Genshin Impact Game Developer Will be Banned from Selling Lootboxes to Teens Under 16 without Parental Consent, Pay a $20 Million Fine to Settle FTC Charges.
Genshin Impact Game Developer Will be Banned from Selling Lootboxes to Teens Under 16 without Parental Consent, Pay a $20 Million Fine to Settle FTC Charges.
The maker of the video game Genshin Impact has agreed to pay $20 million and to block children under 16 from making in-game purchases without parental consent to settle Federal Trade Commission all
And millions of children cried out for their waifus.
(This is good: I play and enjoy Genshin but they're using every single psychological trick to get you to spend money to gamble and that kind of shameless shit shouldn't be put in front of children who don't have sufficient experience and developmental time to not get totally taken.)
Yeah, there's a reason we don't let children into casinos. Putting cute cartoons in the casino on their phone just makes it worse, if anything.
this should have to go through the same regulations as casinos. although that would probably just mean no official release or support for Canadians
I never played Genshin but I did check out ZZZ for a minute. The gacha element was just too intense and it reminded me of games from 15+ years ago that used similar mechanics.
Anything more specific they do more than any other Gacha game?
Yes. They are bigger. It sends a message to the entire predatory ecosystem. Which would not happen if they went for a smaller Gacha game.
Other than that, no, let's give them fines too.
I don't think so, no. At least nothing I've noticed, but they're also not being any better than any other gacha game, either.
Good. Now do the same to the major triple A studios attaching loot boxes to every sports game and battle royale. Why the fuck start with Mihoyo?
Probably got put on their radar by people complaining about the Chinese gacha game being too popular or something. Those same people complain much less about their manly sports/shooting games made in the good ol' United States of 'Murica. Even though they have similar predatory mechanics.
Ughh. The selective enforcement is maddening, both with this and TikTok. So much of the filed complaint especially applies to Roblox, but it's clear that we're only interested in protecting our consumers when it really means chipping away at a foreign rival's burgeoning soft power.
That's fine. Gotta start somewhere
I don't expect them to continue, is the problem
Yes it maybe selective and hypocritical but it also sets precedent. Other companies can be held accountable more easily now.
'Member when Kyle's Mom freaked the fuck out and tried to ban Pokémon Red and Blue because they "depicted gambling" in the game corner, which had no links to the outside world and could not be fed with real money in any capacity, was completely contained within the monochrome screen on your Gameboy, and could be save scummed anyway? Pepperidge Farm 'members.
My, how far the bullshit has come.
Anyway, 16 is sure a funny way to spell 18. Why the hell is the age requirement 16 when you can't buy a lottery ticket until you're 18 and in most places you can't enter a casino until you're 21? It's the same thing.
Lootboxes is gambling. So are gacha pulls, and doubly so for both of the above when they can be fueled with real world money. People who are not adults should not be enabled to gamble.
See the tweet from Balatro's developer:
Since PEGI gave us an 18+ rating for having evil playing cards maybe I should add microtransactions/loot boxes/real gambling to lower that rating to 3+ like EA sports FC
Best way to train new gamblers
20 mil is peanuts. Selling shit to children for as long as you can is worth way more. FTC has proven that exploiting kids with gambling mechanics is just good business.
Good. The last thing we need is kids addicted to gambling.
The important data I'd want out of this is how much money went down if younger kids couldn't get addicted.
Just to see how much they could bank off of giving kids addictive personalities for the future.
As much as I like putting limitations on lootboxes or banning them out right, I've seen what developers do when they can't use lootboxes. $20 to $30 "micro" transactions with predatory menus and game mechanics that make you feel bad for not owning the latest hotness. They will do anything to make that microtransaction money regardless. They'll just take advantage of a different part of your brain.
Don't worry, Genshin has that already
I'm confused. I've played Genshin, and I don't remember any sort of loot box system in the game. There's a gacha system which seems to be what the article keeps referring to, but that's very different from what I think the average user considers a "loot box".
You're gonna need to explain what you think the difference is, because most people think they're synonymous
I feel like the difference is the loot "box", itself. Granted, I've not played any loot box games since Team Fortress 2, but in that game the box was an actual inventory item you could store and open whenever you wanted, and those items would always be from the same pool.
With Genshin, you're basically just pulling from a singular, infinite loot box that rotates its reward pool. So you can't, as a player, decide to open a Year 1 item when it's not in the current rotation.
It's a small difference, but I feel like that's why we have separate terminology for "gacha" and "loot box" games.
Gacha is a type of loot box.
You aren't purchasing a specific item when you spend money. If there's any sort of chance involved with that purchase it's a loot box.
As an old person who plays Genshin Impact, the "character banners" are 100% loot boxes. They have a pity system which guarantees a five star character after 100 "wishes" but even then it may not be the character you wanted. You might have to "wish" up to 200 times to get the five star character you are "wishing" for on the banner. Since you are not buying the character out right and gambling to get them it's a loot box.
For anyone who doesn't play "character banners" are a limited run (3 weeks) of a five star character that you can only get from the banner. "Wishes" are like rolls for the character. Each wish you lose gives you either a weapon (3 star/practically useless in game) and every 10 wishes gurantees a four star weapon or four star character.
In what world is a "gacha system" not a lootbox
a gachapon, the system gacha is named after, its litterally a form of a lootbox. you know, those machines found in places where you place tokens to vend out a random goodie?
Gacha is the prime example to use for loot boxes.
The presentation is different, but the core problem that the FTC is targeting is the same: spending real money to gamble on artificial digital goods.
You love to see it.