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Arakazi
Member UncommonPosts: 911
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Arakazi
Member UncommonPosts: 911
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I read the article and proceeded to type a response to your desire to hear peoples opinions.
After reading my responding opinion on the article I deleted it. I came to the conclusion that the negativity here as with most sites was just not worth the aggrovation.
I say this because I found the article to be quite thought provoking having two teenage children of my own and my response was quite strong on the matter. I could see some people agreeing with me as well as a number strongly opposing me. I'm OK with that but I then didn't want to get into a debate on the subject.
I'll just say that it did make me question myself as a parent as well as games that specifically target children for money. Well worth the read.
Well there is no question that most of those Asian f2p games pressure you to spend but i think many of the newer NA games are keeping it under tuck.
However one of the games often spensored right here on MMORPG Wiz 101 is a real bad one for pushing cash shop.I saw players spend ridiculous amounts.The kids all want those houses and special mounts and pets and gear al lattained with card packs and game cards.Then you add in pet food snacks and the 5 buck sub fee,it really adds up.
A famouis trick by devs is to show you easy mode,make you think all is good,get you to invest a lot of time,then BAM,they turn the game into an automatic spend fest or die or spend forever leveling.So if one kid's parent spends a ton ,their child might level faster,so child B now wants to keep up so also wants the bonus pots.
The part that really annoys me about laws is it seems to ALWAYS take "children" to get anyone to take notice.Unethical practices,anywhere towards anyone shoudl be looked at with scrutiny.However tough to start pointing fingers when the law and governments themselves are looking for ways to further monetary gains from the people.Example they have been trying to put extra taxes on gaming or internet use.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Firstly I love these 'read article and discuss' threads, so thanks OP.
Now, I think it is about time someone started paying real attention to this. And, I have to appluad OFT efforts (albiet , I had never heard of them before this but they seem like my own countries equivellent to the FTC). I do feel however, that the scope here is too narrow. It is a start...But, online gaming as a whole needs to be held more accountable for for it's costs.
Just because your hungry doesn't mean I am within my rights to sell you an apple for $10.00 regardless of weather you are willing to pay that or not...Even if I grew and tended the tree that produced that apple it's still a ridiculous price.
But, lets say your from a country that has no apples. Your newly arrived and have never bought an apple at the store and you would really like to try an apple. I tell you it is worth every cent and you pay my price. I even go as far as to tell you my apples are the best apples and so you should only buy them from me. Then one day a friend you made simply gives you a sack of apples (seeing how much you like them). And, is shocked when you try to repay them with a $100.00...then says to you "don't you know the price of an apple?"
And, that is my question...what is the price of an apple? If we consider the time spent on making a premium shop item, inserting it into the game, and hosting it's resource costs...are we paying even close to a fair price for it? to the best of my knowledge gaming companies do not have to and typically don't disclose their content creation and hosting costs. At least not to me. So the price of our figurative apple is what ever they tell me it is.
There should be some standards. Something that says a polygon is worth no more then X amount in resale value....
Here is an example from my life of what i see as justified pricing for virtual goods (I do not intend to plug myself here and so won't post a link to my store or state my username for what I am talking about):
I have a store on second life...all the things I make I sell for less then the cost of my uploads (the one time cost sl charges for hosting it on their servers), with full permissions (direct unaltered resale/redistribution exempted - meaning you have to make something with it in order to sell it). Which means a few things:
1) It is impossible for me to be undercut without the under cutter loosing money (especially with the SL marketplace seller fee's)
2) A user can not make what I have made, themselves, from scratch, for less even equal, yet alone less cost.
3) reduced cost of materials lowers the end cost on a user to create a new product, and allows them (though they don't always do it) to pass on those savings.
This further insures that I must sell at least 2 copies of my products to not have it's production be a liability. and 3-4 copies to pay for any future upgrades/updates to the product. So, the quality of the items I make and sell must be such that for the price users continue to feel it is a good purchase. I justify what I charge my customers at every step and offer full support in the use and trouble shooting any potential issues with my products.
To me that is fair trade...I know what the resource cost of something is and I don't charge for my time and effort....is this beeing unfair to myself even? No...
I make over 100 sales a month given the way I conduct my business (the USD value of each sale being between $0.30-$0.75 - which I can, if I so choose convert to USD from the MMO's currency and transfer to paypal). And I have about 3-4 hours of dev and listing time a month into my Marketplace store...A make currently about $45.00-$60.00 a month off secondlife, and average wages where I live for any run of the mill part-time to full-time job is about $10.00 an hour. So, in what I see as more then fair business practice I actually make more per hour then some rl friends of mine (even though it is a hobby and not my job).
So I really have to wonder... is it fair for an MMO to charge maybe 1000 users (lets say as a bare minimum for how many would purchase it) $15.00-$20.00 for a premium mount upfront and maybe $2.50- $5.00 for it as continued monthly use fee's. And, that possibly on top of a $15.00 or there abouts subscription? [note that if it were me that had the mmo and was selling you that mount i'd probably charge you a one time fee of $5.00 for the beast].
...what is the price of apples and who decides it?
Free to play monetization has been getting out of hand lately and Free to play becoming the popular payment model has only emboldened publishers to think of new ways to make the players pay at every turn.
But if any MMO is guilty of direct advertising to children with ambiguous in game monetization it is definitely Wizard 101.
I was watching my nephew play it last week and was surprised.
My kids know not to buy anything without asking me first. My money hand can hurt alot if they don't
Edit: Even though we all play Rift mainly, and they have all the "micro-transactions". Except for like a name change or something, there isn't much they can buy.
This made me LMAO.
I said it awhile ago and I'll say it again, the lockboxes are the problem and will eventually be considered a form of gambling.
Regulation a this way comes.
"Censorship is never over for those who have experienced it. It is a brand on the imagination that affects the individual who has suffered it, forever." - Noam Chomsky
What they are investigating, is the fact that some of the most popular free apps are infact purpose built to trick parents into letting their children pay massive amounts for boost ingame.
The standard setting on Itunes is to require a password to open for transactions for 15 minutess (+15 minutes every time you buy.)
So if parents enter their password once to allow for a 1$ transaction it is now open for unlimited use, as long as they buy more than once every 15 minutes.
Some of what they can buy is priced so outrageously and it can be dificult for children to destiguish the game from the shop.
On top of that Apple makes it very hard to find a customer support number to call to get a refund.. and they make damn sure to tell you that its extraordinary that you do get a refund.
Having games that allow you to spend thousands on micro transactions within minutes or hours, aimed at children is disgusting.
All that being said.. if you have an Ipad and you let your children use it. Make sure to change the Appstore settings to immediate and not 15 mins. That way you have to enter your password for every transaction.
i agree with you to a degree. Parents have to do their own job. However, these companies take advantage of the ones who dont do their jobs. So yeah, parents need to do their jobs AND these companies that are playing dirty need to be investigated. It has to work both ways.
The problem is that parents do try to inform themselves on how this all works.. They think they are secure when they have to enter a password to allow for a transaction. But by the standard settings if they allow it once for 1$ they leave it open for an unlimited time... (as long as purchases are within 15 minutes of eachother.)
I dont think the government should legislate every evil away either.
But I do think that designing games, specifically to exploit these loopholes and aiming them at children that couldnt possibly tell the difference between the game and the ingame shop, should be stopped.
Sounds more like parents should not let their kids play the games if they get burned once. If after it happen to them once and they let their kids still play...well I believe in Natural Selection and the stupid animals tend to die out or in this case feed the monster and frankly they deserve it.
And parents do try. But Apple and the game producers are deliberatly obsfuscating the dangers.
The parents think their bank accounts are safe, because they are password protected. And that their children can't spend a dime without their permission. But if you allow one transaction, your account is wide open for the next 15 minutes that renews every time it is used.
I dont have kids of my own, but I would think I couldnt keep up a "no purchase" rule forever... I can easily see a situation where my kid would ask: "Dad can I please buy this level for 30 cents?" And I would think; "well 30 cents.. sure what could be the harm in that..." And before I knew it my bank would call to let me know they had closed my account.
Then problem is not the game it is Apple. If you have a problem with their settings then go after them. Make them change due to customer outrage not through government legislation. Take back the power of the people and stop giving everything to the government. Governments sucks. They are a necessary evil and due to that we should not give them more and more power. Stop using Apple....call and complain...write in campaigns....web petitions...pickets....community news letters, but instead people just say, "just let someone else do it." Take back the world from stuffy politicians and insurance companies.
It only takes once to get burned.. And im sure they will uninstall those games when that does happen... but when the burn can be so severe... clearly there should be some warning or barrier put in place.
Life is hard...they need a helmet. Then they should sue Apple so it seems about the setup. Not attack a game. Once again go after the facilitator. I paid money at a fair to see a Cupachabra..it was a dog with a goat head sown on....i got burned I will not pay again. I did not ask the government to step in. I told every person outside what I saw inside and told them it was not worth it. How many exactly have been burned for outrageous amounts of money that justify the government's heavy hand? What justifies a "burn" and not just a "hard lesson on life"?
If we had no legal options available to us if we were misled, ripped off, lied to etc etc in a business transaction/purchase I would imagine things would get very ugly very quickly.
Is it fair to say that you don't have any faith in this body, the government or your legal system in general?
and you do?
OK, so we clearly disagree on how much we should delegate to the government. Though ideally, in a democracy, the government would be of the people for the people.
I happen to like not having to test my food for poison. And not having to realize that I neeeded to do that after I nearly die.
And while Apple in particular is a problem (I dont actually own any of their products) The game producers also have a responsibility. And I agree that the parents also have a responsibility. But what is so bad about having the government making and enforcing rules on this? I mean we pay taxes so we dont have to deal with shit like this. Sure I could spend months and lots of money trying to make Apple see the error of their ways.. but why should I bother if I already know better?
And also it doesnt affect me personally. since I have neither kids nor iAnything
Cash transactions on video games is out of control and its time for everyone to get on board and put an end to this. Setting up restrictions on games then saying well you can spend money to have these restrictions removed is super shady and a very poor standard for customer service.
So many of these kids today do not realize just how cheap paying a subscription fee is compared to free to play games with microtransactions.
But the BIg problem here that most people do not see is that throughout history you will notice one thing, Companies make smalls moves towards a big goal. ie. it starts with microtranscations then it turns into now you have to pay subscription and microtransactions. Companies will push the envelope as far as they can to get as much money as they can. It's how the world works.
We need to put companies in check way before it becomes a problem not after its a problem.
Nice strawman about poison, which has nothing to do with the government in this instance. Poison food effects way more people and the health of a Nation vs. some parents that are bad parents.
The question is where does the government stop and where does my personal responsiblity start. As to taxes...I would rather pay more to local government and less to national gov. I personal do not like paying my money to the gov because parents are lazy, ill-informed, or just bad. I like to pay taxes to take care of National issues not select family issues.