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Epic Games to pay $245M for tricking users into making unwanted charges

ftc.gov

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Re: Epic Games to pay $245M for tricking users into making unwanted charges

#131

Post by thunky »

haunter wrote: post #7
thyselius wrote: post #4

Does anyone here know exactly what these patterns are?

I play Fortnite so I can answer. Basically purchase in Fortnite was instant. You clicked/touched on the button > you bought it instantly. There were no confirmation screens, no "are you sure" etc nothing. One click purchase. And cancellation was very limited, basically non existent. Credit cards were also saved instantly so no further interaction needed for later purchases, so some kids ended up spending a lot withou…

Not disagreeing, but just a note that it is possible to play Fortnite without spending a single cent or giving out a credit card. It's not a pay to play game, so you're not limiting yourself by keeping your money. You just miss out on skins & emotes.

So this line from the linked ftc post is incorrect:

"Epic charges for in-game purchases designed to enhance game play"

Money does not enhance game play.

Epic also hands out in-game currency every so often, so you can even collect skins for free after some time.

That said, kids gotta have the new skins.

Re: Epic Games to pay $245M for tricking users into making unwanted charges

#132

Post by nottorp »

hinkley wrote: post #73
SimonPStevens wrote: post #17

Quite frankly in-game purchases has destroyed an entire industry for me. Mobile games are so filled with this junk I don't even bother looking at them any more. I avoid anything on PC that has a store, repeating season passes or virtual currency of any kind. It's even coloured my view of the types of add-on DLC that 20 years ago would have been a legitimate expansion pack, purely because it feels too similar to the d…

There’s a bit of a sweet spot with replayability and DLCs. I have a hard time finishing games. When they add new chapters to the game they’ve moved the goal posts as it were, and that doesn’t feel good. If they introduce some new side quests and a new race, I’ve still finished the game (or let’s be honest, got 90% of the way). But if I want to play Skyrim again as a telekinetic khajiit then I might pay for DLC.

> But if I want to play Skyrim again as a telekinetic khajiit then I might pay for DLC.

You must be new to Bethesda games. You buy the "game of the year edition" with all DLC included when it's on 70% discount. You don't buy at launch :)

Re: Epic Games to pay $245M for tricking users into making unwanted charges

#133

Post by tagyro »

Eduard wrote: post #130
grog454 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> software engineers (or working in the field), have the power to not implement these features when our employer asks us to do it. Realize that you're statment is a euphemism. What you really mean is we have the choice between implementing a dark pattern or finding another job and letting someone else implement it. Stated this way it's a lot easier to understand people's behavior.

> What you really mean is we have the choice between implementing a dark pattern or finding another job and letting someone else implement it. You incorrectly reduced the available options. Here are a couple more options: - convince your peers and supervisors why using dark patterns is trash - just don't implement dark patterns and rather focus on useful features and bugfixes - be loud about your distain of such requ…

These are all valid options and one could (and should) attempt them before resigning.

(Though, realistically speaking, either one will probably get you fired, sooner or later.)

Re: Epic Games to pay $245M for tricking users into making unwanted charges

#134

Post by nottorp »

thunky wrote: post #131
haunter wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I play Fortnite so I can answer. Basically purchase in Fortnite was instant. You clicked/touched on the button > you bought it instantly. There were no confirmation screens, no "are you sure" etc nothing. One click purchase. And cancellation was very limited, basically non existent. Credit cards were also saved instantly so no further interaction needed for later purchases, so some kids ended up spending a lot withou…

Not disagreeing, but just a note that it is possible to play Fortnite without spending a single cent or giving out a credit card. It's not a pay to play game, so you're not limiting yourself by keeping your money. You just miss out on skins & emotes. So this line from the linked ftc post is incorrect: "Epic charges for in-game purchases designed to enhance game play" Money does not enhance game play. Epic also hands…

> Money does not enhance game play.

Common misconception. In reality, allowing for IAPs has changed the design of the game greatly. For example, those cosmetics you don't consider important have been made non attainable from normal gameplay.

Every little pixel sold as an IAP also means the design of the game is changed to give you an incentive to buy the IAP, instead of entertaining you.

Re: Epic Games to pay $245M for tricking users into making unwanted charges

#135

Post by pwinnski »

munk-a wrote: post #13
asciii wrote: post #11

> the FTC said that Epic deployed a variety of design tricks known as dark patterns aimed at getting consumers of all ages to make unintended in-game purchases. Isn't it funny how they $h!t on Apple/Google gate keeping practices? Is this a part of Project Liberty to bypass stores and scam users?

To be honest though - there are no good guys here. They're all awful. Google and Apple take insane cuts out of any money moving on their platform and while Epic uses predatory tactics to trap people into subscriptions Apple and Google do the same.

Apple makes it incredibly easy to manage and cancel subscriptions. Would that all companies matched them!

One reason I don't begrudge them their 30% is that I could easily lose that much or more trying to get some vendors to cancel subscriptions if I didn't have the easy options Apple provides. Epic is clearly one of them.

Re: Epic Games to pay $245M for tricking users into making unwanted charges

#136

Post by pwinnski »

yalogin wrote: post #71

Who gets this penalty? The FTC? Why do these penalties always end up as a fine for the company? They should also be forced to simply go and refund the amount they overcharged at least and preferably add a multiple too.

Mostly lawyers.

Re: Epic Games to pay $245M for tricking users into making unwanted charges

#137

Post by fidgewidge »

xahrepap wrote: post #16
bluetidepro wrote: post #5

> Additionally, the order bars Epic from blocking consumers from accessing their accounts for disputing unauthorized charges. This could be bigger than people realize. This is very common in many tech companies like Uber/Doordash/Sony/etc. where if you do a chargeback, you often get blacklisted on their service. It would be amazing if this starts to end this practice, and you can actually have authority to get your m…

I wonder if CC companies have a way of punishing companies for this. At least in my circles, the sense of security from having charge-backs is a huge reason a lot of people even use CCs. If Visa told Uber/Epic/etc "you can't use our network if you're going to undermine our features". Though it would smell a bit like a giant squashing ants... anti-trust and all that. :/ So maybe government getting a handle on Dark Pat…

Note that chargebacks are mostly a US thing. In Europe you basically can't charge back and last time I enquired about even blocking a company from making new charges I was told that doing this required me to block the entire card and get a new one issued.

It'd really very odd to see Americans insist that they should have the right to take a service, get the money back for it from the business i.e. get the service for free, and then go back and get service again! That's pretty unfair towards the business.

Re: Epic Games to pay $245M for tricking users into making unwanted charges

#138

Post by dnissley »

spacemadness wrote: post #47
paulmd wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Came here to say this too. This just needs to be the rule generally. Steam and Amazon do the same thing - get hacked and get charged for some items, if you dispute the Steam charge you lose your $5000 account, that's not a fair playing field and effectively negates the protection offered by credit card networks. Hopefully steam resolves it, that's always the first line of defense, but if they don't, you still can't c…

I could see these being difficult logistical problems for companies but that gives them no right to socialize the problem by playing hardball and holding accounts hostage. That problem is in their domain to solve, and sorry that being a profitable business is tough but, again, solving this is not on the customer.

I imagine the solution will simply be to charge higher prices across the board. We will all pay for the ability to charge back and not lose account access, including subsidizing the most flagrant abusers of such a policy. This could be a good trade off, but I think it's important to highlight that there is definitely no free lunch here and that legislating this problem away will have some downstream effects.

Re: Epic Games to pay $245M for tricking users into making unwanted charges

#139

Post by lapcat »

hinkley wrote: post #62
PurpleRamen wrote: post #6

That's the second time now I read about Epic Games paying a fine for doing something obviously shady and illegal. I slowly get the impression that Epic Games might be a bit more scammy than your average company.

It’s sure a good thing we let them run their own App Store for Apple products then. Definitely a win for the little guy. /s

The crApp Store is full of dark patterns. All Apple ever cared about was getting its 30% cut of those dark patterns, including from Epic.

Re: Epic Games to pay $245M for tricking users into making unwanted charges

#140

Post by jamesy0ung »

asciii wrote: post #11

> the FTC said that Epic deployed a variety of design tricks known as dark patterns aimed at getting consumers of all ages to make unintended in-game purchases. Isn't it funny how they $h!t on Apple/Google gate keeping practices? Is this a part of Project Liberty to bypass stores and scam users?

Funny, despite Apple taking 30%, it is very obvious when you are making an iAP, you have to double click the power button and stare at the device.
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