[HN Gopher] Epic Games to pay $520M to resolve FTC allegations
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Epic Games to pay $520M to resolve FTC allegations
Author : jmsflknr
Score : 140 points
Date : 2022-12-19 13:49 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.wsj.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.wsj.com)
| deafpolygon wrote:
| Shitty company gets caught doing shitty things. Not surprised.
| ur-whale wrote:
| https://archive.ph/V3NQ5
| some_furry wrote:
| Thank you!
| Gareth321 wrote:
| I'm fine with Epic getting financially reprimanded for dark
| patterns and anti-consumer behaviour. I am not on board with
| this:
|
| > That lawsuit also accused the company of illegally enabling
| real-time voice and text chat communications for children and
| teens in the game by default.
|
| So voice chat must now be turned off by default for all children
| across America? How on earth is this supposed to be policed?
| Should everyone playing a game be required to upload ID? And what
| is the gate between on and off by default? A single button press?
|
| This one doesn't make any sense to me. Voice chat is a staple of
| online games. Having a core feature included in a game by default
| is common sense.
| hourago wrote:
| > So voice chat must now be turned off by default for all
| children across America? Should everyone playing a game be
| required to upload ID? And what is the gate between on and off
| by default? A single button press?
|
| When you go to the shop to buy alcohol you need to show an id.
| So, adults are free to buy alcohol but not children. Why is
| this any different?
|
| I understand that the problem comes from the amount of chat
| abuse in on-line communities. It not just swearing but the
| constant harrasement as soon as someone is losing a match, or
| even if they are winning.
|
| I understand your concerns, but ignoring the chat problem
| paints a partial picture of the situation.
| stevehawk wrote:
| what was "the chat problem" ?
| Spivak wrote:
| The fact that online gaming chat is _really really toxic_.
| It 's one of those things where christian mothers were
| right about video games but wrong about why. It turns out
| that artificial violence and guns and sex aren't some big
| corrupting influence but hanging around assholes for the
| majority of your leisure time and social activity
| absolutely is.
|
| Online gaming where the only communication between players
| is jumping and canned voice lines is a wildly different
| experience.
| mardifoufs wrote:
| Or maybe this is exactly the same as those christian
| mothers, in the sense that it's "think of the children"
| hysteria from modern day puritans?
| ThisNameNotUsed wrote:
| mardifoufs wrote:
| I get what you are saying, but I was more talking about
| the weird "it's different when we do it" that I got from
| the comment I was replying to. It's weird to distance
| yourself from that "video games bad" (because it's been
| mocked to death) craze while using the same arguments and
| tactics.
|
| As for voice chat, I guess it would make sense to put
| children and minors in age appropriate lobbies? That way
| they can just talk to each other.
| Spivak wrote:
| Oh no, it's "this shit is bad for absolutely everyone
| regardless of age and in some cases worse for adults,
| particularly young men, but it's politically infeasible
| to do anything to stop it once people turn 18."
| devmor wrote:
| I don't share your experience at all. In fact the the
| majority of online gaming chats I've been in have been
| relatively enjoyable and low drama.
|
| It's generally the ones that have children in them that
| get toxic - I would guess because children have less
| developed social filters and act out their negative
| emotions more readily than adults.
| hourago wrote:
| > It's generally the ones that have children in them that
| get toxic
|
| That is the problem. Kids are learning from each other to
| be harmful and hateful as there is no consequences for
| that behaviour. In other spaces they will be called out
| by adults, but game chats become a learning place for the
| worst behaviours at the same time that this games are
| rated as "apt for children". Rate them 18+ or kill the
| chat, it is all about not lying to buyers.
| stevehawk wrote:
| The irony is that the people I find to be most toxic in
| video games are the children. To the point that in a lot
| of "Looking for Group" Discord channels you see people
| saying "18+ only".
| mrguyorama wrote:
| It's almost like people without fully developed brains
| don't have very healthy social interactions in a giant
| soup of similar kids who don't know how to have healthy
| social interactions and the 4chan-ness of it just
| encourages being as angry and toxic as possible.
|
| It's actually probably the same problem drivers face.
| When driving, your brain kind of ignores that other
| normal humans drive the other cars, and therefore you are
| extremely judgemental of their actions, because you
| expect them to be perfect. This is why so many people
| road rage.
| dbfx wrote:
| Somehow that wasn't an issue the last two decades, comparing
| it to alcohol is absurd, you dont go to the epic cornerstore
| and talk to the epic fortnite clerk to unlock voice chat.
|
| This war on "toxicity" at the expense of basic communication
| is insane, the match ends and it all supposed harassment
| ends.
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| Children in voice chat has been an issue for decades, maybe
| you just didn't notice?
| jsnell wrote:
| You ask the users for their date of birth on signup, don't tell
| them that it will be used for age-gating features (to avoid
| incentivizing lying), and don't allow the date to be changed
| without some kind of age verification.
|
| Or you use the social graph to infer age: somebody who mainly
| plays with 10 year olds is probably also about 10. If they
| claim to be 20, require an id anyway.
|
| Non-gaming companies deal with this all the time. It's
| annoying, but shouldn't require blazing any new trails.
| breezeitall wrote:
| So are we all forced to have a signup at the start to not get
| sued? Can't just have a mobile/browser game that tracks basic
| data?
| Dalewyn wrote:
| It is federal law that taking _any_ data from children
| under 13 requires prior authorization from the parents
| /guardian. If your code takes any data, you must verify the
| end user's age and, if they are underage, provide a way for
| the parents/guardian to contact you for giving
| authorization.
|
| Yes, we all know kids lie when they see the age
| verification, but the presence of age verification moves
| the liability away from the developer/publisher and onto
| the parents/guardian of the underage kid.
|
| Obligatory IANAL.
| ApolloFortyNine wrote:
| 10 year olds aren't as dumb as you're assuming here, they'd
| either make a new account, or have already been been putting
| an 18+ birth date for years.
|
| All anyone cares about is covering their own ass, so it'd
| solve that issue, but it would have neglibile effect on
| anything real.
|
| Source: Used the internet when I had to lie to every site
| about being over 13, so lied to every site about being over
| 13. Also vrchat requires being 13+, and boy, does 'requiring'
| it not accomplish anything at all.
| PurpleRamen wrote:
| It doesn't matter whether some will circumvent the age-
| gate. The company made an attempt, and enough kids are
| blocked by it, this is a good enough for the law, at the
| moment. But Epic is not willing to even walk this short
| way...
| [deleted]
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| You're saying this like it's bad but I'm not sure it is. If
| kids want to use voice chat they can, all they have to do
| is lie about their age. Default off for children is a good
| policy, and allowing them to get it around it with some
| effort probably is too. Seems like what's important here is
| that unsuspecting children aren't thrown into voice chat
| and immediately called the n word or something. If the kids
| are prepared to be bullied then they can go ahead with
| voice chat.
| TheBrokenRail wrote:
| Yeah, Google thinks I'm 31 years older than I actually am.
| emodendroket wrote:
| We all know this can be bypassed but it is still the
| strategy pursued by a lot of services where some or all
| content is not appropriate for kids.
| freejazz wrote:
| So, you are against any laws relating to the internet and
| children?
| josefx wrote:
| > How on earth is this supposed to be policed? Should everyone
| playing a game be required to upload ID?
|
| No need for a photo ID, Epic is also under fire for the amount
| of data it already collects from children. They are well aware
| who is playing. [1]
|
| [1] https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/blog/2022/12/record-
| se...
|
| > Voice chat is a staple of online games. Having a core feature
| included in a game by default is common sense.
|
| It is so common sense that many games have minute long sections
| where it is outright impossible to mute trolls because the
| controls for voice chat aren't always accessible. Quite sure
| Fallout 76 didn't have any controls for it at all when it came
| out. The only choice in that case is to mute sound permanently,
| which is fucking stupid.
|
| > Having a core feature included in a game by default is common
| sense.
|
| I rarely use voice chat and the build in one even less. Call me
| old fashioned but I often just use a team speak server when
| playing with friends - once it works, it works for all games.
| paxys wrote:
| What's wrong with keeping voice chat off by default? That is a
| sensible approach for everyone, not just kids.
| jasmer wrote:
| Exactly. It's extremely intrusive to have some random fool
| listening in on my own household, when I may be unaware.
| People have no idea how technology works, even smart people.
|
| Default mic/camera etc. off - they can provided a nice little
| popup and have us turn it on.
|
| Because companies will always push boundaries and cross the
| line, we need legislation unfortunately and can only hope the
| legislators don't fuck it up.
| toast0 wrote:
| > So voice chat must now be turned off by default for all
| children across America? How on earth is this supposed to be
| policed? Should everyone playing a game be required to upload
| ID? And what is the gate between on and off by default? A
| single button press?
|
| I mean, if it's just turned off by default under the plain
| meaning of words... just turn it off for everyone by default,
| and if you want to listen to children calling you racial slurs,
| you can turn it on. No need to collect ages.
|
| Otherwise, I've never seen much more than asking for your birth
| year to determine age, so it only affects children who can't
| figure out how to lie about their age. A skill that I've seen
| develop in minutes within the right framework.
| alex_sf wrote:
| I'm not super familiar with the details of the case, but I'm
| familiar with Fortnite since I play it with my son. We
| frequently find voice chat being turned back on at startup,
| despite us turning it off. Maybe that's what they are referring
| to, somewhat sloppily?
| aaomidi wrote:
| Can they please turn it off by default for everyone?
|
| I shouldn't have to go to the settings for every single game to
| find out if some random fucker is going to hear me crunching on
| chips.
| tyleo wrote:
| I don't know what the big deal is with people in this thread
| saying, "bah, this is impossible" but I work on a COPPA
| compliant game and "chat off for kids by default" is a standard
| or < 13 cannot play your game (my understanding, IANAL).
|
| https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/resources/childrens-on...
| zamadatix wrote:
| How are you verifying age? The "this is impossible"s are
| about it being accurate on age not the disabling of chat once
| you have an accurate age. The point being the law is useless
| theatre that does nothing to prevent kids from using it but
| annoys everyone else anyways.
| ethanbond wrote:
| So just set it to off by default for everyone? That seems
| like a pretty pragmatic and very non-theatrical
| improvement. Of course it will have to contend with the
| theatrics of gamers whining about the immense hassle of a
| one-time settings change to enable voice chat.
| zamadatix wrote:
| How does this prevent children from enabling voice chat?
| ethanbond wrote:
| The FTC's statement specifically says the issue is that
| it was on _by default._ Not that it could possibly be
| turned on by a child.
|
| > The FTC's $275 million proposed settlement with Epic
| Games, owner of Fortnite, alleges the company violated
| the law by collecting personal information from kids
| under 13 without parental consent and _by enabling voice
| and text chat by default_
| zamadatix wrote:
| The law is that <13 can not be voice recorded without
| parental consent, the way Fortnite broke this was by
| having it on by default. This does not mean the only way
| to break this is by having it on by default it's just
| what Fortnite was doing.
|
| https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-
| releases/2017/10/...
|
| Even if "by default" was the law though that would seem
| to make things even more theatrical and less pragmatic
| anyways.
| ethanbond wrote:
| Right but could it possibly be the case that FTC knows
| there's no reasonable way to validate ages, and they'd
| _not_ go after companies for "affirm you're not <13
| years of age" so long as they make a reasonable effort to
| prevent it, or _at least not set the default to be in
| clear violation of the law?_
|
| You know, alcohol, weed, and porn companies have managed
| just fine with user affirmations.
| zamadatix wrote:
| "I am 18+" is a well known joke as well and you can't get
| purchased alcohol/weed without ID before it shows up
| (well, legally) because that's when people realized they
| need a real measure not a fake one for show.
|
| That the FTC would know there is no reasonable way would
| be a strong indicator it is indeed not a reasonable law.
| The default is definitely why Fortnite got fined, and is
| a reasonable reason to be fined, but it doesn't make the
| law somehow effective it just makes Fortnite wrong for
| intentionally violating the law. I.e. they should have be
| fined but not because the law protects children
| effectively rather it's not up to them to decide if it
| does on their own.
| ethanbond wrote:
| I don't even know what point you're trying to make now.
|
| Changing the default _will certainly_ reduce the number
| of kids who are subject to toxic game chat. FTC knows it,
| I know it, you know it, and Epic knows it.
| [deleted]
| burnished wrote:
| I think a difficulty here is that a lot of responders are
| imagining that all children are the same precocious 13
| year old they were -forgetting the trusting 8 to 10 year
| olds they also were, and they are doing that thing where
| the edge cases start to dwarf the primary purpose in
| their minds.
| ethanbond wrote:
| Yeah apparently on the one hand, setting the default to
| Off would absolutely clobber Fortnite's engagement
| metrics and the law is unjust for this. On the other
| hand, setting the default to Off would not make a dent in
| children's usage of this product and therefore the law is
| useless.
| devmor wrote:
| "Off by default" is also a great way to make sure your
| feature is not used by the vast majority of people. It
| could easily lead to user attrition for new players
| looking for a social experience as well.
| jakevoytko wrote:
| For what it's worth, games like Dota 2 already default
| all communication on new accounts to "off". It's a rite
| of passage for new players to play some games and realize
| they haven't heard anyone say anything. Then they find
| the setting and realize they're being relentlessly flamed
| for being new.
|
| Once you climb out of the beginner ranks, literally
| everyone has found the communication settings and has
| adjusted them to their preferences.
|
| I agree that most of the time, people don't change
| defaults. But isn't true for team games in my experience.
| whateveracct wrote:
| Ah yes, the classic "privacy/security/compliance hurts
| our funnel" argument. Said as if the former aren't more
| important than the latter.
| ethanbond wrote:
| Ah yes, the ol' "lower user engagement versus non-stop
| racial slurs piped into the ears of the 13 year olds you
| just marketed your highly addictive game to" dilemma
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| Maybe getting social experiences from places other than
| fortnite is a good thing?
| lkramer wrote:
| There are multiple ways, but considering they own a company
| that is supposed to do this as a service, failing to do
| this for the own biggest game seems a bit weak.
|
| https://www.superawesome.com/
| zamadatix wrote:
| SuperAwesome KWS is another click button "verification"
| solution. Being interested in selling ads in a COPPA
| compliant-enough way isn't the same thing as making COPPA
| verification accurate/more than theatre.
|
| Fortnite was too blatant with it by doing this with all
| accounts including ones that had entered young ages but
| that doesn't mean other apps that follow the entered age
| are accurate it just means they aren't likely to get
| fined. Which sure - still fine Fortnite. Knowingly
| breaking a law because you want to doesn't make you
| exempt from the law even if the law is useless in
| practice.
|
| I'd personally like if the law could be made into
| something more meaningfully verifiable I just don't think
| there is a reasonable way to do so. E.g. the UK has an
| opt-in requirement at the ISP level for porn access
| because "I am 18+" buttons weren't actually doing
| anything but making a legal bypass. Yet it's both a
| ridiculously bad solution and still easily worked around
| anyways.
| RC_ITR wrote:
| Amazing the contradictory thinking people have about
| "it's impossible to know a child's age" vs. "it's totally
| fine and reasonable that Google knows you're pregnant
| before you do".
| ryandrake wrote:
| I'm not a lawyer, but does the law require 100% un-hackable
| accuracy? Not the law as-written, but as-enforced? Has
| anyone been successfully penalized because they failed to
| catch one under-13 year old who said "Yes" to a dialog?
| Most sites I've seen either ask for your birth year or your
| age, and trust what the user says. If that's enough to be
| in compliance, why would any company make it more
| complicated? It's like if you've ever visited an alcohol
| company's web site, they ask "Are you 21?" and if you say
| yes, that's all they care about.
| tyleo wrote:
| Here is a link to our support site which provides more
| information:
|
| https://recroom.zendesk.com/hc/en-
| us/articles/4426900227735-...
| zamadatix wrote:
| Love Rec Room :)
|
| But this is basically the button press the GP was talking
| about, during sign up (which can be separate from the
| main sign up on the same device) the kid just says they
| were born in 1912 and now the mic works. Yes it's
| compliant with the law but it's the same problem GP was
| actually talking about - there is no real verification.
|
| Having parental controlled accounts is a nice feature in
| general though, regardless of the legal requirements.
| Ultimately things like this come down to making good
| parenting easier and that can help.
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| I think the idea is that parents are supposed to create
| accounts on Epic and Steam, not children. The parent
| selects the correct age during account creation.
| temprose wrote:
| What's stopping the kid from making a new account though?
| Knowing myself, I did similar things as a child
| especially since my parents were not very tech literate.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| Exactly. It's a well-armoured safe door on a safe with no
| sides.
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| 100% stopping kids in voice chat isn't the goal. Stopping
| kids from accidentality joining voice chat is.
|
| So nothing is stopping them from purposefully getting a
| chat activated account, that's the point.
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| Voice chat without parental approval is less likely to
| happen if the device is in public space in the residence.
| sieabahlpark wrote:
| blueboo wrote:
| Voice chat has been a "staple" but it's consistently a torrent
| of abuse in the most mainstream games for almost two decades
| now. God help you if your voice presents female.
|
| The game industry loves the mainstream ignorance on this issue.
| Epic conveniently omits the fact from parents giving their kids
| Fortnite bux that their 11 year old kid is directly talking
| with adults twice their age.
|
| Seems like there are lots of ways to confirm age, with various
| levels of sophistication and thoroughness. I think it'd be easy
| to improve on the status quo of a flat zero.
| bushbaba wrote:
| voice chat will simply move to 3rd party apps, Suchas discord.
| _fat_santa wrote:
| Epic could add a dose of CYA here. Disable voice and text chat,
| and put the enable switch behind a "for 18+ only" or something
| like that and have them confirm their birthdate. Not that it
| would actually stop minors from bypassing this by clicking
| through the prompt and entering a fake age. But this would
| allow Epic to argue to the court that they are doing more than
| their competitors to verify that children are not using
| voice/text chat and that requiring them to go further would be
| unfair.
|
| * Not a lawyer
| TheBrokenRail wrote:
| When we get into situations like this, you do have to
| question if the law requiring it is just plain silly.
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| Thinking about it, I can't blame the FTC for requiring it
| even if it is laughably stupid. If their mandate is "Do the
| best you can", putting in some obstruction to kids voice
| chat is better than nothing. Even if it only prevents
| 0.00001 more kids from using voice chat, their mandate is
| to choose that over 0.
| sillysaurusx wrote:
| Amazing how many people in this thread want to run to the
| government to solve the problem.
|
| It's kind of like that musk thread from yesterday where a bunch
| of people showed up to defend the policy of banning links. If
| someone makes a rule, there will always be someone else who
| thinks it's a good idea.
|
| As someone who grew up on roleplaying games when I was about
| 13, and had lots of exposure to the adult side of life, I'm
| with you. It's totally lame that the government is trying to
| regulate this.
| ThisNameNotUsed wrote:
| 13 is nothing like 10, or 8. I have nephews playing on their
| own at 4.
| 72deluxe wrote:
| I do not have children but I could not imagine my parents
| leaving me with unfettered access to a TV at age 4. If the
| Internet had been around, they certainly wouldn't have
| given me an internet-enabled device and left me by myself.
|
| How is playing games online where you can communicate with
| random people across the world without any sort of parental
| supervision possibly a good idea?? And why is it someone
| else's problem?
|
| I don't mean this rudely, but how about actually doing some
| parenting?
|
| I used to work with a guy who said the schools should be
| doing more to make children behave better, as if he was
| somehow absolved of any input. Absolutely baffling.
| otachack wrote:
| I'm also not a parent or a teacher. And I try my best to
| not give parenting advice to actual parents.
|
| It helps to remember that life is complicated and there
| are limitless factors that can contribute to a family
| dynamic. Growing up my parents barely knew what the
| internet was and just associated it with "the computer".
| They attuned it as a "toy" and nothing serious. This
| allowed me unfiltered access to anything that was on the
| internet at the time.
|
| You'd hope today's parents are more knowledgeable but I
| bet the majority of parents are just trying to get by and
| aren't ramped up as to how everything works today. They
| may be pressured to go with the technological flow head
| first due to society without fully knowing or controlling
| everything.
|
| Anyways, back to my point, telling someone to "go parent
| right", especially as a non-parent, maybe you can
| approach it better.
| CivBase wrote:
| I sympathize with parents, but I can only accept the
| naivete argument up to a point. It's one thing to be
| naive. It's another to make your naivete a problem for
| everyone else. At this point, it is simply not reasonable
| for a parent to be completely oblivious to the dangers of
| the internet for little kids.
| 72deluxe wrote:
| Yes that's a good point that people aren't necessarily
| clued up on the intricacies of the technology they're
| liberally giving to their children, but that still
| doesn't negate actual supervision. It's like handing a
| handsaw to your child and then wandering off.
|
| And my main point that supervision and parenting go hand
| in hand doesn't require me to be a parent to know that,
| in the same way that I know that a handsaw can be
| dangerous yet I am not a carpenter. You don't need to be
| Parent of the Year or a genius to know that leaving
| children unsupervised with something can go very badly,
| like leaving them to play with plug sockets... My parents
| didn't need to get to their second child to learn that -
| it's obvious.
|
| I'm not sure how else I could possibly word it to make
| such an obvious point more palatable, even though I am no
| expert in parenting. (I do have cats though and I know
| not to leave ANYTHING out because they wreck it.... That
| also doesn't take much to work out even if you don't own
| cats!)
| CivBase wrote:
| At some point we have to consider it the
| parent's/guardian's responsibility to restrict a child's
| access to any service that provides access to online, user-
| generated content without supervision.
|
| Despite all my problems with Epic, I agree with OP here.
| This should not be Epic's problem. This is a problem for
| parents/guardians and the ESRB/PEGI. The ESRB and PEGI
| rated the game for 13+ and 12+ respectively, which I'd
| argue is appropriate, so IMO it should be entirely a
| problem for the parents/guardians.
| Dalewyn wrote:
| Translating what FTC is saying to plain English, FTC is
| saying Epic didn't do enough to move liability away from
| them (Epic) and onto the parents/guardian. The liability
| ball was still in Epic's court, so FTC fined them.
|
| If Epic had some form of age verification in place, past
| that point it's the parents'/guardian's problem whether
| the kid lies or the kid asks them to give their
| authorization. The liability ball would be in the
| parents'/guardian's court.
|
| It's why all software and websites that handle data
| coming from underage kids always verify age or straight
| up don't handle that data (eg: Youtube Kids videos'
| comments, the lack thereof) at all.
|
| Obligatory IANAL.
| BryantD wrote:
| I'd recommend reading the complaint. To my surprise,
| regardless of the ratings, Epic was explicitly marketing
| to 10+. Like there are written statements to that effect.
| blitzar wrote:
| > Epic was explicitly marketing to 10+
|
| Translated to english this means they were marketing to
| 6-14 year olds.
| uwuemu wrote:
| > Amazing how many people in this thread want to run to the
| government to solve the problem.
|
| Welcome to HN. Scratch that, welcome to left wing politics.
| No, scratch even that, welcome to modern politics in general.
| It started with the milennial generation and it isn't getting
| much better. What has been achieved with race/gender gets
| overshadowed with excessive goverment overreach that is often
| expected and not protested enough (that's the worst part).
| One could get easily painted as some kind of an
| anarchocapitalist nut job for even suggesting such a thing
| just a couple of years ago. Then covid happened. Daddy
| government save us. Anyone not 100% on board with absolutely
| ridiculous government invasions into personal (and business)
| freedoms and all the absurd rules and regulations was not
| only a bad, irresponsible person, but was literally killing
| grandma. Mask don't work. There are many studies now (and
| it's not like we didn't know this two years ago) that clearly
| show they don't work. Everyone knows it makes no sense for a
| mask intended for dust protection to stop virions of a
| largely airborne virus, let alone a reused mask, let alone a
| mask you constantly touch, adjust and throw around, let alone
| indoors where you're breating in each others recirculated
| lung air... Buuuuuuuut the goverment daddy said a mask is
| required so everyone needs to wear a mask or deserves fucking
| prison or something.
| jerrygenser wrote:
| Can it be off by default but the user can enable it manually?
| Does it say it's off unless age verified or just off by
| default?
| ThisNameNotUsed wrote:
| So just because perfect enforcement is not possible the law
| doesn't make sense to you? Of the billions(maybe trillions) of
| interactions on this game this law prevents millions of stupid
| ones with small children. That's more than enough of a reason
| for you to click one extra button. Boo boo. Google seat belt
| law statistics on a similar situation.
| kevingadd wrote:
| This is also an accessibility barrier for the blind. (To be
| fair, ADA regulations now require games to include text-to-
| speech and speech-to-text support for in-game chat to mitigate
| it.)
| alasdair_ wrote:
| It's mostly down to who the game targets. If it's clear that
| under 13 kids will be playing, then COPA rules apply.
|
| So if you are making a Lego game, you'll need to comply, but if
| you are making "Murder Sex Drugs III" then you won't.
| BryantD wrote:
| If this is a COPPA issue, you just have to ask for birth year
| and you're allowed to trust the answer.
| breezeitall wrote:
| If I have a F2P game on mobile, do I then have to force ask
| the users age at the start to track things like DAU without
| getting potentially sued because I was unintentionally
| without knowing tracking < 13 years?
| BryantD wrote:
| IANAL. However, my answer to that question would be "it's a
| good idea."
|
| COPPA specifically calls out collecting device identifiers
| and cookies as personal information. Here's the money line:
|
| "It shall be unlawful for any operator of a Web site or
| online service directed to children, or any operator that
| has actual knowledge that it is collecting or maintaining
| personal information from a child, to collect personal
| information from a child in a manner that violates the
| regulations prescribed under this part."
|
| Note "directed to children." If your game isn't directed to
| children, you're fine, but that's a terribly fuzzy
| definition. In practice I would recommend taking the safe
| road and age gating for games. Again, I am not a lawyer.
|
| Edit: I read the complaint and Epic was explicitly
| marketing to ages 10+, so this wasn't at all fuzzy for
| them.
| breezeitall wrote:
| Thank you, that makes sense.
| tyleo wrote:
| Yeah, I don't know what the big deal is with people in this
| thread saying, "bah, this is impossible" but I work on a
| COPPA compliant game and "chat off for kids by default" is
| absolutely a must.
| dagmx wrote:
| It's because a lot of engineers get hung up in the "oh
| there's so many ways to defeat this" mindset, and forget
| that perfect is the enemy of good.
|
| Sensible defaults are a good enough start and many
| regulations like this are based around best efforts , not
| absolute perfection.
| BryantD wrote:
| Yup. It's both true that the age gate is easy to defeat
| and that it helps in practice.
| theptip wrote:
| It's not uncommon for the OS to have an age lock these days (eg
| iOS) that parents can set, and kids can't unset. Or, the parent
| can set the age in the console's user profile and the system
| locks it.
|
| That seems to be a trivial solution to the problem here.
|
| In this case there is a small amount of work required of Epic
| to enable the law to be enforced in the ecosystem. Without that
| work to add profiles and enforce ages in the game, the
| OS/platform cannot enforce either. So it's obviously moving
| things towards compliance to ding Epic here.
| danudey wrote:
| Turn off voice chat by default for everyone. Let people opt-in
| to the toxicity that is online gaming.
|
| I played a lot of Destiny, and it doesn't (didn't?) have voice
| chat. No problem. I also played a lot of Overwatch, which has
| voice chat that I didn't use. No problem. When I wanted to
| queue up for ranked, I would join a group and we would turn on
| voice chat. Also no problem.
|
| I'm not sure why your position is "children should have to opt
| out of voice chat". Why not "adults have to opt in to voice
| chat"? After all, it's single button press?
| wccrawford wrote:
| I didn't play Destiny, but Destiny 2 definitely has voice
| chat enabled by default.
| jasmer wrote:
| Huh? That's the easiest one of all - anything that is privacy
| invading should be off by default. Most of us are not super
| aware of what the hell is 'on and off' in this nutty world.
|
| It's exceedingly nuts to me that I would start doing something
| and all of a sudden random strangers could hear me or interact
| with me.
|
| Default off for everyone, probably by law.
|
| Anyone can just turn the default to be 'on' it's not a big
| deal.
| impoppy wrote:
| Hopefully FTC is eventually taking action against Adobe as well.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| This kind of stuff is just the tip of the iceberg in the gaming
| industry. I really hope someone takes a close look at gacha and
| unregulated gambling (e.g. CS:GO skins gambling) soon.
| dagmx wrote:
| Epic's own PR statement on this is worth a read
| https://www.epicgames.com/site/en-US/news/epic-ftc-settlemen...
| bioemerl wrote:
| There are so many immidiate contractions in this thing it makes
| my head spin.
|
| Like one section here says "no loot boxes since 2019 and never
| gambling"
|
| Loot boxes are gambling.
|
| "We respect our players by making our game pay to win"
|
| But when we breed a culture of bullying and use behavioral
| science to get you to purchase cosmetics, that's fine.
|
| Slimy, the whole game industry is slimy.
| josephd79 wrote:
| Lawyers will make out huge, parents of children tricked will
| never see a single penny. Plus, that's chump change for a company
| like Epic Games.
| BryantD wrote:
| You're not wrong about it being an easy fine to pay. But the
| meat of this is in the rest of the consent decree; Epic is
| under a 20 year order to maintain good privacy policies, report
| on them regularly, use a third party auditor (approved by the
| FTC), and so on. This is not trivial work and from experience
| the FTC takes these seriously.
|
| It's corrective justice, not punitive. The FTC is prioritizing
| prevention of future incidents above making Epic feel pain.
| boeingUH60 wrote:
| $245 million is earmarked for customer refunds. The FTC has set
| up a website for players to request refunds...your claim is
| false.
| jsnell wrote:
| Lawyers will get nothing. This was the FTC, not a class action
| lawsuit with lawyers working on contingency.
|
| About half the amount is going to refunds to consumers.
| rvz wrote:
| Good. It is also time to do the same to TikTok and fine them for
| abusing the privacy of its users in the billions of dollars.
|
| They have been caught once [0] and have been caught again this
| year [1] and generally have lied about accessing the sensitive
| data of it's own users [2], [3], [4]. Clearly the fines in [0]
| and [1] are extremely low and the fine must increase in the
| billions since these are repeated privacy violations and haven't
| learned anything from it.
|
| [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/14/technology/tiktok-kids-
| pr...
|
| [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/26/technology/tiktok-
| childre...
|
| [2] https://futurism.com/tiktok-spy-locations-specific-americans
|
| [3]
| https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/emilybakerwhite/tiktok-...
|
| [4] https://techcrunch.com/2021/06/03/tiktok-just-gave-itself-
| pe...
| Bombthecat wrote:
| Fortnite made 4 billion
|
| Each
|
| Year
|
| You think that will change future behavior?
|
| I doubt it.
| rvz wrote:
| That's the whole point. They can afford the fine, especially
| in the billions of dollars just like what Facebook has done
| for repeat violations and it should be the standard fine for
| billion-dollar companies.
| jasmer wrote:
| $520M is a pinch, I can assure you it will change their
| behaviour in some ways.
|
| I worked at a company where this happened, the legal polices
| that came afterwards were actually prohibitive. We couldn't
| shit without a lawyer.
|
| CEOs have bosses and they don't like to lose money like this
| - it's a 'headline' loss as well, making it feel worse.
|
| What remains to be seen is the nature of the change because
| so often it's just an over/under or 'bad' reaction, rarely do
| they get it right unfortunately.
| zx10rse wrote:
| Wait until FTC find about Diablo Immortal.
|
| Really a good start, but if they are serious about doing
| something they should start looking at other companies too, and
| put in place big fines if you continue to implement such patterns
| in your games.
|
| Don't even get me started on loot boxes and their gambling
| patterns, I have no sympathy for companies using such practices,
| and they deserve every single fine and a bit more.
| richbell wrote:
| > Wait until FTC find about Diablo Immortal.
|
| While I'm sure it's been discussed to death already, if anyone
| isn't familiar with the predatory design of Diablo Immortal I'd
| recommend this video.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o17lBUZgjTs
| GeekyBear wrote:
| >Until late 2018, for instance, Epic automatically stored the
| credit card information for anyone who made a single purchase in
| Fortnite and didn't require the CVV security information for
| further purchases. That made it easy for many children to make
| additional purchases without their parents' consent, according to
| the FTC.
|
| Epic also drew criticism from the FTC for putting the "Purchase"
| button for in-game items right next to the "preview styles"
| button and offering no subsequent purchase confirmation prompt in
| the case of misplaced clicks. And while Epic introduced an "Undo
| Purchase" button in July 2019, it was eventually made much less
| prominent and harder for customers to find.
|
| https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2022/12/epic-will-pay-520-mil...
|
| This is a company that should be able to bypass app store
| restrictions?
| lapcat wrote:
| > This is a company that should be able to bypass app store
| restrictions?
|
| Every company should be able to bypass app store restrictions.
|
| I don't think the question is even framed correctly. Every
| iPhone owner should be able to bypass app store restrictions.
| Developers doing so is just a consequence of consumer choice.
| GeekyBear wrote:
| Sorry, but I prefer the ability to do things like easily
| reverse fraudulent in app purchases, instantly cancel
| subscriptions without a hassle, and say no to location
| tracking without the app in question being allowed to drop
| functionality if I do so.
| kevingadd wrote:
| Tracking protection can and should be done at the OS level,
| not at the store level. Even Windows has this.
|
| Canceling a Fortnite subscription is as simple via them as
| it is on any other storefront:
| https://www.epicgames.com/help/en-
| US/fortnite-c5719335176219...
|
| So all that's left is reversing purchases. You can do that
| through your bank or credit card issuer for any fraudulent
| purchase, if you want Apple to act as that gatekeeper
| instead you should make purchases via Apple. Are you saying
| all vendors should be required to hand 30% of all their
| revenues to Apple so it is slightly easier for you to
| reverse a purchase, even though there are already well-
| tested universal channels for doing it?
|
| I've had to reverse purchases before without dealing with
| Apple and it has always been a smooth process.
|
| Basically your argument seems to boil down to "my
| convenience justifies a 30% tax on all app developers". Are
| you in favor of moves like Apple requiring a 30% tax on IRL
| event tickets sold via services like Facebook, even though
| Apple provides no services to the live event operator other
| than payment processing? Apple even prohibited Facebook
| from disclosing the tax's existence.
| superkuh wrote:
| I'm still waiting for something to be done about Epic buying
| video games that support multi-platform like Rocket League then
| removing multi-platform support from those games. I bought Rocket
| League. I played Rocket League. Epic bought Rocket League and
| suddenly I couldn't play Rocket League. And I'm just left hanging
| with a useless "single player" rocket league that can no longer
| play the game.
|
| Epic is as much of a monster or worse than Microsoft was in it's
| prime. It buys games then puts them behind it's paywall, ruining
| the games for people that bought them before. It uses it's Unreal
| game engine position to attack companies that make games in it's
| engine by releasing clones of them (ie, the Fortnite copy of
| PUBG). It sells games like Fortnite which I bought for $40+ back
| before it was popular, then it completely changes the game and
| makes it impossible for me to continue playing the game I bought.
|
| I will never, ever, give any Epic software a place on any of my
| computers. Not buying, not "free", not anything. They still owe
| me $35 for stealing Rocket League and $44 for taking away
| Fortnite (the original game).
| jacooper wrote:
| They issued refunds for this, why didn't you request one?
|
| It also runs perfectly fine with proton.
| p_j_w wrote:
| If memory serves, plenty of people were denied refunds.
| zug_zug wrote:
| I can't speak generally, but I bought rocket-league on steam,
| and I still play it online, multiplayer, on steam, with steam
| friends or epic friends.
| stardenburden wrote:
| No longer if you were playing on Linux
| sphars wrote:
| Rocket League runs great with proton, and in my testing, it
| ran better than the native version when it was still
| available.
| stardenburden wrote:
| I am aware of that. But I didn't buy a proton version, I
| bought a Linux version.
| kevingadd wrote:
| So essentially, you were offered a remedy that allowed
| you to continue playing the game, you rejected the
| remedy, and now you're complaining? They're obligated to
| support the old version of the client forever, regardless
| of any obstacles to that?
|
| If you bought it to play on a 32-bit Mac would they be
| obligated to port it to 64-bit? Would they be obligated
| to port an OpenGL-based client to Metal after Apple's
| deprecation?
| flyingpenguin wrote:
| You did not buy a guaranteed life-long access to online Rocket
| League in all its future forms.
|
| Your purchase of Rocket League came with access to the online
| service as it currently stands as a trust only relationship
| between you and the owners of the online Rocket League service.
|
| I understand your pain here, and I don't want to defend Epic
| games, but as someone who has created multiple free cloud
| services only to have their costs or development requirements
| exceed my ability to maintain them I am weary of anything that
| would legally require me to maintain a cloud service past my
| desire to do so.
| CivBase wrote:
| > as someone who has created multiple free cloud services
| only to have their costs or development requirements exceed
| my ability to maintain them I am weary of anything that would
| legally require me to maintain a cloud service past my desire
| to do so
|
| I'd argue the expectation of a multi-billion dollar
| corporation to maintain an online service feature for a paid
| product that they are still actively providing on other
| platforms is pretty reasonable. And that expectation should
| not add any risk of liability for individuals like you
| shutting down free online services.
|
| It would come down to how the theoretical law was written.
| But just because a law can be written poorly doesn't mean we
| should seek to maintain the status quo.
| breezeitall wrote:
| Privacy part, sure if true. I'd argue it doesn't make sense to
| charge them more than what Google paid, which used the data for
| ads. Epic I'd imagine uses the data more for tracking dau and
| less nasty reasons.
|
| For the second part of tricking millions of players into making
| unintended purchases, idk about this one. In Fortnite for
| example, it's pretty transparent when you are paying real money.
| You either buy v-bucks to then purchase skins. Or you buy the
| season pass once and it's clear real money is involved. Anytime I
| talk with kids, it seems like they are fully aware it takes real
| money to buy them and they are either saving up or asking their
| parents for b-day/Christmas to get v-bucks or the season pass.
| Bud wrote:
| [deleted]
| Bangladoor wrote:
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