I think the devs need to see this, because there are regulations coming to the game industry and they will need to change a few things to avoid running afoul of them.
This is because they are currently doing a few of the things that are about to get regulated (the temporary supporter bundles, the premuim currency of epoch points etc.)
I am not posting this because of any dislike of the game, I LOVE this game, and i do not want it to die to regulations
Amusingly, my daughter liked Star Stable for a while when she was young. But yes, this is a good thing.
Iâm not sure the temporary nature of the supporter bundles would fall afoul, whatâs in them (points + stuffs) might.
Actually, I think it would be the opposite. Because the supporter bundles are giving you MTX as part of it, and extra points to boot. But the limited time part might or might not fall into it. Depends on whether they just mean the whole âYou have 48h to buy thisâ or any timed limit is a part of it.
And, of course, the whole refundable part would apply to any and all of them.
There was definitely a bit, canât remember when, about âobfuscating the valueâ by mixing points & stuffs & that that is a bad thingâ˘.
Yup.
This kind of thing is why the EU wasnât (all) bad. They did/do shit that some governments wouldnât (for whatever reason).
I didnât catch that, then.
So far I know there are no regulations/laws! These are guidelines that are made, but nobody has to follow them, and maybe in the future they will do something. For now, it is just hot air. A lot of misinformation around this!
Nowhere in the video did he say it was law. Just that it was on the way to become law soon(ish 
). Much like GRPD (General Data Protection Regulation) started that way and is now law. And multiple companies were fined about it.
I donât need to see the video and can already clear some stuff up (not sure if you havnât understood it or if the video was giving wrong informations)
First off: There are no regulations coming so far. This might come in the future, but this histrocially speaking takes a long time here in the EU (same as many other regions I think^^).
The only actionable things that are happening right now are specifically targeted at the developer of one specific game (Star Stable Online). They got a 1 month deadline to make a written statement about the addressed things. We donât know yet what will actually change. They just need to propose changes.
And this specifically happens because this game is very clearly targeted at a younger audience.
For people interested here is the abstract from the official document:
Star Stable Entertainment AB has now one month to provide a written response addressing the issues highlighted in the CPC Networkâs common position and to propose commitments to remedy them.
I am very doubtful any meaningful change happening anytime soon that will affect the entire gaming sector. I am pretty sure that the first wave of things that will eventually happening will probably also be more targeted towards game with these younger audiences.
The EU values issues that will affect children a lot more than general gambling or predatory measurements in general video games. It might be the first stepping stone though.
Last Epoch is not directly targeted at a younger audience, but doesnât have a very high age restriction as far as I know. I couldnât find a PEGI rating. I think in US terms LE tries to fall into the M Rating(I think that stands for mature?)
So it is an interesting topic, but to be honest it doesnât change anything right now, epsecially for Last Epoch.
And even if there will be things that need to be adressed by EHG they donât need to do a full overhaul of their MTX/store system, jsut some slight adjustments.
I didnât mention the video at all, idk where you get that?
Because that would be the only place where you could get, since the OP clearly stated only that there are regulations coming (notably, as in not here yet, so obviously not law yet), which they clearly are.
This is the exact scenario of GRPD, that also started with just general guidelines (and a bunch of companies crying doom) only to become law a few years after.
Itâs not clear yet that they will target everything being discussed uniformly for all games, but clearly laws are coming to combat MTX practice abuses in at least some games. Or they might just raise the rating of games that donât follow these practices, pushing them into adult only games.
That was the same stance people took before GRPD came into place. And I should know, I had to conform all of our software to it when it did.
Although:
Yes, this is very likely. I donât think games for 16+ ages will be much affected by this. But it might cause games that donât conform to it to become age restricted as well.
EDIT: Although the refund policy might soon become law. The EU is very strict about that.
To my knowledge, the internet is not made only from this forum and that one video.
So when I refer to regulations (what the OP stated because there are no recent regulations) / ( / means also âandâ or âorâ) laws (what a decent amount of other sites or comments on sites state, yes they exist trust me (i can recommend google)) then yes I can get that information also from somewhere else. Just because i comment here, doesnât mean iâm only allowed to use knowledge gained/Information read from here!
Also i said maybe in the future they do something.
Would be nice if you stop whatever you try to do and move on. Thanks. Have a great day/night!
What do you think heâs trying to do? Other than drawing a comparison between GDPR & this to see where things could go?
And as soon as it is regulated they can act. Why should they act now already? On top of it I guess the people who profit most from the system in place will go to court anyway. Iâm happy they start to get regulated and I look forward to the impact on MTX stuff but I guess it wonât make a big dent because people who want to buy stuff will buy stuff and people who wonât wonât.
That is completely not why things are supposed to change and get regulated.
There are numerous cases and studies of people in all age groups, who spent money on video games that canât afford it and will go into debt or develop some sort of gambling or âneed to haveâ addiction, so much to the point that it causes issues.
While the main focus of this particular case primarily is aimed to protect the younger audience in the long run we might see regulations that would affect other games that target a more adult audience.
This is not simply a case of âif you buy you buyâ or âif you donât buy you donâtâ.
This also has nothing to do with being adult and have your own responsibility over the money you spent. These are not exceptions and there are people ruining their lifeâs with this kind of stuff.
My bad then. I misunderstood your post as you saying that the OP was inferring there are laws in place already.
They shouldnât act now. But they should study it and be ready to act when it does get regulated, so as not to be caught with their pants down. Having a plan for how to deal with it, even if they keep that plan in the back burner for a few years until this happens, is a good idea.
I again refer to the GDPR that cause a huge panic on many websites and software trying to get ready for it before the deadline imposed. There were lots of fines being handled at the time because many were unprepared and hadnât made the required changes in time.
What they have to do is simple. Show the prices in the regional currency and breake down the support pack prices into what cost what aaand done. At least in the EU. They simply need to show that something that is available for 9.99 in ingame currency got a 9.99 price tag.
The biggest issue is most likely how you make discounts if there is no more âGet doubble the ingame currency for your first buy!â crap that many games have. They simply need to skip the exchange of real world money into a fictional currency.
Itâs not just that, though. One of the issues pointed out is that players donât have a way to buy the exact value of currency to buy a certain MTX. And LE doesnât have that either.
If I want to buy an MTX that costs 10 currency, there is no way for me to buy those 10 currency. I have to buy more.
Also, thereâs the whole refund issue, which requires that your transaction system be able to handle that.
Yes, that would be a possible solution. Although it would require changing how the whole shop works. In-game shop is prepared to simply spend in-game currency which you already have. It will have to be changed into a simple transaction shop where you pay real money for the item.
Which is why I said It should be studied and a plan made to deal with it. Doesnât even need to be a very elaborate plan (especially because we donât even know what the final package will look like, exactly), but something along the lines "We would have to change A, B and C, we could make it this way or that and it would take 2 weeks or a month to do it).
Because if they avoid it BEFORE it becomes law then they do not have to worry about it. If they change AFTER it becomes law then they may still get sued.
Also the big guys in the game industry tend to get hit LAST by things like that, regulators often go after small fish first
In the local currency as well, not just USD. Other currencies are available.
Yes, but laws tend to be announced then take effect some time later, in this kind of situation Iâd expect there to be a time period for companies to figure out how to comply with the law then make it happen.
They do. But referring to the GDPR once again, when it came into place you had about 6 months, iirc, to comply to it. That means that in most cases you just had to interrupt your development plan to deal with it, because it now suddenly becomes a priority.
That is what happened to us at the time. We had to put most things on hold so we could make changes to conform with it.
If we had a plan beforehand, it wouldnât have taken so much development time to do it.
This is also similar to OWASP norms. Right now theyâre just guidelines (even though some governmental agencies are now requiring we follow it), but the changes are big, so weâre gradually making changes to our software to comply with it.
So, with a plan, we manage to keep our development plan while also addressing these issues right away. When it eventually becomes mandatory (not by law, but more and more agencies will demand compliance with it), weâre mostly ready for it.