Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Epic Games to pay $520M to resolve FTC allegations

wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 160 posts

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

#91

Post by burnished »

ethanbond wrote: post #31
zamadatix wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

So just set it to off by default for everyone? That seems like a pretty pragmatic and very non-theatrical improvement. Of course it will have to contend with the theatrics of gamers whining about the immense hassle of a one-time settings change to enable voice chat.

I think a difficulty here is that a lot of responders are imagining that all children are the same precocious 13 year old they were -forgetting the trusting 8 to 10 year olds they also were, and they are doing that thing where the edge cases start to dwarf the primary purpose in their minds.

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

#92

Post by stardenburden »

zug_zug wrote: post #89
superkuh wrote: post #78

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 m…

I can't speak generally, but I bought rocket-league on steam, and I still play it online, multiplayer, on steam, with steam friends or epic friends.

No longer if you were playing on Linux

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

#93

Post by blueboo »

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…

Voice chat has been a “staple” but it’s consistently a torrent of abuse in the most mainstream games for almost two decades now. God help you if your voice presents female.

The game industry loves the mainstream ignorance on this issue. Epic conveniently omits the fact from parents giving their kids Fortnite bux that their 11 year old kid is directly talking with adults twice their age.

Seems like there are lots of ways to confirm age, with various levels of sophistication and thoroughness. I think it’d be easy to improve on the status quo of a flat zero.

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

#94

Post by CivBase »

flyingpenguin wrote: post #84
superkuh wrote: post #78

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 m…

You did not buy a guaranteed life-long access to online Rocket League in all its future forms. Your purchase of Rocket League came with access to the online service as it currently stands as a trust only relationship between you and the owners of the online Rocket League service. I understand your pain here, and I don't want to defend Epic games, but as someone who has created multiple free cloud services only to hav…

> as someone who has created multiple free cloud services only to have their costs or development requirements exceed my ability to maintain them I am weary of anything that would legally require me to maintain a cloud service past my desire to do so

I'd argue the expectation of a multi-billion dollar corporation to maintain an online service feature for a paid product that they are still actively providing on other platforms is pretty reasonable. And that expectation should not add any risk of liability for individuals like you shutting down free online services.

It would come down to how the theoretical law was written. But just because a law can be written poorly doesn't mean we should seek to maintain the status quo.

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

#95

Post by jacooper »

superkuh wrote: post #78

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 m…

They issued refunds for this, why didn't you request one?

It also runs perfectly fine with proton.

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

#96

Post by HDThoreaun »

temprose wrote: post #68
TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the idea is that parents are supposed to create accounts on Epic and Steam, not children. The parent selects the correct age during account creation.

What's stopping the kid from making a new account though? Knowing myself, I did similar things as a child especially since my parents were not very tech literate.

100% stopping kids in voice chat isn't the goal. Stopping kids from accidentality joining voice chat is.

So nothing is stopping them from purposefully getting a chat activated account, that's the point.

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

#97

Post by TedDoesntTalk »

temprose wrote: post #68
TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the idea is that parents are supposed to create accounts on Epic and Steam, not children. The parent selects the correct age during account creation.

What's stopping the kid from making a new account though? Knowing myself, I did similar things as a child especially since my parents were not very tech literate.

Voice chat without parental approval is less likely to happen if the device is in public space in the residence.

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

#99

Post by CivBase »

otachack wrote: post #67
72deluxe wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do not have children but I could not imagine my parents leaving me with unfettered access to a TV at age 4. If the Internet had been around, they certainly wouldn't have given me an internet-enabled device and left me by myself. How is playing games online where you can communicate with random people across the world without any sort of parental supervision possibly a good idea?? And why is it someone else's proble…

I'm also not a parent or a teacher. And I try my best to not give parenting advice to actual parents. It helps to remember that life is complicated and there are limitless factors that can contribute to a family dynamic. Growing up my parents barely knew what the internet was and just associated it with "the computer". They attuned it as a "toy" and nothing serious. This allowed me unfiltered access to anything that…

I sympathize with parents, but I can only accept the naiveté argument up to a point. It's one thing to be naive. It's another to make your naiveté a problem for everyone else. At this point, it is simply not reasonable for a parent to be completely oblivious to the dangers of the internet for little kids.

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

#100

Post by paxys »

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…

What's wrong with keeping voice chat off by default? That is a sensible approach for everyone, not just kids.
Post reply on HN