"Free-To-Play" Games Face Tougher Regulation In Europe

[XDSkyFreak]

It's nice that they actualy started to take an interest in this practice. But I'm sorry to say, this all sounds too old and antiquated to me. The problem has allready been sidesteped by most of the big offenders. All this legislation is aiming at is removing the advertising from games and the moments when money MUST be used to progres, even though the game was advertised as free. In esence this is a LABELING and ADVERTISING law, as oposed to a law that would forbid such predatory practices as most in-app purchases are. They want those practices labeled, not removed. Sorry for sinking your boats, but Trexels will still require weeks of grinding to progress (unless you fork-out cash), Dungeon Keeper stays the same only now the advertising for in-app purchases gets toned down and the game is labeled as "money can be used to progress faster". And even IF they say "free to play mmo games must not offer paying customers unfair advantages over non-paying customers" you want to know how this is a;;ready side-steped? Any World of Tanks veteran will tell you: you make every premium item available for normal in-game currency and just set absurdly high prices for it. So you can say to the lawyers: "Everyone can buy it whether they pay us money or not" but in truth those not paying need to grind several hours or days for just 10-15 premium shells. To put it in perspective some tanks have upwards of 100 shell capacity.

IMO what needs to happen is this: they make a law that states "No item purchasable with real money either directly or indirectly should have any major effect on the gameplay balance" THERE! PROBLEM FUCKING SOLVED. Tank painting and decals and logo pictures? Yeah sure. Gold auto-pen ammo? NO! Costumes for your character in an mmo? Ok, go for it. Stat boosts, some uber sets, legendary weapons? NO! Decorative items for your dungeon or starship? Here is my money. Special curency needed to progres, premium rooms and any other such bs? NO NO NO!

jus my 2 cents on the issue. Of course by the time these old farts rulling us wake up to this it will allready be to late and the major problems would have evolved to a new stage. This is how it's allways been: they try treating the illness only after it has allready mutated to be imune to their treatment. Comopanies keep skirting the law and fucking the consumer, the law-makers get good rep for trying to fix the problem and killing some of the weaker small guys, the consumer keeps getting dicked but now he is happy because they added some lube. And don't fucking tell me big companies don't pay good cash for the law to allways be some 5 years behind them, because i will laugh at your ignorance. There is reason the word lobbying (aka fancy and legal way of bribing) exists!

 

[MrFalconfly]

Well it sounds like they are trying to combat the extortionist Pay2Win model.

However with lawyers being so hung up on exact wording, and no companies being stupid enough to actually label their F2P Pay2Win, I think this might need a bit of revision before it gets ratified.

 

[ExtraDebit]

About damn TIME! finally somebody is doing something about this mess of a business model. After trying a few free to play games on the iphone I now avoid them like the plague.

I wish that they would regulate "paid" games on the appstore to have NO micro transaction AT ALL, because most of them are money cheats. You paid you get in game money. And alot of developers are designing their games around this system which ultimately destroys their games because it directly affects the game's balance.

Imagine them while testing their games: "hmmm punching that guy 20 times while using skills seems balance and fun....but we wouldn't make any money that way........let's make a glove that sell for $1 that does that while in default you have to punch him 100 times." <---- this is basically how all free to play games are right now, broken.

This business model shit! just charge us fairly, honestly and out right like it always been and be done with it.

 

[DracoSuave]

My heart always sinks when i read about regulation. Now let me be clear, I am not opposed to what they are trying to achieve, I just don't think it is an effective or well thought out approach. In my opinion the law is at it's best when it is simple, i.e. it draws a clear dividing line between right and wrong. In instances of micro-regulation such as this it only serves to clutter the production process with bureaucracy which ultimately drives up development costs and in the end only serves as a real barrier to small developers who might want to use a f-2-p title as their first foray into commercial games development. Large scale producers such as King, with armies of lawyers, are always miles ahead of this kind of move, and are always ready to sidestep such measures through legal loopholes or outright obscurification of practice.

In other news, regulation often works when it manages to successfully put the greater interests above the corporate interests.

The nations with well regulated banks fared off a lot better economically than those with deregulated banks, for instance.

Moreover, if your argument is 'Some companies will find ways around the regulations, so don't put in regulations' you've made the exact same argument as 'some people don't get caught stealing cars, so stealing cars shouldn't be illegal.' It's a nonstarter of an argument.

 

[TallanKhan]

My heart always sinks when i read about regulation. Now let me be clear, I am not opposed to what they are trying to achieve, I just don't think it is an effective or well thought out approach. In my opinion the law is at it's best when it is simple, i.e. it draws a clear dividing line between right and wrong. In instances of micro-regulation such as this it only serves to clutter the production process with bureaucracy which ultimately drives up development costs and in the end only serves as a real barrier to small developers who might want to use a f-2-p title as their first foray into commercial games development. Large scale producers such as King, with armies of lawyers, are always miles ahead of this kind of move, and are always ready to sidestep such measures through legal loopholes or outright obscurification of practice.

In other news, regulation often works when it manages to successfully put the greater interests above the corporate interests.

The nations with well regulated banks fared off a lot better economically than those with deregulated banks, for instance.

Moreover, if your argument is 'Some companies will find ways around the regulations, so don't put in regulations' you've made the exact same argument as 'some people don't get caught stealing cars, so stealing cars shouldn't be illegal.' It's a nonstarter of an argument.

To start with i dispute your assertion that countries with supposedly "well regulated banks" fared better than those without. While you have not specified your frame of reference for this comment I am assuming you are talking about during and post the 2008 financial crisis?

Before looking at this you have to remember that generally speaking, countries with less banking regulation generally have larger financial sectors as a percentage of the overall economy. As such these countries would be disproportionately affected by a downturn in overall global financial sector, regardless of the strength of the individual sector within that country.

However, even putting this aside, it is easy to evidence that your assertion is incorrect. France for example has some of the most extensive banking regulation in the world, even to the point of some quite restrictive practices relating to how people are allowed to manage their own money. However, France's overall economy and in particular it's financial services sector has been among the worst performing in western Europe for the past five years.

Hong Kong on the other hand has the least regulated banking sector of any developed economy. The past five years have barely represented a speed-bump for Hong Kong, with its growth outstripping that of mainland China.

If you wanted a further example the U.S has considerably more extensive banking regulation (not to mention a much more punitive system of enforcement) than the UK does. However, even adjusting for the relative size of the U.S compared to the UK, the U.S. had to pump far more money into supporting their financial system as it was in considerably worse shape.

Now, for your example of people not being caught stealing a car. The comparison you draw is non-sensical, I was not talking about someone breaking a law and getting away with it. I was stating that the regulation will be ineffective because companies will legally avoid them, while adding additional cost which will be recovered from the end user and making things disproportionately difficult and costly for smaller players in the market.

Now don't misunderstand me. I am not opposed to restriction per se, and I am immensely sympathetic to the goals of this regulation. However, I genuinely don't believe it will be effective. To achieve something like this effectively, rather than drawing up a regulatory framework what is actually required is a very simple piece of legislation. Rather than standard setting and instructing companies how to label/sell their products simply introduce a law that states a digital purchase is only valid if there is reasonable expectation that the person making the purchase had an understanding of what they were agreeing to and the cost incurred. Companies would scramble to sort themselves out lest they fall foul of lawsuits and the processes would be much tighter because there is far less wriggle room when things are black and white.

The really ironic thing is that 90% of this is already covered under existing legal provisions in most countries it just needs tying up in a single clear directive.

Let me give you an example of where legislation in this vein has been effective as opposed to wider regulation. In the UK a piece of legislation was passed requiring all restaurants to display or make available at request the calories in their dishes. As a result if you walk into a branch of burger king or KFC you can look at their price list on the wall and right their next to each product is the Kcal figure for the dish. Yes there is usually a note at the bottom of the poster which explains the given figure assumes you opt for the diet drink with your meal, but overall, this is hugely effective and allows people to better understand what they eat.

Now if we look at rood retail in the UK the picture is very different. For retail there is a complex regulatory framework developed and enforced by the Food Standards Agency. Under this scheme all products must have their full nutritional information printed on their packaging, and there are dozens of rules relating to how this information must be presented, all of which is designed so that people should be able to accurately compare what they are buying. Unfortunately it is this complexity which it this systems flaw, the extent of the regulations have allowed large corporates to find loopholes. If you ever find yourself in the UK, walk into your nearest supermarket and pick up three comparable products, chances are you will find one gives you the nutritional information per 100g, one will give you per recommended portion size, and one will give you per pack. Without a calculator it can be impossible to make an effective comparison.

 

[DracoSuave]

Unfortunately it is this complexity which it this systems flaw, the extent of the regulations have allowed large corporates to find loopholes.

Well, fortunately, there's only three options to look at, and thus the situations are easy to sort out.

1--Same regulations
2--Less regulations
3--More regulations

Same regulations---Well, the problem is as it is now IS a problem. The industry is NOT in a good state. Something has to be done, and having it police itself has not been effective, nor have app providers such as Apple, Steam, etc. done much to curtail the more predatory practices--they still make their bank and they're not interested in being police.

Less regulation won't make these companies better, they'll just save money on legal fees they won't have to pay because previously illegal acts are now legal.

That leaves more regulation as the only remaining course. The question remains what do you make contraband, how do you determine it, and what will be the standard of judgement.

 

[TallanKhan]

Unfortunately it is this complexity which it this systems flaw, the extent of the regulations have allowed large corporates to find loopholes.

Well, fortunately, there's only three options to look at, and thus the situations are easy to sort out.

1--Same regulations
2--Less regulations
3--More regulations

Same regulations---Well, the problem is as it is now IS a problem. The industry is NOT in a good state. Something has to be done, and having it police itself has not been effective, nor have app providers such as Apple, Steam, etc. done much to curtail the more predatory practices--they still make their bank and they're not interested in being police.

Less regulation won't make these companies better, they'll just save money on legal fees they won't have to pay because previously illegal acts are now legal.

That leaves more regulation as the only remaining course. The question remains what do you make contraband, how do you determine it, and what will be the standard of judgement.

Much in the same way square pegs won't go through round holes regulation will never solve these problems. Whether you use more, less, or the same number of pegs is irrelevant. You have simply reiterated one of the most common conceits in politics, the idea that "It would be good to do something about situation X, this is something, therefore doing it is good".

 

[DracoSuave]

You've also made a claim, which if true, actually show regulation WORKS.

You claimed that some companies will find loopholes around the regulations. This has two corollaries:

1) Some companies won't bother trying to defy the regulations. Already the regulation has done its job!
2) Some companies will find defying the regulations to be more costly, thus increasing the costs of doing business outside regulation. This will act as a dissuader to many companies to defying the regulations who find they can reduce costs more by adhering to regulation than they will gain in revenue gain by evading them.
3) The few companies that are left will find loopholes in the regulation, and in doing so and challenging the regulation will identify the loopholes, which will cause changes in the regulations to close them.

I can understand if you live in a country where government doesn't get shit done where regulation can lead to corruption instead of adherence, but most countries that pass these sorts of laws actually want to maximize adherence to these laws and so will change them as weaknesses are exposed.

So to sum up the fallacies in your argument:

1--You presuppose no companies will adhere to regulation due to a lack of desire to challenge laws.
2--You offer that there is a cost to non-adherence but do not admit that non-adherence costs are inherently a deterrent to non-adherence
3--You presuppose that regulations cannot be changed to close loopholes.

 

[Strazdas]

Oftentimes dressed up as a lockbox dropping as loot, but which you require a key bought for real money in order to open. It was cute the first time I saw it, and I figure "ah well, they need to make money somehow, new expansions are expensive and a raffle to raise money with online prizes is no big thing" but now it's continuous and I have a hard time finding ANY games that don't participate in this nonsense.

wait, they still do that? the last time i encountered it my reaction was "yeah your not letting me open my loot im uninstalling this game now". Then again ive been skipping on MMOs lately as i found two that i like and sticked to them.

IMO what needs to happen is this: they make a law that states "No item purchasable with real money either directly or indirectly should have any major effect on the gameplay balance" THERE! PROBLEM FUCKING SOLVED. Tank painting and decals and logo pictures? Yeah sure. Gold auto-pen ammo? NO!

Ah, a fellow tanker i see, i think first of all they should fix the economy so a supervictory in a tier 10 wouldnt result in a negative net income at least. but WG has been slowly going away from magic gold only ammo. gold items are now almost fully pruchasable via ingame money, and gold ammo is not magical anymore and can and do bounce. Im going by perfectly fine without them (except clan wars of course, but i dont participate in those anymore for time being).

this would just affect members of the EU and most likely the EEA-treaty, not all countries in Europe...

which is whole europe except Russian control zone. And with what is happening in Ukraine lately it does not seem like a good idea to regulate these things atm, they have more pressing matters.

 

[Vegosiux]

this would just affect members of the EU and most likely the EEA-treaty, not all countries in Europe...

Good stuff tho, glad to see they're clamping down on bullshit-advertisement.

Well, truth be told, non-members of the EU/EEA are quite rare in Europe. I mean, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, Serbia, Bosnia, Montenegro, Kosovo, Macedonia, and that's about it. And several of those have EU aspirations...

 

[R2Ian]

I kind of wish someone would jump on Paypal before all of this stuff. One would think that'd be much easier, no? A business behaving as a bank that isn't regulated as a bank? Slam-dunk.