consumer watchdog wants you to be able to buy exactly as much in-game currency as you need, not fixed chunks
A European consumer advocacy group have published an open letter to the European Union Commission expressing their conc…
"The group in question are the Bureau Européen des Unions de Consommateurs, or BEUC, who represent 44 non-governmental consumer organisations from 31 countries, and have been around since 1962."
Thank you BEUC, very based, we appreciate your looking out for us.
What if all in game currency that can be bought with money, was subject to currency laws and required to be audited and taxed.
That would hopefully put an end to that crap.
Huh. Taxed on what basis? You buy it with your already income taxed money, and the company reports it as income which is then again taxed? It's like buying a gift voucher. Or maybe foreign currency, but usually you are only taxed on the gains once you sell them, but you can't sell in-game currency... What else would you like to tax? What would you even audit? Hey tax authority, I have 3 million gold coins, 2486 diamonds and 4 speed ups in clash of clans, do you want screenshots? Do I just send you 10% to your clan?
In-game currency is annoying and bad, but I don't get what you want to do here.
Discourage in-game currency I think is the goal
It would likely lead to a lot of issues. The games companies would need licences like a bank. They would need to keep it secure and have funds availabke to offset a run. It would likely also mean that players would be able to refund unused cash.
If they change the value in game, it might lead to gains which are taxable or losses which are possible to offset.
Kay, first step. Second step, not having to buy any currency.
Make it have to follow the same regulations as other currencies and banks. If it looks like currency, and functions like currency, maybe it should be considered currency.
Usually microtransactions have such a low real price that it wouldn't make sense to make the bank transaction for just a single skin or whatever. I think you'd just end up with bundles instead where there's a single thing you actually want with a bunch of bullshit attached to justify a higher asking price.
I never have to buy in-game currency. It's not even very hard to achieve that goal. Just don't play those games.
Ya "don't like it don't play it" till every game had premium currency, which is what basically happens right now. Premium currency is a cancer on games and needs to be regulated out of existence. It's a predatory system to make you think "oh I'm not spending money I'm spending gems!" and leads to addicts losing tens of thousands of dollars. Anyone who defends these systems is either a fanboy or clueless about their impact.
You know, like how money works
Yeah, Starfield...
With the release of the immensely popular creation club they gave half a quest for free, rest of it costs 700 creation credits, so you need to buy the 1000 pack on which they also charge 1 euro cent more than 2 times the 500 pack to actually finish the quest. First of all why not give the whole quest for free ("celebrating the release of creation club" Bethesda said), but then set a predatory price point as well imo.
They are like drug dealers giving you a first hit for free and hoping you get hooked in and buy more packs, 300 credits won't even get you half a quest.
It makes sense Bethesda would do it. They're owned by Microsoft, who popularized the concept of pseudo-currency sold in packs that don't match prices twenty years ago.
"Congratulations on reaching level 75, your bonus reward is 19¢"
I want the entire practice to die in a fire, but whales are always gonna be selfish assholes that prop up the business model.