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Comment by djhworld | Hacker News Reader

The amount of crap in the app stores that encourage this sort of behaviour is truly, truly shocking.

The gaming community often lambast companies like EA etc for loot boxes ("surprise mechanics"), which is definitely a problem that needs to go away, but from this article I suspect there's a lot of examples of absolute bottom of the barrel shovelware on the app stores that's raking it in from accidental purchases from children or vulnerable adults.

I remember Apple saying they were putting together some sort of curated program for high quality games, maybe with a subscription model. Which is cool and everything but creating a two-tier system doesn't solve the underlying problem.

Maybe any transaction should have a 2FA style system where the cardholder need to explicitly approve it through their phone. Or maybe a daily spending cap or something like that

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I was just having an internal debate about the merits of a spending cap. I'm not usually one for such blunt regulation, but there really is no way to justify spending +$100 on mobile games daily unless an individual is addicted, deceived, or in some other way psychologically manipulated.

Although society would probably benefit from similar caps in casinos, and I doubt that regulation will ever arrive be legislated.

I remember hearing about one guy asking his bank to essentially block any gambling transaction as he was an addict

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-45652429

Obviously there are ways to cirumvent that but it seemed to help him.

I suspect it's harder to block these in app purchases at the bank level though, unless everything goes through Apple/Google pay and you block at that level

you can block in-app purchases at the ios level using restrictions. i don't recall if the setting is a different password than the one to login to the ipad though. iirc it seems that you set it up when you enable restrictions.

In Germany you can set yourself on the black list of your local casino or whatever. It‘s a legally required feature.

https://www.verspiel-nicht-dein-leben.de/spielsucht/spielers...

The UK has similar now integrated into various modern fintech banks: https://www.gamblingcommission.gov.uk/for-the-public/Safer-g...

We recently got something similar in Sweden too: https://www.spelpaus.se/

It's a blocklist that all licensed gambling companies in Sweden are required to respect. You add yourself to the list for a certain amount of time, and can't unblock yourself until that time has expired.

This is true in the UK as well. Unfortunately there are new online bookies every week.

The government also set a maximum amount of 4 video game slots machines per store, causing the number of stores to go up by 3 or 4x meaning that after self excluding from one place, you will still walk past many others as you go about your routine. Thankfully this is now being rolled back, as they have set a maximum stake that means most of these stores will have to close down.

Denmark has a similar system, except it is for all online casinos. Heaven help you if you’re addicted to the local jackpot bar.

Most gambling software has self-banning (for time periods) functionality also btw

Why spending cap be government enforced?

Why not just have a second signer to increase a cap?

Can the use of the term “surprise mechanics” not in itself lead to some definition of gambling? eg.: Gamblers continuously perform some behaviour in order to activate some sort of “surprise circuit” within the mind?

Surely their definition is not too far from that of gambling or the mechanics of the circuits activated by gambling/surprises, within the mind.

Gambling requires you to win something of value. Pinball machines only give you free games and are not giving something of value. However some countries like the Netherlands have a definition that includes many of these video games.

2FA is one of those basic things that should be standard for all credit card charges. I want to have the change to approve or deny every charge. Is that so much to ask?

That would result in less consumer spending, so yes.

2FA will be required across the EU in September (outside of some exemptions, eg a charge under €30)

https://www.barclaycard.co.uk/business/news-and-insights/wha...

I was about to say this won't help at all with the microtransaction problem detailed in the article, but then I read your link and found this more complete (although confusing) description of the exemption you name:

>single transactions must be less than €30, up to a maximum of €100 or five transactions

It's the "or" there that I don't quite understand. Does this mean that any 5 transactions can be made without 2FA as long as their cumulative total is less than €100? If so, does the system ask for 2FA after surpassing the €100 limit? Or does this mean that 5 transactions can be made as long as each is under €30?

While probably helpful to families and individuals who face these sorts of issues, the explanation of the law could certainly be clearer here...

Its the same rules as contactless credit card payments by most banks here: after every 5 transactions you need to verify, everyone not larger than 30€ and the sum of these 5 transactions may not exceed 100€. If your next spending will break these rules you need to verify it

Limit is 100 Euros, or 5 transactions. Reach either = 2FA. Single transaction limit is 30Eur. If higher = 2FA.

Apple’s curation programme is Apple Arcade: https://www.apple.com/apple-arcade/ . The takeaway headline: “No ads. No in‑app purchases.”

> Maybe any transaction should have a 2FA style system

It does - at least on Apple devices, IAP need to be authenticated with a physical interaction, and Touch/Face ID.

I was thinking more as in, sending the approval to a separate device, but obviously that wouldn't work if you just have one device that you let your kids play on.

I think Apple already (can) do that - but as you note it doesn't help with a shared device.

Isn't that still single factor? It's touch OR password/info, not AND.

The benefits are largely obscured by in-game currencies, which exist primarily to obfuscate the true cost of inane in-app purchases; maximize the odds of having a useless residual balance (thus encouraging more spending); and reduce barriers to spending.

Games don’t have to prompt for confirmation to spend proprietary fake money. This removes an opportunity to reconsider a purchase, and dramatically increases the chance of accidental spending. And without a dollar value that players can easily reason about, it’s easy to not realize how much you’re spending. “35 crystal whatzits? Um, okay, that doesn’t sound like much.” Never mind the fact that you actually have to buy at least 50 whatzits to have 35, because the next lowest option is to buy 25.

I don’t have any data on this, but I’d be willing to bet that revenues from in-app purchases went through the roof when someone had the bright idea to switch to an in-game currency (and, eventually, multiple currencies).

I have to explicitly approve every install and purchase on my kids' iPod Touches. I don't know if they would need a fingerprint on my phone to be able to spend money there, but I assume all the tools are in place to control this sort of behaviour. Apple really need to make it clearer and easier for people.

They could make that the default behavior. But I suspect someone whose mandate is moneymaking would veto it.

Has anyone done a breakdown of Apple's profit from hardware vs (in-)app purchases? Feels like this is a situation where they're not selling the devices as loss leaders, and could easily improve people's experiences and perceptions by cracking down a bit, without it really costing them much. Feels along the same lines as the privacy push - they _could_ make lots of money selling your data, but they're selling the peace of mind as a feature.

That is somewhat misleading as some apps are essentially shareware, aka free with a single in app purchase to the the full version.

I think Apple would be well served by limiting in app purchases to either 200$ over the lifetime of app or 20$ per month. That would get rid of most bad press without costing them much. They could even then allow specific exceptions on a case by case basis.

This would make the business model for gatcha games (which rely on a small fraction of their player base sendings tens of thousands of dollars each) essentially impossible.

So a net gain for everyone, then.

I disable in app purchases in their entirety on my own personal iOS devices. Mainly cause I’m paranoid that I’ll accidentally tap something and then accidentally approve it when trying to hit the home button.

I’ve had apple devices for years, and I’ve gone in and manually enabled the ability to in-app purchase less than a half a dozen times.

(This, and similar restrictions are buried in the screen time settings, in “content and privacy restrictions”)

Ironically the majority of purchases I make on iOS are in Audible, for which Amazon refuses to pay App Store fees so I have to do it all in a browser. I guess that’s one case in which I wish it was simpler to spend my money/credits.

as much as i dislike amazons practices, i have to cheer them on for doing this. apples fees are atrocious, and amazon is helping people to get used to alternate ways of spending. if more people do this eventually apples control of transactions can be broken.

Seconded. I'm on Android, my kid uses my phone, and he can't buy anything on his own as I have to type in my password for each purchase. If I recall correctly, I had to choose this behavior the first time over (no default, you moved on by picking one or the other), then it remembered my choice. Is anyone's experience different?

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