FTC bans Genshin Impact dev from selling lootboxes to under-16s, fines them $20M | Hacker News Reader

FTC bans Genshin Impact dev from selling lootboxes to under-16s, fines them $20M

ftc.gov

38 pointsjsheard10 comments

So so good. I did not think authorities will have enough balls to do something about this problem.

Loot boxes completely ruined games nowadays. You buy an expensive game and still spend your time nagged and frustrated in your gaming experience to push you to generate them recurring revenue.

>nagged and frustrated in your gaming experience to push you to generate them recurring revenue.

Modern consumer tech in a nutshell. It's all about user hacking to meet financial/growth metrics. The end-user is a resource to exploit, not an actual human to engage with in a fair trade of value.

That's probably a day's income from those boxes for them. It should be completely removed, adding an age restriction is merely a bandage. Steam is also extremely notorious for exploiting their user base on "loot boxes" by hiring specialists for making it as addictive as possible

> Steam is also extremely notorious for exploiting their user base on "loot boxes" by hiring specialists for making it as addictive as possible

As well as allowing off-platorm gambling markets in their games (CS:GO) to thrive, when they could very easily shut them down within a day without inconveniencing non-gambling players.

This is the real killer. Gambling in the CS scene is absolutely rampant, you will only find a handful of CS influencers that do no accept gambling sponsors (As they offer much more than other companies).

I was happy when Belgium banned loot boxes, but it was not nearly enough.

Meanwhile: "Genshin Impact tops $5 billion in revenue in China alone, on track to hit $10 billion globally in 2025" https://gameworldobserver.com/2024/10/11/genshin-impact-reve...

This is a drop in the bucket, so I'm sure they don't care.

Which is why the fines should be a percentage of the total revenue.

The regulatory equivalent of “old man shakes fist at clouds”

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