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

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

#211

Post by naniwaduni »

camhart wrote: post #111
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…

There is the business side of this to consider. Disputes are expensive--companies are forced to pay significant fees whether they win or lose the dispute. A dishonest customer lying to their bank about your product/service should be able to be banned from using your product/service. Otherwise, what's to stop them from maliciously charging then filing disputes over and over again? To be clear, I'm talking about a diff…

> Otherwise, what's to stop them from maliciously charging then filing disputes over and over again?

Their bank?

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

#213

Post by doublerabbit »

mardifoufs wrote: post #202
yyyk wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What web engine is steam using? Has it always been a Web UI? I only started gaming on steam back in 2014, and it was a webui already back then so I'm curious!

> What web engine is steam using?

Chrome, not quite an electron app but as sluggish as one. It's not always been however the installer has always been known to be notorious.

These gifs was well known during the golden days, classics. NSFW-ish

[1] https://i.imgur.com/0qtsE.gif

[2] https://i.imgur.com/QuJNQ4K.gif

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

#214

Post by munk-a »

CobrastanJorji wrote: post #170
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 think ultimately the only way to solve this is to legislate some notion of digital "ownership." Steam SOLD me a game. Amazon SOLD me an e-book. Shut down my account or refuse to do further business with me as you like, that's your right, but if you SOLD me something, you can't have it back. You need to either make it available to me or return my money. If Amazon wants to put the word "buy" on a button, then somethi…

Isn't a big blocker in this space the fact that when you can hide behind a digital license to use a copy of the game the potential that you may, at some point in the future, be unable to deliver a copy of that game to the consumer isn't a big issue?

I had thought that electronic goods dealers (e-books, steam, whatever) had some issues with actually selling goods because of the fact that a sold good needs to continue to be accessible even if their platform becomes too expensive to operate at some point.

I wonder if we could shift the definition of sale to something more reasonable access-wise in the long term and come up with a reasonable path for resale since, with a third party host like steam, infinite transferability isn't really feasible - there are technicalities around account registration and the like that would need to place some limits on your right to resell the item.

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

#215

Post by habitue »

everly wrote: post #212

This type of thing definitely makes me less sympathetic to their complaints about Apple's anti-consumer practices (regardless of the validity of those complaints)

Don't fall victim to the halo effect!

Both Epic and Apple are right on some issues, and horrifically wrong on others.

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

#216

Post by ChickenNugger »

acomjean wrote: post #37
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.

As an adult who’s partner plays Fortnite with her cousins and occasionally gets dragged in, I haven’t seen this. I’ve spent maybe 25, and it seemed pretty obvious what was going on. Maybe I just haven’t found the dark pattern path. It should be clear what’s going on before charging. I don’t love the “v bucks” vs real dollars they charge for things. though I get that the reward for those who grind isn’t actual dollars…

>I’d rather just pay once for games, though that seems to be on its way out.

Unfortunately the only way to fight that is to not pay for anything else, but companies also know that's where the money's at.

I paid $40 for Overwatch. ActiBlizzard replaced what I paid for with F2P "Overwatch 2" and added "battle passes" and overpriced skins, and they seem to be going that way permanently now.

That is, I don't have access to Overwatch, the product I paid full price for, anymore. And the PvE content they marketed Overwatch 2 as still hasn't materialized either.

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

#217

Post by ChickenNugger »

lapcat wrote: post #139
hinkley wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Apple definitely cares about that (they actually make way more money from their app store than google despite the much smaller userbase).

But they're also better at keeping out malware than google's app store I feel.

I could be wrong.

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

#218

Post by tuxone »

degenerate wrote: post #9

> In Spring 2018, Epic executives and managers discussed adding a confirm purchase button to prevent accidental purchases. Though employees were concerned that “it is a bit of a dark UX pattern to not have confirmation on ‘destructive’ actions,” Epic feared that adding a confirmation button would add “friction,” “result in a decent number of people second guessing their purchase,” and reduce the number of “impulse pu…

Is this the company that craves to install its Store on the most profitable mobile platform? I will try to keep that in mind

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

#219

Post by varispeed »

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…

This is also why I never pursued any GDPR complaints out of fear that I will be locked out of my account.

When I told about my issue to ICO, they basically gave advice to use different service... that's it.

There should be some sort of legal protection that if you want to exercise your rights, company shouldn't be allowed to cut you out for doing so.

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

#220

Post by zamadatix »

munk-a wrote: post #214
CobrastanJorji wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think ultimately the only way to solve this is to legislate some notion of digital "ownership." Steam SOLD me a game. Amazon SOLD me an e-book. Shut down my account or refuse to do further business with me as you like, that's your right, but if you SOLD me something, you can't have it back. You need to either make it available to me or return my money. If Amazon wants to put the word "buy" on a button, then somethi…

Isn't a big blocker in this space the fact that when you can hide behind a digital license to use a copy of the game the potential that you may, at some point in the future, be unable to deliver a copy of that game to the consumer isn't a big issue? I had thought that electronic goods dealers (e-books, steam, whatever) had some issues with actually selling goods because of the fact that a sold good needs to continue…

While not realistic to get the world to move to this there is a simple test - if you're still selling it and/or still protecting it with DRM then you have capability to distribute. If the answer to both is no then accessing the content where you originally bought it isn't a big issue anymore. What's a reasonable amount of access (e.g. "can I just redownload the game 24/7 for 8 years") would need to be defined but that's a much easier problem.

With the current model you run into an inherent conflict between protecting content you aren't truly relying on the monetization of anymore and what's fair to users because it requires putting the publisher/publisher's agent in front of the access.

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