Earlier quoted context omitted.
> my libraries You may have curated but you do not own your library. You purchased _access_ to said library.
“You purchased access to your house, you do not own it. Move along citizen.”
[dead]
Epic Games to pay $245M for tricking users into making unwanted charges
181–190 of 318 posts
Re: Epic Games to pay $245M for tricking users into making unwanted charges
#182Only 245M? Should have gone for 2.45B. That would have hopefully made Epic reconsider its trashy existence on this planet.
Re: Epic Games to pay $245M for tricking users into making unwanted charges
#183Epic love to complain about Valve, but consumers all love Valve. Epic? Not so much.
I deal with Valve, because I have to. There is not a good way to get video games that doesn't involve pirating, unless you use a platform like Steam.
The fact that I do not really own the games is a huge pain in my ass, but I love video games, and want to spend my actual money on them, so I'm kind of stuck.
Re: Epic Games to pay $245M for tricking users into making unwanted charges
#184Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
If we wanted to 'fix' both the price overhead on the App Store and the Freemium problem there then the best way to do that would be for Apple to reduce their cut on initial purchases but keep in-game purchases at 30%. Right now they're doing nothing to discourage these patterns. I cut Apple some slack because I worked in mobile when the iPhone was still a product demo. If you think Apple are assholes, you don't remem…
> I cut Apple some slack because I worked in mobile when the iPhone was still a product demo. If you think Apple are assholes, you don't remember what carriers were like.
I don't cut Apple any slack because I worked in desktop when the iPhone was still a product demo. If you don't think Apple are assholes, you don't remember what freedom was like.
Re: Epic Games to pay $245M for tricking users into making unwanted charges
#185Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd like something that broadly prohibited any company that 1) acts as a gatekeeper for any third party services, or 2) offers digital "purchases" from blocking user access to their account without having to first prove overt nefarious actions that disrupt the service. And not some hand-wavy TOS violation, but it should be impossible to block someone more than temporarily without going through some kind of arbitratio…
Yeah, I would like to see where you at least maintain access to your existing (previous) purchases in the case of a dispute. I can understand cutting off a bad actor from making more purchases, but reclaiming their already paid for stuff feels pretty evil.
That's because it is evil. Specifically, greed.
Re: Epic Games to pay $245M for tricking users into making unwanted charges
#186Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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.
I don't understand what you mean. When I say "game play" I mean the how the game is actually played. Things like available weapons or reachable maps affect game play. Cosmetics don't. Skins and emotes don't make you play the game differently therefore they don't enhance "game play". Just like wearing a fancy shirt doesn't enhance the game play of chess. Fortnite even allows you to enter competitive tournaments and co…
Don't think the whole player base is as obsessed with "competing". Most are there to socialize. Or who knows, "compete" on flashy skins.
Re: Epic Games to pay $245M for tricking users into making unwanted charges
#187Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is just common in general. Nobody that you chargeback is going to want your business again. It's just that tech companies usually hold something you want (your account) effectively hostage, whereas a restaurant or whatever you can just stop going to. This does make it worse.
> This is just common in general. Nobody that you chargeback is going to want your business again. Similarly, no company that I chargeback against do I want to do business with anymore. A chargeback is a "burn the bridges" moment. You have tried everything reasonable, and the company is now defrauding you. Why on earth do you want to continue doing business with them?
This may be true for honest people, but I’ve been dealing with people recently abusing the chargeback system because they just don’t want to pay. (It’s mostly young users in Brazil)
Very frustrating as a seller.
Re: Epic Games to pay $245M for tricking users into making unwanted charges
#188Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem is that the businesses have made customer's ability to access their previous purchases dependent upon continuing to have a business relationship with the account. If, when closing the account, the business paid back full value for everything they were removing access to, the ruling might be different. But they aren't doing that. If you are a business doing more normal business, selling something with no s…
> The problem is that the businesses have made customer's ability to access their previous purchases dependent upon continuing to have a business relationship with the account That's not a problem really. Think of country clubs. Your investment is completely lost the second you stop paying. I understand that folks may dislike the subscription model, but it's not illegal.
I don't think the problem is the subscription model exactly. If I'm paying $15 / mo for netflix, it's very clear that my $15 gets me one month of access, to whatever's available in their library at the time. Similarly, if I pay $10/mo for Gym access and the Gym decides it no longer wants to do business with me, that's fine because A) there's more Gyms for me to go to, and B) I never had any expectation that anything from that Gym would be 'mine' forever, it was always an ephemeral access to the service conditional on my recurring payments.
The problem is for services where I pay a la carte to build a "personal" library of things, like steam games, Google Play movies, Amazon Kindle books, etc. I've paid a one-off price for the digital content with the expectation that I will have access to that content indefinitely. If I am abusing the platform, causing issues for others, or generally and blatantly violating ToS in a major way, then I think that's a different story. But if I need to dispute one transaction, then the ability to immediately remove all access to previously purchased content immediately, indefinitely, and frequently without review or appeals - is very anti-consumer.
It effectively nullifies existing consumer protection laws. I will never issue a chargeback or complaint against Valve (Steam) or Google, even if I have a perfectly legitimate reason to do so - as loss of those accounts after all of these years would likely be more costly to me than most erroneous charges I'm likely to see.
Re: Epic Games to pay $245M for tricking users into making unwanted charges
#189Earlier quoted context omitted.
And despite Epic having great games, this is why I have not installed it or paid for any of their product so far. Also why steam is still the leader despite having a terrible UI: they have been very good to their customers.
Is Steam UI terrible? It seems a little slower than I'd like, particularly initial load but otherwise it seems fine to me. And most software I use is so slow now it certainly doesn't stand out and has probably moved to the upper grade just by not getting worse over the years.
It's a Web-based UI which doesn't allow font size control or zoom, which deserves an achievement or something since nearly all of them allow this rather easily (either in UI or by editing CSS). Maybe a magnifier glass to help with the tiny font size.
Re: Epic Games to pay $245M for tricking users into making unwanted charges
#190Earlier quoted context omitted.
And despite Epic having great games, this is why I have not installed it or paid for any of their product so far. Also why steam is still the leader despite having a terrible UI: they have been very good to their customers.
Is Steam UI terrible? It seems a little slower than I'd like, particularly initial load but otherwise it seems fine to me. And most software I use is so slow now it certainly doesn't stand out and has probably moved to the upper grade just by not getting worse over the years.
Yes, it is. It has all the problems of a web page plus all the problems of a native app. It's the worst of both worlds.