Commission targets in-game currency in children's video games:
The European Commission announced on Friday a new consumer protection probe into Star Stable Online, a children's video game where players explore an online world by riding horses and competing with friends in obstacle races.
However, players who spend real money gain advantages within the game. To acquire items, players – mostly children – must exchange real money for in-game currency, known as "star coins".
The European Commission, in collaboration with the Consumer Protection Cooperation Network (which brings together consumer protection organisations from member states), has requested information from Swedish game developer Star Stable Entertainment AB to understand their commercial practices.
In a statement, the EU consumer protection group noted: "Consumers – especially children and teenagers who are regular video game users – remain very vulnerable to such manipulative and unfair practices," welcoming the Commission's first steps.
The company has one month to respond to the request for information.
Meanwhile, the Commission has issued guidelines on the use of in-game currency in video games, emphasising the need for clarity, respect for withdrawal rights, and avoiding pressure, particularly with vulnerable users such as children. "Children spend a lot of time online, gaming and interacting on social media. This makes them an attractive target for traders and advertisers," said Michael McGrath, Commissioner for Justice and Consumer Protection.
"It is crucial to ensure a safe online environment for consumers, particularly children, so they can enjoy gaming without facing unfair practices."
In the press release, the European Commission clarified that it will "continue to examine these topics in the context of forthcoming consultations on the Digital Fairness Act".
The Act, currently under development, aims to close gaps in existing rules. Expected in mid-2026, consultations with stakeholders will begin next spring.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 12, @10:00AM (1 child)
This is a really nasty thing to play on Mom and Dad, as kids don't earn money ( child labor laws and mandatory tax reporting ), so now the parents will be on the hook for their kids addiction to "gotta collect 'em all for a complete set."
Or face the disappointment from their children from being denied.
These businessmen know the parents won't give their marketing professionals the time of day, but if they can win the kids over, they can get into the family purse.
It is so easy to ignore even the best advertising blabber, whether it's using ad blockers, walkaways, inattention to the blabbering head, or relegation of marketing promotions to the circular file.
But it's really hard for parents to deny their kids, as what parent wants to set their kid up to be a selfish lout? Marketing professionals don't have that concern. They just look for that "edge" that gets to "yes" to cement a purchase.
"In-game purchase" is just another way of saying " In-home sales rep.". It's just another way to get the idea into kids that is you didn't pay for something, it isn't worth anything, hence they must spend their lives building someone else's dream to earn money to pay for things like game play.
I applaud the EU for impeding this. Over here, in America, I've watched this obsession with greed turn my country into a social cesspool, gamed so people are rewarded for "shoving others under the bus" if it will generate economic gain...we call this "competition", while those who just want to enjoy the simple pleasures are considered low-life.
That's a helluva way to live a live for those who don't take much interest in eternally demonstrating they are better than everyone else...the "winner".
Take it and shove it.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Saturday April 12, @10:47AM
There's a reason they target kids: It's easier for marketers to manipulate kids to manipulate parents than manipulate adults [youtube.com]. Not that it's hard to mess with adult brains, you understand, and there are entire industries dedicated to doing exactly that, but kids are even easier to manipulate.
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: 5, Insightful) by looorg on Saturday April 12, @10:30AM (1 child)
This is one of those things that like clockwork appear every quarter or so in the news flow -- child plays games, doesn't understand (or care) and buys in-game things for real money. Parents CC is tied to the gaming account be it Steam, XBox, PSN or whatever other system they use and then they get a surprise bill as offspring bought $10k worth of game-coins and things.
It's a bit weird tho that this is legal since children normally can't make deals and can't have creditcards. So how this is allowed to keep happening is a bit weird. After all the companies know it's not the CC holder that is playing or buying the things or are they that ignorant and stupid? Yet they don't want to implement more rigid systems that would say check if the transactions are ok. They want it to be fast, smooth and simple. So you can keep playing the fun fun game. Without noticing that the new star spangled horse you bought cost $15.
Star stable is one of those companies that have previously been lauded here due to them making a computer game that in large cater to girls. It's an important segment to get girls to play games, boys playing computer/console games is apparently natural and given. But they have been as noted accused of trying to monetize their users, which are mostly children. Even tho the exact same thing happens in other games such as Fortnite, Roblox, Minecraft or any of the MMO type games. Even if they don't offer in-game-benefits it could just be "skins" or cosmetic items.
As this happens in all of them. Or are girls and horse games extra vulnerable? I was under the impression that this was a much more common thing in games such as Roblox. But then I never played the horse game.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Saturday April 12, @10:53AM
That's true of all sorts of other businesses too.
- The ideal transaction for a business means that no purchase decision or action still results in you paying them. That's behind the push for auto-payment and subscriptions for everything.
- If you have to have any kind of interaction to make the purchase, they want to have as few interactions as possible, e.g. a "Buy Now" button with a credit card on file, so they get your money when you first have the impulse to buy the thing and you don't have time to consider whether you need or even want it.
- If you have to do your buying in a location they physically control, then they intentionally design that space to get you to say "yes" to buying as much as possible.
Major businesses have entire departments dedicated to this. And so yes, this is bad in in-game transactions, it's also bad pretty much everywhere else.
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Mojibake Tengu on Saturday April 12, @04:14PM
Teach children the fundamental question:
Does the price correspond to the usable value?
And validate. It's not about who needs or wants what. It's about effective result.
Repeat this validation process every time when the child applies for spending money.
The same concept goes useful in your business. Employees are no better than children, when spending your money for toys.
Sometimes, it's more fair to feed a beggar than a greedy toymaker.
Rust programming language offends both my Intelligence and my Spirit.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Saturday April 12, @06:19PM (3 children)
How far back does the pay-to-play freemium model go? Sometimes you see this with AI generated or "AI-assisted" articles where the AI bot goes to weird efforts to carefully avoid common industry standard name for whatever its writing about.
As for stuff I've recently played, Old School Runescape has used this financial model since 2015.
I'm sure we can go back further...
(Score: 2) by VLM on Saturday April 12, @06:22PM (2 children)
Oh I forgot about shareware.
In 1993 Doom had a shareware release where the first level was free. Same with Kingdom of Kroz in 1987. Hard to believe only six years separate those two games, but that was back in the day when technology was advancing whereas now technological progress is totally stagnant (if not going backwards) for many decades.
So can anyone beat the year 1987 ?
(Score: 2) by Mykl on Sunday April 13, @11:58AM (1 child)
I put Shareware in a slightly different category to Freemium, because it provided full access to the entire game after one purchase. In effect, it bundled the demo and full version of the game together with a single code to unlock.
The freemium model relies upon being able to continue to milk the
targetconsumer with ongoing subscriptions, new skins, extra coins, double-point periods etc.(Score: 2) by VLM on Sunday April 13, @05:32PM
Single purchase vs multiple purchases is an interesting way to look at it.