In-game purchases should display the exact cost in the local currency. In-game currency should be completely banned.
this post was submitted on 21 Mar 2025
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There are many many examples of predatory uses of in game currencies, but here are some big reasons devs use them besides being scummy.
- Giving currency for free: giving people real money isn't something any dev wants to deal with, so giving in game currency allows this to happen. This also applies to games where you can convert free currency to premium currency.
- Local currencies: currency packages can be set to local prices without having to localize the in-game economy itself. This simplifies development a lot.
- Weak promotion support on distributor platforms: believe it or not, iOS and android have incredibly weak promotion and sale support. By giving in-game currency, it gets around that failing of the platforms because the game can do whatever it wants with the in-game currency.
Transparency is good, but let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater.
What baby? In game purchases? That's not a baby, that's a big shit somebody took in your tub. If transparency is too hard to implement, publishers should feel free to get rid of them altogether.
They can give items for free instead. Without currency they cant give you 90% of what you need and force you to overpay for extra.
A variable for a value is trivial. It already works perfectly fine in the store!
Sure sales on mobile... (sounds like Apple and Google would get some needed pressure to improve this area) but thats another problem, none of these purchases should be expensive enough to even warrant needing a sale in the first place.
The real reason they want in game currency is not any of these, it's for the deception factor, avoiding refunds, upselling etc
Giving currency for free: giving people real money isn't something any dev wants to deal with, so giving in game currency allows this to happen. This also applies to games where you can convert free currency to premium currency.
But this is how gift codes work, no? You're not giving money away directly. Just give a voucher for a real currency if you want to gift users.
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- 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.
- See 1. Give away store credit.
Even 2 isn't difficult. If they can set a price on the currency itself then they can set it on each item trivially.
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Also in some games players can trade the currency
Depends what counts as an in game currency, does a game where you earn currency in-game and spend it in-game count as an in-game currency? What about if players can trade it?
We are talking about anything that has real monetary value, if you cannot obtain it through real money, then it's not in the discussion. Of course it opens a whole new problem, where they could sell "boosts" to earning virtual currency etc. So that would have to be taken into account with the legislation.
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The CPC Network, coordinated by the European Commission, is publishing a set of guidelines today to promote transparency and fairness in the online gaming industry's use of virtual currencies.
That doesn’t seem binding.
Nah thats usually how those start out afaik. They start with a guideline and a grace period. Then when the grace period is over there is a warning period and after that it goes straight to fines.
The CPC Network will monitor progress and may take further actions if harmful practices continue.
Lets see what happens.
It is in part. They are hosting workshops and publishing these guidelines so companies can work on it on their own merit but they will also take further action if the harmful practices continue
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Some people hate the eu but I swear I only hear wins
It's stuff like chat control that make me hate the EU sometimes.
Oh and the really really dumb cookie law.
The cookie law isn't dumb, but at this point it should maybe be reformed. Basically as long as a website doesn't do shady shit with cookies no cookie banner is required. Instead of complaining about the cookie banner law, people should complain about websites who sell their users' data.
Basically as long as a website doesn’t do shady shit with cookies no cookie banner is required.
That is actually the status quo. If a website only uses cookies that are needed to make the website function, there is no need for a banner or dialogue. These cookie banners are there deliberately to be annoying so you'll agree to more than is necessary.
The dumb bit of the law is the fact that websites are allowed to put up an annoying banner that says either accept cookies or individually deselect 240 checkboxes.
As @apotheotic@beehaw.org mentioned, that is actually not allowed and against the spirit of the "cookie banner law". But since hundreds, if not thousands of sites break this law, it takes quite the time for government workers to sift through all of that (provided they even get around to it).
They're not actually allowed to do that, by my understanding. It must be equally simple to accept all cookies as it is to deny cookies.
The newest take on cookies, is "accept all, or pay to read". Quite shady, if you ask me.
and illegal.
because the people who hate the eu are the people who are wrong.
Stop selling gambling as okay to kids. Gacha games equal gambling for minors.
This is especially funny in South Korea. Go to a Casino and burn $2000 and you may even get jail time, but gatcha is A ok.
At least at a casino you can get something of value. The games effectively reward you in company script.
Scrip.
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Stay winning EU.
I wonder if this will in practice put an end to the scummy practice of badly sized in game currency pack sizes, one of the many scummy techniques they use to make people spend more.
Let’s say the thing most players buy costs 3 ingame currency (I love that my autocorrect made „insane currency“ out of that). The smallest pack you can buy is 5. So, the player buys 5, spends 3 and has 2 left with which nothing to do. If they want another 3, they have to buy 5 more. Spend 3, have 4 left. Spend 3, have 1 left. The cycle continues.
Or, just stop games from selling in-game content?
Every skin is a texture or model swap, every "exclusive" always exists in the files, every in-game currency is fabricated.
Games try really really hard to make you pay for something that is copy and pasted
Artificial scarcity in it's barest form.
The fact that even some people think this shit is acceptable is very telling of how far we have yet to go, psychologically speaking, as a species.
Monkeys in fucking trousers.
If anything gaming culture has regressed, at least in this aspect.
Remember when the $2.50 Oblivion horse armor DLC was considered to be ridiculous?
Remember when the $2.50 Oblivion horse armor DLC was considered to be ridiculous?
Blizzard now sells mounts at the price of 90 EUR, ~1.5x the base price of the game itself...
TBF, it's a useful mount, but 90 fucking Euros...
This is one of those radical ideas that people are terrified of, because it would kill the business models of a lot of massive corporations. It's easy to spin that as the death of the game industry, rather than what it is: the death of a business practice.
Like the laws against underage smoking probably wiped out billions in shareholder value, but that was objectively a good thing. Banning (or heavily regulating) in-game purchases would also be a good thing, no matter how much it affects existing players. If it leads to the death of name brands like EA, Ubisoft, etc. then who cares? The market will readjust and new players who were able to adapt to the changed environment will take their place.
Now do Stop Killing Games
I hope it doesn't affect EVE Online. As I remember it their system didn't involve any deception or confusion, even though there was in-game currency you could spend € on if you wanted to.
Well I mean there was plenty of deception and confusion among and between the players, but none from the game itself.
If the conversion rate isnt 1:1 or its not directly using € in the game then i would call that confusing or deceptive.
For real. We need to get rid of games where 10 Red coins = 2.2 mystic gems = 1256 diamonds = 1.56 flowers and you can only buy red coin and only spend flowers and each conversion has a 1 green coin processing fee and you have to convert in that order. It's predatory and so sad that people get duped by it.
As I remember it: It's an online game, so you need a monthly subscription to play. That is a set price in whatever real-world currency as normal. But you can buy as many months as you like in advance; and if you buy more than you need you can sell them in-game for whatever you can get on the open market which is controlled by players.
It was a long time ago, no idea if it still works that way. But it seemed to me like a good system, for a game in which in-game market trading between players is a big part of it.
P.S. Actually come to think of it I think they went free-to-play at some point. I wonder if my account still exists.
When I played, 1 plex = 1 month but they eventually converted it to 1000 plex = 1 month or something?
You can use ISK (in game currency) to buy plex and sell plex for ISK. The exchange rate of plex to ISK fluctuates depending on market demand so putting a hard real world currency equivalent value would be tough.
Just putting a reasonably-up-to-date real-world value estimate next to any price in parentheses would be a big step forward though.
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The first two principles for virtual currencies that they have listed are "Price indication should be clear and transparent" and "Practices obscuring the cost of in-game digital content and services should be avoided", so if EVE is honest and up front about it then it should be fine
I find it interesting that it says it’s based on existing legislation. In that case I’ma bit disappointed that it took them so long to act. But, it’s of course a stop in the right direction.
Nice, good for EU
What does this mean for me, a capital G gamer? /s
But seriously, will I still be able to earn gold in MTGA?
How will this affect the Platinum market in Warframe?
These seem to be the four major points:
clear and transparent pricing and pre-contractual information;
avoiding practices hiding the costs of in-game digital content and services, as well as practices forcing consumers to purchase virtual currency;
respect of consumers' right of withdrawal;
respecting consumer vulnerabilities, in particular when it comes to children;
First one actually seems pretty well covered by Warframe already. Second point can be met just by displaying the real currency price next to the plat price, calculated based on what people on average give per plat when purchasing through the Warframe website. Third point... Yeah that's going to be a point of contention for sure. That'll require a redesign of the plat system. Fourth point I'd also say Warframe does. Their 'oh shit' moment when they ended up creating a slot machine with, what was it, kubrow skins? Demonstrates them actually caring about this already. Basically they saw people interacting with a new mechanic much like one would a slot machine, and then soon after rolled it back and refunded everyone who had spent money on it.
"Right of withdrawal" is quite easy: allow cancelling the transaction before the in-game content has actually been used.
It only takes a "has been used" flag, and maybe a log entry to prove when.
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Will they get rid of games have 3 or 4 or more "currencies."
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