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'My son spent £3,160 in one game' (BBC article looking at exploitative MTXs)
- Thread starter oni-link
- Start date
The truth is that these people would still be screaming about "parental responsibility" if we were seeing articles talking about a full blown underage MTX/gambling epidemic on a daily basis.
Yep and the list for people to blame when this stuff starts to get regulated always includes parents, "ResetEra whiners," journalists and the children themselves. Everyone except for the billion dollar company that decided to get too greedy.
People would be surprised about how few people actually understand that many modern games are built to encourage literally infinite spending instead of being throw away experiences like a book or a movie.
I feel bad for the parents and have no issue with putting pressure on mtx in games.
But am I the only person on Earth who set up a password before being able to make Google Play purchases?
But am I the only person on Earth who set up a password before being able to make Google Play purchases?
The majority of studios that went bankrupt were mid-tier development studios who either chased after AAA or made some very bad decisions (THQ with uDraw. Finding success on Wii and thinking it would transition to PS3 and 360 leaving millions of unsold stock forcing them into bankruptcy), or both. The arrival of the HD twins pushed out the mid-tier and left an imbalance between small titles and AAA in the console space. It's why in that era, Japan moved majority of their development to handhelds and kept many franchises alive.
That's not the case. You mentioned THQ. They had great games such as Red Faction Guerrilla, Darksiders, Destroy All Humans, and if all it takes is one big mistake with uDraw to make them bankrupt it shows how difficult the industry was. At the same time, EA and Take Two were losing hundreds of millions annually, but they were better able to weather it. Other publishers had been going for multiple generations then went bankrupt around then too, like Acclaim, 3DO, Midway, Atari. Eidos was almost bankrupt when they were acquired. Disney closed their development studios and went back to licensing their brands. Sega and Konami mostly pulled out of AAA development. The fact remains inflation is up 29% since 2006 while game prices are up 0%, and the games are also bigger and more detailed than ever before.
People are losing their minds about EA and microtransactions and lootboxes and yet when there are articles like this many are also quick to put the blame entirely on the parents.
Boggles the mind.
Boggles the mind.
Those games you mention are mid-tier developed titles and normally THQ could have weathered some storms if a game here or there bombed or under performed. But uDraw was very different. uDraw came out in 2010 with a tablet peripheral and pressure sensitive stylus, and was necessary to draw things. It was a success on the Wii. In 2011 they decided to bring the thing over to PS3 and 360, and 1.4 million copies went unsold and they lost $100m in this financial disaster. They ended production in 2012 and 2012 was the year of THQ's collapse.
THQ details full extent of uDraw disaster
Revenue from the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions of THQ's uDraw tablet peripheral was a staggering $100 million bel…
www.eurogamer.net
If they hadn't ported uDraw to the PS3 and 360, this all could have been very easily avoided. Like I said, stupid mistakes cost many, and chasing the AAA market from some of these studios was also a bad move as well. In AAA you go big or go home, you have to be a success or face possible ruin. The irony here is that as the middle was disappearing it lead to big hits becoming mega hits due to the segmentation and over-concentration happening in the market. Now for many AAA titles, they've become too big to fail. That is the bi-polarity of the market in the console space these days. There are hardly any mid-tier developed titles these days, and what is there mainly comes from Japan.
Ah, I see. I assumed you were taking on my viewpoint when you wrote that, my mistake.
This seems like a strange way to define a benefit. A lower price is always more attractive, so one would always want that in a vacuum, but being unaware of the potential negatives doesn't mean it becomes something objectively positive.
I think the example I gave of microtransactions and larger transactions being connected goes at least some way toward explaining why they're often lumped together in discussions. Is that fair to say?
"buying into those larger purchases erodes any facade of not realizing how much they're spending" is an interesting statement. You're contrasting the purchasing style generally associated with microtransactions with the purchasing style associated with larger purchases to show that they are in fact different categories of purchase, but, well, isn't buyers not realizing how much they're spending in the microtransaction model an issue? That's not designing ethically, is it? I'd also take issue with the idea that larger purchases are made in a more objective way by buyers (you seem to argue that the scale of the purchase forces buyers to be more objective). It might not be the steady drip model of microtransactions, but there are certainly ways a larger purchase can be made to seem more fair than it really is.
I'm not sure I understand your argument. Are you saying that because the spender and non-spender populations are generally pretty separate that a large non-spender userbase doesn't attract spenders? I would think that separation would be more of a factor when spenders are already engaged, not so much in acquiring them. My understanding is that basically mindshare is the largest factor in player acquisition, and population size is the largest driver of mindshare. Does this not apply to players who are spenders somehow?
At the same time I am surprised by "very few games actually use spenders to entice non-spenders effectively." Just off the top of my head, in, say, a game driven by cosmetics, those cosmetics grant social status to spenders that non-spenders will desire, pushing them to become spenders. I'm sure there are many other methods of conversion that a layman like me wouldn't be able to think up, so I'm surprised that apparently very few games are successful in this.
This:
is exactly the kind of bifurcation I was talking about. So it can occur naturally, but it isn't usually worth it to exploit it? There's a huge profit motive in figuring out how to best monetize your big spenders, so it seems like there's justification to use significant resources to do that. If those big spenders make up the bulk of your revenue it seems like the entire business model would be focused on this. I guess they don't generally make up the bulk of revenue then? That surprises me, but I could be seriously underestimating the strength of ad revenue, in which case it's just a misconception on my part.
Yeah, machine learning is going to accelerate pretty much every facet of these business models, and honestly I think it's pretty frightening. That's a whole other, very large subject.
That unethical practice you describe is... uh, interesting. Are there any articles documenting instances of it? That's absolutely wild, and again, frightening.
Thanks again.
The point is that THEY SHOULDN'T FUCKING HAVE TO. Ffs! If a game has content from which children need protection, IT'S NOT A FUCKING KIDS GAME. These games shouldnt be rated 3 or 7 or 12. They should be rated 16 minimum and probably 18. But PEGI and other such organisations have literally nothing between their legs. They should rate the next Fifa as 18. And they would if they were truly independent and not open to outside influence.
Look at the amount of people in this thread ready to just blindly tow the company line and go STRAIGHT into blaming the parents.
I'd love to know the ratio of "lol dumb fuck parents" posters to actual parents as well. I bet it's pathetically low.
I'd love to know the ratio of "lol dumb fuck parents" posters to actual parents as well. I bet it's pathetically low.
My kids have their own Apple and Xbox accounts under my family with restrictions on them.
There's not a massive excuse for most of the stories above.
Can a 9 year old kid buy $3000 worth of stuff (non-refundable too) with debit card in a toy store in America? Its not possible here where I live but maybe they can over there?
The thing that really gets me is that people are just like "oh well, I guess you're out $3000 then" when these are just digital purchases and could therefore easily be refunded with minimal impact.
Jim makes a good point - why would a parent expect a game, that's rated for 3+, to need parental controls?
The ESRB could pretty much kill this is they made loot box mechanics an automatic AO rating lol
To everyone saying that there are already parental controls, restrictions etc that are in place to stop this sort of stuff, its worth remembering that most people out there and in particular parents are not tech savy enough to know these things even exist. I understand its easy to say its the parents fault when you are aware of these systems/settings but the reality is that most people don't know or haven't had to care about this before.
I am pretty sure that all the parents mentioned by bbc have done their research and will be more careful after the fact and perhaps the article will help push other parents to look into this sort of stuff.
So before jumping in and assigning the blame to the parents, remember how long it took your dad to figure out how to schedule recording on the VCR or if you have a little computer knowledge think of some of the stupid questions you have been asked by people. Not everyone is lucky enough to know how all this stuff works.
I am pretty sure that all the parents mentioned by bbc have done their research and will be more careful after the fact and perhaps the article will help push other parents to look into this sort of stuff.
So before jumping in and assigning the blame to the parents, remember how long it took your dad to figure out how to schedule recording on the VCR or if you have a little computer knowledge think of some of the stupid questions you have been asked by people. Not everyone is lucky enough to know how all this stuff works.
Which, again is simply the parents' responsibility to become knowledgable about the content their children consume and how they control it.
As a parent, this isn't an acceptable answer. Either get to know, or don't cry when the child hasn't been protected from being able to make mistakes like this.
I don't understand the controversy. I think it's quite ethical and quite fun.
I call them surprise bills.
I call them surprise bills.
It's exploitative sure but so is the whole commercial industry, however unlike the adverts which are impossible to avoid it is very easy to block all micro transactions.
On my phone I have actively blocked all in-app purchases so I can't even accidentally buy anything. I have to enter my full password anytime I download an app, people are making it too easy for big companies to fuck them and regardless of what regulations come into force like a good thief they'll just find some other way to get your money.
On my phone I have actively blocked all in-app purchases so I can't even accidentally buy anything. I have to enter my full password anytime I download an app, people are making it too easy for big companies to fuck them and regardless of what regulations come into force like a good thief they'll just find some other way to get your money.
Not to say that microtransactions aren't bullshit but I HATE these kinds of stories, on any subject.
Parents: DO PARENTING. Videogames, Youtube, TV, etc. don't bear any responsability on what your kids do on it, with it or because of it.
The reality is that a lot of parents use these stuffs as virtual nannies and then cry foul at the service for whatever the kids do??? give me a break. Take a couple of minutes to make sure what the kids are actually doing.
Parents: DO PARENTING. Videogames, Youtube, TV, etc. don't bear any responsability on what your kids do on it, with it or because of it.
The reality is that a lot of parents use these stuffs as virtual nannies and then cry foul at the service for whatever the kids do??? give me a break. Take a couple of minutes to make sure what the kids are actually doing.
The problem is, it's easier to set-up credit card info and payment options then it is to set-up parental controls.
This should be the other way around.
Buying IAP should be harder to do
and setting parental controls shoud be way easier
But it is easy to see why it is the way it is.
This should be the other way around.
Buying IAP should be harder to do
and setting parental controls shoud be way easier
But it is easy to see why it is the way it is.
Absolute bullshit.
"As a parent, get to know every single platform offering digital purchases and how they specifically work. And if you aren't technologically literate, screw you. You deserve to pay 3000 $ for your negligence regarding this relatively new market. Don't cry about it, you ridiculous excuse of a lame trash parent."
Parenting is about instilling decent values in your kid. Taking responsibility for their health and well being, being there for them when they need it. Having a job that lets you give them a safe upbringing. Not fighting a sisyphean battle against the ever changing manipulative marketing strategies spreading like a disease through modern society, biologically engineered by multi million dollar companies employing psychologists specialised in making you spend as much money as possible on virtual goods without any inherent value.
A combination of that fact that children use their parents stuff to play games and/or their parents accounts (or accounts that are sub-accounts to their parents accounts) and the fact that parents are basically required to keep payment details on their devices to use them properly means this stuff is always going to happen.
Just reading this thread I'm thinking about my own kids. They have have their own kindle fire "kid's edition" tablets for car journeys and such like and these come with a large selection of games for them to play. I have always kinda assumed that these games are vetted and don't have MTX in them (because they are for the use of small children) but I realise now that I don't actually know that and no doubt my amazon payment details are linked....
Just reading this thread I'm thinking about my own kids. They have have their own kindle fire "kid's edition" tablets for car journeys and such like and these come with a large selection of games for them to play. I have always kinda assumed that these games are vetted and don't have MTX in them (because they are for the use of small children) but I realise now that I don't actually know that and no doubt my amazon payment details are linked....
Kids shouldn't be able to make mistakes like this on games pegi 3. You on the other hand should take your victim blaming elsewhere.
Handing your phone to your kid: "You figuratively willingly gave your payment details to your kid".
Writing down your credit card and verification number on a paper and giving it to your kild: "You literally willingly gave your payment details to your kid".
If the parent isn't parenting, how do they know the kid is only playing the 3+ game? It's a weak argument to say they shouldn't need to do anything because that specific game is 3+. The kid could be downloading M rated Warframe, T rated Apex Legends, borrowing GTAV from a friend or older sibling, etc. That's why the parental controls exist for the system, not the game.
apocat Don't most adults check their finances regularly? You don't need to know how this or that game works to see that money is leaving your account rapidly over a period of 15 months. You also continually dodge the point that the father with the adult son who has a cognitive age of 7 is most likely the financial power of attorney and yet apparently paid no attention to the sons finances for well over a year, while you seem to want to give the father a full pass.
You're a tech literate, hardcore gamer, parent. You're not EVERY parent
I'm not dodging anything. I'm discussing the matter at hand, not one specific instance. You're the one strangely fixated on the father of the disabled person in question. As far as I can see, the money were debited during somewhere around three months, not a year? And having the economic responsibility of an adult family member is something that you do outside of your normal everyday responsibilities. It usually has more to do with paying bills or budgeting food and clothings, making sure that day to day matters work out. My sister has a similar responsibility for our disabled mother, and I'd be surprised if she checks our mothers savings account on more than a semi-regular basis.
So yeah, you've yet to convince me of anything with your posts.
Haha, I hope I don't come across as talking to myself to too many people in this thread! I'm starting to wonder if he's actually made an app fueled by microtransactions or something? This might be his livelyhood we're discussing?
Oh shit , i just try to think of all the things ling around in the house which have a payment method attached...
Is there a parental guide or checklist ?
- Switch ( only needs one passord ) or how is the parental control there for kid's account?
- Google play (needs a payment method attached ) on tablet and smartphone
- Steam ,
- uplay
- origin
- aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh
Is there a parental guide or checklist ?
Because you know that would cause them to do work on their part
Consumers are acutely aware that developers aren't being "generous" when it comes to anything they do. Whether or not a monetization tactic is beneficial to the consumer comes down to whether that tactic aligns with the consumer's intent. If you want to zoom out and look at it purely from an objective lens (if you consider a transaction zero sum) then at that point, yes, there is no such thing as a monetization tactic that's beneficial to the consumer.
There's an appropriate time to lump small and large MTX together, and many inappropriate times. If someone spends $1000 in Candy Crush over 3 years of $1 bonus moves purchases, that's the micro-effect at work. If someone spends $1000 in 6 months of playing Fortnite because they're buying $50 currency packs... well... that's a very different thing. At that price point, they're fully aware of the impact of their purchase. They may not realize that they've spent $1000, but that's not an issue with MTX. That's a general failure of human brains to track things over time. As I said, the same goes with things like food, clothes--even full games sales.
To address the first part of this--population size is important but not all-important. Era tends to emphasize engagement metrics like CCU because they're the most exposed to consumers, but generally LTV (average lifetime value per customer) is the more important metric, and that can vary wildly between games (to the order of magnitudes). On mobile especially, improving your engagement metrics serve primarily as a way to extend your LTV, as games are not designed around CCU like AAA multiplayer games are. Mindshare is handled through ad buys, not being a part of the zeitgeist. It's a very money-in, money-out approach.
Gonna be honest and say I don't play any pay-for-power AAA games. Never touched an EA sports games, so I'm not really familiar with how they do things.
With regards to cosmetics, I've yet to see anyone actually validate this through data. There are some anecdotes here and there, but that wouldn't pass the muster to design around it. These sorts of effects are not as powerful as people like to think; but the business of F2P games is one of incremental optimizations. To become certain of such an effect, this would require some pretty complex analytics and/or cohorting capabilities. Entirely possible it's a thing, but for me at least, it's supposition until proven. In general, most of the stuff Era is dreaming that companies are doing is too complex to actually pull off scientifically. Surprisingly, it's often more cost-effective to build new features than to perform hardcore optimization of existing ones. The companies that are capable of things like this are likely the ones running older, more stable games (or game series) where there's a pile of historical data and room for innovation is limited.
No, there's no public documentation of this sort of thing. It's all very proprietary and hush-hush. There's a thread about EA's patent here (https://www.resetera.com/threads/ea...g-works-in-their-games-fifa-madden-etc.120006) but I'd caution you to be critical in reading that thread because there's a lot of misinformation going about.
I remember third party games costing $60 or more during the SNES/Genesis era.
I texted several friends and colleagues and asked how they handled microtransactions on their devices. All but two of them said they do not have their bank details on their devices. If their kid wants to buy something in a game they might get a prepaid currency card (they also appear to have an unusual ability to say "no" or "maybe later" to their kids.)
Of the two people who do have direct payment info on their devices, one of them is single. No kids to buy a plethora of FIFA packs or Fortnite skins. He also locks his device with a password. The final one simply did not think to remove their payment info from the console as his child is 2 years old. I advised him to reconsider this and mentioned the article in the OP.
I feel that if these people can safeguard their bank details then any reasonably functional adult can do it too if they care to take a few minutes to learn their device settings.
Which is not to defend microtransactions. Ban them worldwide for all I care. However, we need to do something between now and however many years that will take. I feel an emphasis on personal responsibility would stop many of these cases from happening. I cannot imagine any universe where stressing the importance of covering your banking details is seen as a bad thing.
Of the two people who do have direct payment info on their devices, one of them is single. No kids to buy a plethora of FIFA packs or Fortnite skins. He also locks his device with a password. The final one simply did not think to remove their payment info from the console as his child is 2 years old. I advised him to reconsider this and mentioned the article in the OP.
I feel that if these people can safeguard their bank details then any reasonably functional adult can do it too if they care to take a few minutes to learn their device settings.
Which is not to defend microtransactions. Ban them worldwide for all I care. However, we need to do something between now and however many years that will take. I feel an emphasis on personal responsibility would stop many of these cases from happening. I cannot imagine any universe where stressing the importance of covering your banking details is seen as a bad thing.
That's still wrong. You don't figuratively hand your kid a phone so using the word literally is redundant.
Literally is used when a phrase that's used in a metaphorical sense actually happens. Ex. I literally got stabbed in the back
I'm way late to this so I'll just make a couple of observations as a parent.
1.) Yes, your payment information should be locked down. However, given the myriad of ways that digital purchases can be made I think this is often something you learn from experience even if you arguably should have known better beforehand. I literally just got done talking to an Amazon rep because my 2-year-old kid made a 1-click purchase via the Fire Tablet on a $20 season of a kids show that was already available via our Prime sub. Lesson learned: turn off 1-click. They issued me the refund as they should.
2.) Companies should always be looking into this to allow refunds on clearly bad faith purchases. In the first story in the OP, Nintendo refunded the purchases. This is the obviously correct thing to do. I mean, I get that sometimes it may not always be clear if it's a child or if it's an adult who just wants a refund on their gambling losses. But you probably should just err on the side of issuing the refunds. Maybe make it so that doing so deactivates the account or something so that serious players that know the odds can't just get a refund on a bad night of pulls just to go back at it the next day and try again.
1.) Yes, your payment information should be locked down. However, given the myriad of ways that digital purchases can be made I think this is often something you learn from experience even if you arguably should have known better beforehand. I literally just got done talking to an Amazon rep because my 2-year-old kid made a 1-click purchase via the Fire Tablet on a $20 season of a kids show that was already available via our Prime sub. Lesson learned: turn off 1-click. They issued me the refund as they should.
2.) Companies should always be looking into this to allow refunds on clearly bad faith purchases. In the first story in the OP, Nintendo refunded the purchases. This is the obviously correct thing to do. I mean, I get that sometimes it may not always be clear if it's a child or if it's an adult who just wants a refund on their gambling losses. But you probably should just err on the side of issuing the refunds. Maybe make it so that doing so deactivates the account or something so that serious players that know the odds can't just get a refund on a bad night of pulls just to go back at it the next day and try again.
Education for parents is good. But you know what is also good? Making any game with randomized monetizations rated AO. To even view any monetization option to be an opt in process. And I like Steve Youngblood's suggestion that massive purchases of excess of "x" amount of dollars in an allotted amount of time can be refunded without any hoops at the cost of deactivation of your account for that specific game. Problem solved.
You're doing this on purpose? I'm saying what he said "literally happened" was, in fact, not what literally happened, and at best happened figuratively. Of course you don't figuratively hand your phone to your kid, but the point is that you, at best figuratively (certainly not literally) hand them your payment details by handing them the phone.
I don't know what you find confusing at all, and sorry but I really can't make it any more clearer than this without drawing you a diagram, so I think the conversation ends here.
I'm surprised you'd say this. This implies that consumers in general are highly knowledgeable about the background workings of the games they play, which, let's admit, just isn't true. There's absolutely a highly informed, dedicated segment of players, but they're a complete minority. Knowledge of those background workings, the business side of games, is seeing some growth inside of that dedicated niche, but there's just no way that your average player is considering things on this level.
This is a very, well, businesslike way to look at things, and I understand it, but we've been discussing how malleable consumer intent is, which makes a statement like this feel kind of odious. I'm not going to complain about it too stridently, but I am dissapointed that this seems to be the prevailing way of thinking about this in the industry.
Yeah, that is a very broad view, one that goes beyond the scope of this conversation I think. I'll leave this alone.
I do see your argument about separating microtransactions and larger purchases conceptually, even if there's a lot that causes the lines to blur. However this:
I don't know what to call this except an abdication of responsibility on the part of developers, honestly. The "failure of human brains to track things over time" is a factor that is not just well known, it's actively designed for. It's literally how the microtransaction model is designed to work, by your own description. You also once again imply that the scale of larger purchases in some way forces buyers to look at those purchases in a more objective way, but is there any data that suggests this is actually the case? It would be great if it was, if every consumer was maximally aware of the nature of their purchases, but it's hard to believe that's actually true in reality. Heck, even your last sentence in that paragraph, "As I said, the same goes with things like food, clothes--even full games sales," points out that this lack of objectivity extends to larger purchases as well.
Alright, I have to plead ignorance here. It still does seem logical to me that population size at least indirectly drives LTV, because a larger population size has a better chance of attracting high LTV players. I'm just not familiar with other, I suppose more direct means of extending LTV. "Mindshare is handled through ad buys, not being a part of the zeitgeist" seems logical, as ad buys have very clear metrics to draw conclusions from, but are there effective means of correlating population growth with the acquisition of high LTV players? If there aren't, why is that?
Again I'm surprised. Recently there was a large thread on this forum about this article, which is about the exact social status pressure effect I described (or rather its negative aftereffects): https://www.polygon.com/2019/5/7/18...Amcuh-On1tp1HDV2knxBpdohs2HplB5boCg6lzwGUd_bE
This concept has existed in marketing forever, so I find it hard to believe that robust methods of analyzing and exploiting it haven't been developed for games. This is the root of the entire influencer phenomenon, which has gained huge investment from the industry and has supplanted traditional marketing in significant ways. I'm sure there's a great deal of optimization to be done with specific implementations, but the overall effect seems very well established, and there's active investment in it, showing that developers have real data to prove its efficacy.
If you're personally aware of instances of this happening, I'm sure that any journalistic games or tech publication would be very interested in covering it. If it's at all possible for you to speak with such a publication I'd encourage you to do so.
I'm not sure specifically what you're talking about but as a parent, I wouldn't leave my daughter unsupervised on my Amazon account for example, because she could order anything at the click of a button. The same applies to a video-game. As a parent you are solely responsible for safeguarding your child. Parental controls exist on consoles for a reason. "Parent X doesn't know about these controls" is just not justifiable in my opinion. It's what being a parent is all about -- learning about things to safeguard your child because they cannot do it themselves.
You'd be surprised, actually :P
This is especially true among F2P gamers, where your converter rate is usually less than 5%. Of that 5% or less, the majority of them are spending on smaller purchases only, and may not even be repeat customers.
Yes, there's ample academic research (and live data) suggesting that microtransactions are driven by impulse purchases, and that impulse purchasing intent drops with price increases. You can probably find some papers if you search "impulse purchase intent price point" or some other combination of related keywords. I can probably scrounge up some examples of this in action, but I'll have to think about it because the clearest examples are probably proprietary info.
It just comes down to what the game is, is what I mean. Some games are designed to operate well in isolation (e.g. Candy Crush); others are dependent, at minimum, of a critical mass of CCU in order to have a good experience (any game with matchmaking). For the latter, CCU is a much more important figure. For the former, which makes up the bulk of F2P mobile, it take a backseat to LTV. For games like Apex Legends (or any AAA title), CCU is worn as a badge of pride, even if the LTV of those players isn't amazing. League of Legends makes a boatload of money based on very high engagement metrics but its LTV isn't amazing comparable to other titles in the RTS/strategy genre.
I talked a bit about this in another thread about loot boxes here: https://www.resetera.com/threads/th...nimation-for-each.129552/page-2#post-22837119
There is a general academic basis for a lot of the ideas in game design, but until they are rigorously tested against a control, there is no validation for them working. Anecdotes are a useful indication of an effect, but game developers have the power of experimentation at the population level; therefore, for us to consider an effect true, it needs to be validated at that level. To date, I have not seen any evidence of this type of social pressure actually working with real world data, so it could be a thing, and it might not be. I'm just not willing to accept it as true by default, even if it's wiser to design for it by default to be "safe". Hope that makes sense.
Just hearsay :)