Key principles on in-game virtual currencies in the EU | Hacker News Reader

Key principles on in-game virtual currencies in the EU

tiendil.org

63 pointsspeckx56 comments

Although it is painted relatively negative in the article, I feel it's a good thing. Of course, EU is known for its overregulation, but consumer rights are not to be neglected.

Most “EU overregulation” is just consumer regs being painted in a bad light for American consumers, so the Us govt won’t imitate it.

EU banning most forms of GMOs was once considered wild over regulation.

I kind of wonder if "overregulation" and "unionization" are two terms carefully chosen to be negative by corporate interests?

"Overregulation" as a word inherently means something negative. "Unionization" doesn't mean anything negative by default.

Like how "piracy" in the context of software licence violations is equated with raping and pillaging on the high seas, and the phrase "drugs and alcohol" appeals to those who might feel uncomfortable with alcohol being a (first class, world's most popular after sugar) drug.

> world's most popular after sugar

Leaving aside the weird categorization of sugar as a drug - yes, I know it's addictive, but not all addictive things are drugs - caffeine is considerably more popular than alcohol.

Caffeine is a psychoactive substance of the stimulant class. You could definitely categorize it as a "drug".

I know, I'm taking issue with calling sugar a drug, not caffeine.

If I told you a consumable substance is mind-altering, habit-forming, pleasurable and difficult to quit, very bad for your health in the quantities most abusers take it, but they continue to do so anyway- what would you call it?

I've always maintained that most "drugs" are just drugs other people dislike, and everyone is apparently happy to go along with this cognitive dissonance; hence the common phrase "drugs and alcohol", "drunk driving" vs "drug driving" etc etc.

> If I told you a consumable substance is mind-altering, habit-forming, pleasurable and difficult to quit, very bad for your health in the quantities most abusers take it, but they continue to do so anyway- what would you call it?

Macdonald's food?

GMOs in and of themselves are fine. It's just a technology. Banning something just because it's a GMO is stupid policy, and definitely over regulation. GMOs are a technology. One can modify a plant or other organism for many purposes. Furthermore, concerns over intellectual property rights over GMOs are a question for how to regulate this technology, not a reason to ban it.

It's not banned there's many approved ones: https://ec.europa.eu/food/food-feed-portal/screen/gmo/search

But it's also important to review each variation and study it closely to avoid potential food safety issues.

This appears to be the main difference between the EU and the US.

In the EU you need to prove your thing won't be harmful before you launch it. In the US you launch it, but then if it's proven to be harmful it might get banned.

I refer to that form of regulation as "closing the door after the horse has already bolted regulation".

This is the American position. “If you can’t prove it’s bad now, it should be legal immediately”.

Europe food regulation runs on the precautionary principle. You have to prove it’s safe first.

Turns out most GMOs were fine but they actually allowed for a huge increase in the use of Roundup.

Roundup is wildly aggressive pesticide and a lot of GMOs were called “Roundup ready” crops, so they could absorb (in theory!) huge amounts of Roundup without being affected.

But the huge increase in the use of Roundup in America might be behind (according to some) the increase in neurocognitive disease.

In the US this was never a thought.

They never banned all GMOs so the very fact that you think that is interesting.

Think about it - who told you that? Why? Who benefited ?

The comment that I replied to says that they banned most GMOs.

What's wrong with GMO?

Turns out most GMOs were fine but they actually allowed for a huge increase in the use of Roundup.

Roundup is wildly aggressive pesticide and a lot of GMOs were called “Roundup ready” crops, so they could absorb (in theory!) huge amounts of Roundup without being affected.

But the huge increase in the use of Roundup in America might be behind (according to some) the increase in neurocognitive disease.

In the US this was never a thought.

I'm ok with most EU regulations and I still consider banning most GMOs wild over regulation.

It's an ideological choice driven by FUD instead of being based on actual science.

At the time, the rationale was that there was not enough knowledge on the long-term effects of GMO.

Which was 100% right.

Turns out most GMOs were fine but they actually allowed for a huge increase in the use of Roundup. Roundup is wildly aggressive pesticide and a lot of GMOs were called “Roundup ready” crops, so they could absorb (in theory!) huge amounts of Roundup without being affected. But the huge increase in the use of Roundup in America might be behind (according to some) the increase in neurocognitive disease. In the US this was never a thought.

Exactly, but the EU could have limited glysophate use, instead of blanket banning GMOs while still allowing imports of soy beans etc grown with it.

(Noticeable: partial bans on glysophate have happened later).

Nobody’s perfect, but not allowing GMOs without long term impact assessments was seems like the right decision.

It might have the saved the EU tens to hundreds of billions in fixing the after effects of glyphosate on human food, which the US is now dealing with.

It’s quite simple - protect your food source, protect it from any change whatsoever that’s not 100% necessary, and you are likely protecting the health of hundreds of millions.

It was a little difficult to find the original 8-page document the author refers to---it's linked a bit down the "News" page, and is here: https://commission.europa.eu/document/8af13e88-6540-436c-b13...

Among other things, it contains some very cute graphics.

Cannot come soon enough. Companies like Voodoo Games have made a killing scamming gullible people with no oversight.

How about companies like Google and Apple collecting 30% off the top the last 15 years? They're the ones not providing that oversight and boy is *doing nothing* profitable: in court Apple revealed 75% profit margin on their fees!

https://www.beuc.eu/reports/game-over-consumers-fight-fairer...

> "The price in real-world currency must always be displayed next to the price in in-game currency."

how would that work? Basically all games use a discount scheme were the price for X of ingame currency depends on how many tokens/gold/coins you buy.

Price means price without discount.

Ah, so we can display the in-game amount, along with it the full-price you would have paid without the discount, and the “savings” because you bought more and oh look how much more you save when you buy more!

They’re gonna need a rule for that.

This is a good idea. I'm saving that for later.

Of course that is how it should be done, but that is least-likely to be implemented by the greedy games industry, is it? They'll interpret it differently as with "cost when saving the most by our fancy bundles".

Then EU will fine them with fines that draw blood.

As I understand, there is also a rule that you must be able to buy an exact amount of premium currency for a specific thing you want. So if that's also enforced, clearly the price shown would have to be how much it costs to buy that exact amount of premium currency.

What about showing the actual real amount that that particular user paid for those tokens?

If you pay $1 for 1 token, I pay $2 for 1 token, I give you my token, are your two tokens now showing $2, or $3?

Weighted average? This is how stocks and other securities are shown in many (most?) brokers.

Seems over complicated for a scammy mobile game, but it's not particularly hard.

Eh, you might as well just show full price, then people will go "I know I didn't spend that much, but shit, that's a lot of money".

A significant portion of purchases are made via Gift Cards.

Yes but part-of the point of those discounts is to obfuscate the value of that currency when you are spending it.

This is like nutritional information on food, it will be "bad" for some companies if there is transparency.

>The price should be indicated based on what the consumer would have to pay in full, directly or indirectly via another in-game virtual currency, the required amount of in-game virtual currency, without applying quantity discounts or other promotional offers

> how would that work?

You divide the price by the number of imaginary game coins (IGCs). Purchasing 2250 IGCs for 100 USD means 4 cents/IGC; 7000 IGCs for 150 USD means 2 cents/IGC.

That’s exactly the problem. The discounts are there to make you buy larger packs and the process of items are designed to not fit neatly into the pack sizes.

Guild Wars 2 doesn’t do that. 5$ is always 400 gems and items cost multiples of 100 gems usually. You can also convert gems into gold (the ingame non store currency) and vice versa.

It’s basically an abstraction over the real life currency to decouple the real money aspect from the actual store. Nothing more.

In comparison, most mobile games try to make this as obfuscated as possible to squeeze as much money out of customers as possible. Basically following the patterns that I was warned in school about regarding drugs. First hit is cheap or even free but once you’re a regular things get more expensive.

If the lowest package you can buy is 100 shinies = 4 EUR, then an item costing 1000 shinies gets shown as 40 EUR. This is independent of whether you can get 1000 shinies for 35 EUR as a bundle deal, or you can earn 10 shinies per day from logging in and completing other in-game tasks.

I learned about this from a youtube video [0]. I think the rules are definitely good for players.

[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCkUUm0zDLY

They just need to also make it illegal for Apple to take more than the credit card fee on in-app transactions and it might make some sort of economic sense to comply with this grab-bag of stuff in Europe.

In-App transactions shouldn't have to go through Apple in the first place. Does your web browser take a cut if you buy something on a website?

This was already fixed by the Digital Markets Act that allows apps to bypass Apple for in-app purchases.

EU can't stop regulate everything. Last week they say they should regulate a lot less but that was the same EU bureaucrats that talk talk, promise and don't do anything good, just make impossible to do anything in digital space.

Yeah, who needs consumer's rights. Right ?

If by “impossible to do anything”, you mean “anything that’s deeply anti-consumer”, then yes you’re right.

However having worked at several EU companies of various sizes, I can tell you that it’s very easy to operate in the EU if you don’t choose to exploit your customers.

When you have companies using every dirty trick in the book to generate more revenue from microtransactions and their product is specifically targeted to minors, I can't say this is surprising. [1]

[1]: Star Stable Online

Hell I would say the whole waifu crap is beyond absurd (people spend upwards to 10k dollars)

There was a perfect post on reddit a month ago. https://redd.it/1iykl6h

This has the same vibes as BP talking about the co2 footprint and personal responsibility.

Like… why are you defending the companies that took the hobby of millions of people (video games) and turned it into the equivalent of selling drugs to little kids in the school yard using every dirty trick in the book you make them purchase something in their games.

> just make impossible to do anything in digital

We in the EU are missing all the innovative ways companies can scam or poison us.

It is indeed a terrible place.

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