Epic Games to pay $520M to resolve FTC allegations

Post by TheBrokenRail » Mon, Dec 19, 2022, 3:07 PM UTC

_fat_santa wrote: post #14

Gareth321 wrote: post #4

I'm fine with Epic getting financially reprimanded for dark patterns and anti-consumer behaviour. I am not on board with this: > That lawsuit also accused the company of illegally enabling real-time voice and text chat communications for children and teens in the game by default. So voice chat must now be turned off by default for all children across America? How on earth is this supposed to be policed? Should everyo…

Epic could add a dose of CYA here. Disable voice and text chat, and put the enable switch behind a "for 18+ only" or something like that and have them confirm their birthdate. Not that it would actually stop minors from bypassing this by clicking through the prompt and entering a fake age. But this would allow Epic to argue to the court that they are doing more than their competitors to verify that children are not u…

Post by TheBrokenRail » Mon, Dec 19, 2022, 3:11 PM UTC

ApolloFortyNine wrote: post #16

jsnell wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You ask the users for their date of birth on signup, don't tell them that it will be used for age-gating features (to avoid incentivizing lying), and don't allow the date to be changed without some kind of age verification. Or you use the social graph to infer age: somebody who mainly plays with 10 year olds is probably also about 10. If they claim to be 20, require an id anyway. Non-gaming companies deal with this a…

10 year olds aren't as dumb as you're assuming here, they'd either make a new account, or have already been been putting an 18+ birth date for years. All anyone cares about is covering their own ass, so it'd solve that issue, but it would have neglibile effect on anything real. Source: Used the internet when I had to lie to every site about being over 13, so lied to every site about being over 13. Also vrchat require…

Post by mardifoufs » Mon, Dec 19, 2022, 3:13 PM UTC

Spivak wrote: post #18

stevehawk wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what was "the chat problem" ?

The fact that online gaming chat is really really toxic . It's one of those things where christian mothers were right about video games but wrong about why. It turns out that artificial violence and guns and sex aren't some big corrupting influence but hanging around assholes for the majority of your leisure time and social activity absolutely is. Online gaming where the only communication between players is jumping…

Post by zamadatix » Mon, Dec 19, 2022, 3:17 PM UTC

tyleo wrote: post #26

Gareth321 wrote: post #4

I'm fine with Epic getting financially reprimanded for dark patterns and anti-consumer behaviour. I am not on board with this: > That lawsuit also accused the company of illegally enabling real-time voice and text chat communications for children and teens in the game by default. So voice chat must now be turned off by default for all children across America? How on earth is this supposed to be policed? Should everyo…

I don’t know what the big deal is with people in this thread saying, “bah, this is impossible” but I work on a COPPA compliant game and “chat off for kids by default” is a standard or https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/resources/childrens-on...

Post by stevehawk » Mon, Dec 19, 2022, 3:20 PM UTC

Spivak wrote: post #18

stevehawk wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what was "the chat problem" ?

The fact that online gaming chat is really really toxic . It's one of those things where christian mothers were right about video games but wrong about why. It turns out that artificial violence and guns and sex aren't some big corrupting influence but hanging around assholes for the majority of your leisure time and social activity absolutely is. Online gaming where the only communication between players is jumping…