Some people hate the eu but I swear I only hear wins
this post was submitted on 21 Mar 2025
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It's stuff like chat control that make me hate the EU sometimes.
Nice, good for EU
I wonder if this will in practice put an end to the scummy practice of badly sized in game currency pack sizes, one of the many scummy techniques they use to make people spend more.
Let’s say the thing most players buy costs 3 ingame currency (I love that my autocorrect made „insane currency“ out of that). The smallest pack you can buy is 5. So, the player buys 5, spends 3 and has 2 left with which nothing to do. If they want another 3, they have to buy 5 more. Spend 3, have 4 left. Spend 3, have 1 left. The cycle continues.
Or, just stop games from selling in-game content?
Every skin is a texture or model swap, every "exclusive" always exists in the files, every in-game currency is fabricated.
Games try really really hard to make you pay for something that is copy and pasted
I find it interesting that it says it’s based on existing legislation. In that case I’ma bit disappointed that it took them so long to act. But, it’s of course a stop in the right direction.
How will this affect the Platinum market in Warframe?
These seem to be the four major points:
clear and transparent pricing and pre-contractual information;
avoiding practices hiding the costs of in-game digital content and services, as well as practices forcing consumers to purchase virtual currency;
respect of consumers' right of withdrawal;
respecting consumer vulnerabilities, in particular when it comes to children;
First one actually seems pretty well covered by Warframe already. Second point can be met just by displaying the real currency price next to the plat price, calculated based on what people on average give per plat when purchasing through the Warframe website. Third point... Yeah that's going to be a point of contention for sure. That'll require a redesign of the plat system. Fourth point I'd also say Warframe does. Their 'oh shit' moment when they ended up creating a slot machine with, what was it, kubrow skins? Demonstrates them actually caring about this already. Basically they saw people interacting with a new mechanic much like one would a slot machine, and then soon after rolled it back and refunded everyone who had spent money on it.
Considering you can't sell platinum for money, you could add complexity by converting it to another currency when exchanging hands. No value lost, exact same ratio. You buy platinum, you spend it on the store or it decays when you give it to another player. Platinum carries real world value, decayed doesn't. Would that work? The only reason for doing that would be to obfuscate the fact platinum has real world value. The players being constantly aware of the fact might mess with the economy.
Honestly, their monetization is really something I could never criticize.
Stay winning EU.
In-game purchases should display the exact cost in the local currency. In-game currency should be completely banned.
There are many many examples of predatory uses of in game currencies, but here are some big reasons devs use them besides being scummy.
- Giving currency for free: giving people real money isn't something any dev wants to deal with, so giving in game currency allows this to happen. This also applies to games where you can convert free currency to premium currency.
- Local currencies: currency packages can be set to local prices without having to localize the in-game economy itself. This simplifies development a lot.
- Weak promotion support on distributor platforms: believe it or not, iOS and android have incredibly weak promotion and sale support. By giving in-game currency, it gets around that failing of the platforms because the game can do whatever it wants with the in-game currency.
Transparency is good, but let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Giving currency for free: giving people real money isn't something any dev wants to deal with, so giving in game currency allows this to happen. This also applies to games where you can convert free currency to premium currency.
But this is how gift codes work, no? You're not giving money away directly. Just give a voucher for a real currency if you want to gift users.
What baby? In game purchases? That's not a baby, that's a big shit somebody took in your tub. If transparency is too hard to implement, publishers should feel free to get rid of them altogether.
Also in some games players can trade the currency
- Give store credit for free. Easy. Let them turn ingame currencies into store credit.
- That might be difficult, i give you that, but given the amount of work companies put into their monetization schemes, i am sure a converter can be worked out. Or use dollar/euro/ruble/yuan equivalents, depending on the largest market near a smaller currency.
- See 1. Give away store credit.
Store credit lets them manipulate you. They can say the minimum top up is $5. Then put the cheapest items at $3. Want two $3 items? You have to deposit at least $10! It goes on and on.
No. Just make it so you add items to a cart and purchase their exact value with real money, no in between, no scummy tactics.
(But if it was up to me, I would ban MTX altogether)
Even 2 isn't difficult. If they can set a price on the currency itself then they can set it on each item trivially.
They can give items for free instead. Without currency they cant give you 90% of what you need and force you to overpay for extra.
A variable for a value is trivial. It already works perfectly fine in the store!
Sure sales on mobile... (sounds like Apple and Google would get some needed pressure to improve this area) but thats another problem, none of these purchases should be expensive enough to even warrant needing a sale in the first place.
The real reason they want in game currency is not any of these, it's for the deception factor, avoiding refunds, upselling etc
The CPC Network, coordinated by the European Commission, is publishing a set of guidelines today to promote transparency and fairness in the online gaming industry's use of virtual currencies.
That doesn’t seem binding.
It seems they are saying that these are already enforced:
The key principles and the Common Position are based on the existing general rules of EU consumer law directives that apply to digital services and digital content provided to consumers, including video games. The Commission will continue to examine these topics in the context of forthcoming consultations on the Digital Fairness Act.
Nah thats usually how those start out afaik. They start with a guideline and a grace period. Then when the grace period is over there is a warning period and after that it goes straight to fines.
The CPC Network will monitor progress and may take further actions if harmful practices continue.
Lets see what happens.
It is in part. They are hosting workshops and publishing these guidelines so companies can work on it on their own merit but they will also take further action if the harmful practices continue
I hope it doesn't affect EVE Online. As I remember it their system didn't involve any deception or confusion, even though there was in-game currency you could spend € on if you wanted to.
Well I mean there was plenty of deception and confusion among and between the players, but none from the game itself.
If the conversion rate isnt 1:1 or its not directly using € in the game then i would call that confusing or deceptive.
For real. We need to get rid of games where 10 Red coins = 2.2 mystic gems = 1256 diamonds = 1.56 flowers and you can only buy red coin and only spend flowers and each conversion has a 1 green coin processing fee and you have to convert in that order. It's predatory and so sad that people get duped by it.
As I remember it: It's an online game, so you need a monthly subscription to play. That is a set price in whatever real-world currency as normal. But you can buy as many months as you like in advance; and if you buy more than you need you can sell them in-game for whatever you can get on the open market which is controlled by players.
It was a long time ago, no idea if it still works that way. But it seemed to me like a good system, for a game in which in-game market trading between players is a big part of it.
P.S. Actually come to think of it I think they went free-to-play at some point. I wonder if my account still exists.
When I played, 1 plex = 1 month but they eventually converted it to 1000 plex = 1 month or something?
You can use ISK (in game currency) to buy plex and sell plex for ISK. The exchange rate of plex to ISK fluctuates depending on market demand so putting a hard real world currency equivalent value would be tough.
Just putting a reasonably-up-to-date real-world value estimate next to any price in parentheses would be a big step forward though.
The first two principles for virtual currencies that they have listed are "Price indication should be clear and transparent" and "Practices obscuring the cost of in-game digital content and services should be avoided", so if EVE is honest and up front about it then it should be fine
What does this mean for me, a capital G gamer? /s
But seriously, will I still be able to earn gold in MTGA?