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Epic Games to pay $520M to resolve FTC allegations

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Re: Epic Games to pay $520M to resolve FTC allegations

#71

Post by CivBase »

ThisNameNotUsed wrote: post #44
sillysaurusx wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazing how many people in this thread want to run to the government to solve the problem. It’s kind of like that musk thread from yesterday where a bunch of people showed up to defend the policy of banning links. If someone makes a rule, there will always be someone else who thinks it’s a good idea. As someone who grew up on roleplaying games when I was about 13, and had lots of exposure to the adult side of life, I…

13 is nothing like 10, or 8. I have nephews playing on their own at 4.

At some point we have to consider it the parent's/guardian's responsibility to restrict a child's access to any service that provides access to online, user-generated content without supervision.

Despite all my problems with Epic, I agree with OP here. This should not be Epic's problem. This is a problem for parents/guardians and the ESRB/PEGI. The ESRB and PEGI rated the game for 13+ and 12+ respectively, which I'd argue is appropriate, so IMO it should be entirely a problem for the parents/guardians.

Re: Epic Games to pay $520M to resolve FTC allegations

#72

Post by theptip »

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…

It’s not uncommon for the OS to have an age lock these days (eg iOS) that parents can set, and kids can’t unset. Or, the parent can set the age in the console’s user profile and the system locks it.

That seems to be a trivial solution to the problem here.

In this case there is a small amount of work required of Epic to enable the law to be enforced in the ecosystem. Without that work to add profiles and enforce ages in the game, the OS/platform cannot enforce either. So it’s obviously moving things towards compliance to ding Epic here.

Re: Epic Games to pay $520M to resolve FTC allegations

#73

Post by hourago »

devmor wrote: post #43
Spivak wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I don't share your experience at all. In fact the the majority of online gaming chats I've been in have been relatively enjoyable and low drama. It's generally the ones that have children in them that get toxic - I would guess because children have less developed social filters and act out their negative emotions more readily than adults.

> It's generally the ones that have children in them that get toxic

That is the problem. Kids are learning from each other to be harmful and hateful as there is no consequences for that behaviour. In other spaces they will be called out by adults, but game chats become a learning place for the worst behaviours at the same time that this games are rated as "apt for children". Rate them 18+ or kill the chat, it is all about not lying to buyers.

Re: Epic Games to pay $520M to resolve FTC allegations

#74

Post by alex_sf »

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'm not super familiar with the details of the case, but I'm familiar with Fortnite since I play it with my son. We frequently find voice chat being turned back on at startup, despite us turning it off. Maybe that's what they are referring to, somewhat sloppily?

Re: Epic Games to pay $520M to resolve FTC allegations

#75

Post by aaomidi »

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…

Can they please turn it off by default for everyone?

I shouldn’t have to go to the settings for every single game to find out if some random fucker is going to hear me crunching on chips.

Re: Epic Games to pay $520M to resolve FTC allegations

#76

Post by BryantD »

breezeitall wrote: post #33
BryantD wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If this is a COPPA issue, you just have to ask for birth year and you’re allowed to trust the answer.

If I have a F2P game on mobile, do I then have to force ask the users age at the start to track things like DAU without getting potentially sued because I was unintentionally without knowing tracking < 13 years?

IANAL. However, my answer to that question would be “it’s a good idea.”

COPPA specifically calls out collecting device identifiers and cookies as personal information. Here’s the money line:

“It shall be unlawful for any operator of a Web site or online service directed to children, or any operator that has actual knowledge that it is collecting or maintaining personal information from a child, to collect personal information from a child in a manner that violates the regulations prescribed under this part.”

Note “directed to children.” If your game isn’t directed to children, you’re fine, but that’s a terribly fuzzy definition. In practice I would recommend taking the safe road and age gating for games. Again, I am not a lawyer.

Edit: I read the complaint and Epic was explicitly marketing to ages 10+, so this wasn’t at all fuzzy for them.

Re: Epic Games to pay $520M to resolve FTC allegations

#77

Post by BryantD »

dagmx wrote: post #66
tyleo wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, 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 absolutely a must.

It’s because a lot of engineers get hung up in the “oh there’s so many ways to defeat this” mindset, and forget that perfect is the enemy of good. Sensible defaults are a good enough start and many regulations like this are based around best efforts , not absolute perfection.

Yup. It’s both true that the age gate is easy to defeat and that it helps in practice.

Re: Epic Games to pay $520M to resolve FTC allegations

#78

Post by superkuh »

I'm still waiting for something to be done about Epic buying video games that support multi-platform like Rocket League then removing multi-platform support from those games. I bought Rocket League. I played Rocket League. Epic bought Rocket League and suddenly I couldn't play Rocket League. And I'm just left hanging with a useless "single player" rocket league that can no longer play the game.

Epic is as much of a monster or worse than Microsoft was in it's prime. It buys games then puts them behind it's paywall, ruining the games for people that bought them before. It uses it's Unreal game engine position to attack companies that make games in it's engine by releasing clones of them (ie, the Fortnite copy of PUBG). It sells games like Fortnite which I bought for $40+ back before it was popular, then it completely changes the game and makes it impossible for me to continue playing the game I bought.

I will never, ever, give any Epic software a place on any of my computers. Not buying, not "free", not anything. They still owe me $35 for stealing Rocket League and $44 for taking away Fortnite (the original game).

Re: Epic Games to pay $520M to resolve FTC allegations

#79

Post by ryandrake »

zamadatix wrote: post #27
tyleo wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

How are you verifying age? The "this is impossible"s are about it being accurate on age not the disabling of chat once you have an accurate age. The point being the law is useless theatre that does nothing to prevent kids from using it but annoys everyone else anyways.

I'm not a lawyer, but does the law require 100% un-hackable accuracy? Not the law as-written, but as-enforced? Has anyone been successfully penalized because they failed to catch one under-13 year old who said "Yes" to a dialog? Most sites I've seen either ask for your birth year or your age, and trust what the user says. If that's enough to be in compliance, why would any company make it more complicated? It's like if you've ever visited an alcohol company's web site, they ask "Are you 21?" and if you say yes, that's all they care about.

Re: Epic Games to pay $520M to resolve FTC allegations

#80

Post by alasdair_ »

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…

It’s mostly down to who the game targets. If it’s clear that under 13 kids will be playing, then COPA rules apply.

So if you are making a Lego game, you’ll need to comply, but if you are making “Murder Sex Drugs III” then you won’t.

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