Europe seems to have adopted the practice of looting American companies.
Italy investigates Activision Blizzard for pushing in-game purchases
41–50 of 56 posts
Re: Italy investigates Activision Blizzard for pushing in-game purchases
#42[flagged]
Re: Italy investigates Activision Blizzard for pushing in-game purchases
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a toxic government regulatory framework. Treating all consumers as suspect children first and foremost not only makes the experience worse but it defeats the purpose it was created for. I shouldn't need to submit my ID every time I want to watch a rated R movie on Netflix or cable. I shouldn't need to scan and submit my face to view a wikipedia article about anatomy. This is the end goal of such suspicious tr…
What are you talking about ? It says that the parental settings (when enabled!) are just letting children do whatever they want by default: - buying overpriced objects - chat without any restriction online - play without interruption for long time I think the first one is probably the most poignant: piping children into disguised gambling addiction by default seems like a major fault. Borderline illegal, if you ask m…
I'm talking about the above comments argument that this kind of overreach is a healthy government regulatory framework. I am not talking about the argument from the person above them.
You seem to be forgetting a crucial part of this. The parent. If a parent is buying their child a gambling game then that's on them. Not on the government to force everyone to submit their IDs and face scans to play a game for adults.
Parental controls are not a phony feature at all. That's like saying accessibility options are phony features. It's an option for people who need it. Just because it isn't default in every scenario doesn't mean it's disingenuous.
Re: Italy investigates Activision Blizzard for pushing in-game purchases
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
What does healthy parenting look like then?
When did "healthy parenting" become a full-time cybersecurity job with no training, adversaries backed by infinite capital, teams of PhDs optimizing for addiction, and sexual predators from around the globe dialoguing with your child through any glass surface your child can get their hands on?
This is riddled with fearmongering. You don't need to be a cybersecurity expert to take interest in your own child. It doesn't take a PhD to enable parental controls or tell your child "no" if they want something that is inappropriate for them.
You might as well have said that you need to be a police officer to make sure your child isn't hit by a drunk driver, kidnapped by creeps or attacked by someone on the street. Children are under the care of parents or guardians for a reason. It's not to fist fight criminals or design their own security system.
Re: Italy investigates Activision Blizzard for pushing in-game purchases
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
When did "healthy parenting" become a full-time cybersecurity job with no training, adversaries backed by infinite capital, teams of PhDs optimizing for addiction, and sexual predators from around the globe dialoguing with your child through any glass surface your child can get their hands on?
This is riddled with fearmongering. You don't need to be a cybersecurity expert to take interest in your own child. It doesn't take a PhD to enable parental controls or tell your child "no" if they want something that is inappropriate for them. You might as well have said that you need to be a police officer to make sure your child isn't hit by a drunk driver, kidnapped by creeps or attacked by someone on the street.…
Your analogy about drunk drivers actually makes my point: we don't just tell parents "be vigilant". We have DUI laws, road design standards, and enforcement--systemic solutions, not just individual responsibility.
With tech, we've largely abdicated that, placing the entire burden on parents to defend against industrial-scale manipulation.
Expecting individual parents to successfully counter industrial-scale behavioral engineering is a systems failure, not a parenting failure.
Re: Italy investigates Activision Blizzard for pushing in-game purchases
#46As a game developer myself, I think young kids should not be able to make purchases on their own. But some of the ideas on what needs to be done is just silly. Here is some of the ideas the Norwegian Consumer Council suggested: - All things in games should be shown in real money value, not in game currency that you have to but for real money, and the price should reflect the most expensive way to get the currency. -…
I'm not sure the legislation is good, but I'm not sure I follow some arguments. FWIW the ideas you're referring to are these I think: https://www.forbrukerradet.no/report-on-virtual-currencies-i...
> Bigger purchases give more, because the percentage lost to fees are lower.
Encouraging bulk purchases seems like an orthogonal problem to allowing users to choose the amount. You could always allow users to choose the amount and just include the transaction fee.
> after the purchase is made, it's not real money, and if it were, I'd be a financial institution and break the rules of all major card networks
If card networks are operating in the country, they'd have to abide by the country's rules too.
But also, I don't think that's how it works. It says "Developers must be obligated to provide an equivalence in real currency clearly and transparently next to the premium virtual currency before each transaction." (translated to English, but) - IIUC this means that if you sell a skin for "10 coins" you have to show the cost in real world money at the same time, e.g. maybe $1.9 one day, maybe $2.2 another day, based on the cost to purchase said coins. Or you could change the skin price from 10 to 11 or whatever if you want to keep the real money cost the same. It's not forcing any financial changes on you, just making you display a number.
Re: Italy investigates Activision Blizzard for pushing in-game purchases
#47"The Immoral Design of Diablo Immortal" by Josh Strife Hayes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o17lBUZgjTs
Re: Italy investigates Activision Blizzard for pushing in-game purchases
#48"The Immoral Design of Diablo Immortal" by Josh Strife Hayes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o17lBUZgjTs
"(..) twenty two different in-game currencies (..)"
Re: Italy investigates Activision Blizzard for pushing in-game purchases
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
What are you talking about ? It says that the parental settings (when enabled!) are just letting children do whatever they want by default: - buying overpriced objects - chat without any restriction online - play without interruption for long time I think the first one is probably the most poignant: piping children into disguised gambling addiction by default seems like a major fault. Borderline illegal, if you ask m…
I'm talking about the above comments argument that this kind of overreach is a healthy government regulatory framework. I am not talking about the argument from the person above them. You seem to be forgetting a crucial part of this. The parent. If a parent is buying their child a gambling game then that's on them. Not on the government to force everyone to submit their IDs and face scans to play a game for adults. P…
> I'm talking about the above comments argument that this kind of overreach is a healthy government regulatory framework.
Which government's way of doing things would you suggest is "healthy"?
Hopefully you're not serious saying the US [appears to be healthy]?
Re: Italy investigates Activision Blizzard for pushing in-game purchases
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is riddled with fearmongering. You don't need to be a cybersecurity expert to take interest in your own child. It doesn't take a PhD to enable parental controls or tell your child "no" if they want something that is inappropriate for them. You might as well have said that you need to be a police officer to make sure your child isn't hit by a drunk driver, kidnapped by creeps or attacked by someone on the street.…
Your analogy about drunk drivers actually makes my point: we don't just tell parents "be vigilant". We have DUI laws, road design standards, and enforcement--systemic solutions, not just individual responsibility. With tech, we've largely abdicated that, placing the entire burden on parents to defend against industrial-scale manipulation. Expecting individual parents to successfully counter industrial-scale behaviora…
[dead]