Coordinated by the European Commission, the Consumer Protection Cooperation Network (CPC) has launched an enforcement action against Star Stable Entertainment AB to ensure a safer, more transparent experience for players of the Star Stable Online game.
Give store credit for free. Easy. Let them turn ingame currencies into store credit.
That might be difficult, i give you that, but given the amount of work companies put into their monetization schemes, i am sure a converter can be worked out. Or use dollar/euro/ruble/yuan equivalents, depending on the largest market near a smaller currency.
Store credit is not necessarily simple. There are tons of laws about that kind of thing that differ country to country and in the US state to state. For example in my state, gift certificates can’t expire, so once you give one away as the dev you have to track that on your books forever, even if no one ever uses it. In your free example it’s even worse, because the company has to write that money off as real money, because it can never expire. It’s basically the same as giving away real money from a bookkeeping perspective (at least in my state). Someone with more bookkeeping knowledge can probably give a better answer but that’s my limited understanding of that as a sole proprietor who does my own books.
I would also question if store credit is actually any less predatory than a premium currency. If the premium currency is transparent and easy to understand it’s basically the same thing, no? Hypothetically, if I’m a scummy developer, I could sell $5 in store credit, and then make all the items on the store cost $8. That’s the same result for the player as bad monetization schemes with premium currency. I know in your example you’re saying give it away, but somewhere in there the developer is going to need to make money. They can’t give credit away for in-game currency and hope to stay afloat as a business for long without some deeply predatory stuff going on like in roblox.
At the end of the day I think everything you’re saying is probably feasible in some form for a AAA dev, but not for small devs. Personally I’m also thinking about small devs without an army of compliance specialists and lawyers. I’d like indies to also be able to make money, not just the conglomerates.
For example, saying a system could be worked out to localize an in-game economy is a hand wave. Every game works differently under the hood and in how it paces things, and this would be a huge undertaking to implement and maintain (probably a nonstarter for a small team). It involves more than simple conversion.
Does someone from a weak currency country get different rewards by playing the game than someone from a strong currency? How does that work if that reward is a whole item, not a bit of currency? Do we really want capitalistic shenanigans to extend into the gameplay directly? Personally I prefer that stuff to be cordoned off in the in-game shop.
That’s my take on all that. I’m not a lawyer and I don’t work for a AAA dev, so take this stuff with a grain of salt. My experience comes from having to tackle all these issues as a tiny indie dev.
Store credit lets them manipulate you. They can say the minimum top up is $5. Then put the cheapest items at $3. Want two $3 items? You have to deposit at least $10! It goes on and on.
No. Just make it so you add items to a cart and purchase their exact value with real money, no in between, no scummy tactics.
(But if it was up to me, I would ban MTX altogether)
Even 2 isn’t difficult. If they can set a price on the currency itself then they can set it on each item trivially.
Store credit is not necessarily simple. There are tons of laws about that kind of thing that differ country to country and in the US state to state. For example in my state, gift certificates can’t expire, so once you give one away as the dev you have to track that on your books forever, even if no one ever uses it. In your free example it’s even worse, because the company has to write that money off as real money, because it can never expire. It’s basically the same as giving away real money from a bookkeeping perspective (at least in my state). Someone with more bookkeeping knowledge can probably give a better answer but that’s my limited understanding of that as a sole proprietor who does my own books.
I would also question if store credit is actually any less predatory than a premium currency. If the premium currency is transparent and easy to understand it’s basically the same thing, no? Hypothetically, if I’m a scummy developer, I could sell $5 in store credit, and then make all the items on the store cost $8. That’s the same result for the player as bad monetization schemes with premium currency. I know in your example you’re saying give it away, but somewhere in there the developer is going to need to make money. They can’t give credit away for in-game currency and hope to stay afloat as a business for long without some deeply predatory stuff going on like in roblox.
At the end of the day I think everything you’re saying is probably feasible in some form for a AAA dev, but not for small devs. Personally I’m also thinking about small devs without an army of compliance specialists and lawyers. I’d like indies to also be able to make money, not just the conglomerates.
For example, saying a system could be worked out to localize an in-game economy is a hand wave. Every game works differently under the hood and in how it paces things, and this would be a huge undertaking to implement and maintain (probably a nonstarter for a small team). It involves more than simple conversion.
Does someone from a weak currency country get different rewards by playing the game than someone from a strong currency? How does that work if that reward is a whole item, not a bit of currency? Do we really want capitalistic shenanigans to extend into the gameplay directly? Personally I prefer that stuff to be cordoned off in the in-game shop.
That’s my take on all that. I’m not a lawyer and I don’t work for a AAA dev, so take this stuff with a grain of salt. My experience comes from having to tackle all these issues as a tiny indie dev.
Store credit lets them manipulate you. They can say the minimum top up is $5. Then put the cheapest items at $3. Want two $3 items? You have to deposit at least $10! It goes on and on.
No. Just make it so you add items to a cart and purchase their exact value with real money, no in between, no scummy tactics.
(But if it was up to me, I would ban MTX altogether)