I saw this posted in another community and was thinking about asking the IN Lemmy community for their thoughts myself! Same brain!

Not sure how hard IN will be targeted because you can progress in-game pretty easily as F2P, though you do get energy-blocked on crafting the materials and getting the power ups you need to pass certain style battles to continue the story.

I also do not know how enforced the legislation will be—I know there are weird laws on books somewhere like not being able to drive a hedgehog in a bathrobe or something that hardly ever see enforcement. I clicked on a link in the article and went a bit deeper and read the Key Principles on in-game virtual currencies under the More information area, let’s go item by item!

Please note that this document is a non-exhaustive list of practices that consumers may encounter when playing video games. It does not preclude the CPC Network from undertaking further actions or activities in the gaming sector.

so they have not handicapped themselves, I do not know if they’ll bother to enforce but it sure looks like they have the power to and that’s very appreciated. So let us go down the list!

Price indication should be clear and transparent.

The details of it basically indicate you need to indicate the equivalent real-world price of everything purchasable with in-game premium currency, as well as the price of the in-game premium currency itself.

I wonder how that’ll work out with gacha, with no single price for getting a full outfit but a definite one for whatever the conversion process is to get those gems to pull. But it is certainly nice for those outfits you can buy for Stellarite and whatever other fixed-price premium things there are, less spreadsheets and calculation for people. (I don’t really pull that often and I never considered buying in-game currency so I am honestly not that familiar with the specific names of the currencies or the things you can buy, though I definitely know they exist.)

Practices obscuring the cost of in-game digital content and services should be avoided

Again, not sure if IN does this because of my unfamiliarity with most of the monetized stuff, but if there is a chain of exchanges of in-game currency you go through before being able to buy something like one of those premium outfits or a gacha pull, this game counts as having done that according to the list of what these practices of obscuring cost look like.

Practices that force consumers to purchase unwanted in-game virtual currency should be avoided

Stuff like only being able to buy currency in increments of 100 and all the purchasable items cost 125, so you have to buy 2 packs of 100 to get a 125 item and end up with 75 currencies you did not really want to buy and only got because it was the only way you could get the 125 item.

There are some Stellarite-cost things not in increments of 60 or 300 or the other amounts you can buy of Stellarite, but some that are, not sure if that counts as a violation. But I am sure it doesn’t allow you to buy however much currency you want, as in I can choose to buy 59 or 83 instead of just in their predefined increments, which is a violation according to the list.

Consumers should be provided with clear and comprehensible pre-contractual information

Basically a disclosure that it’s an in-game currency purchase with some relevant legal information, I guess? Not sure I get this protection. If it is what I think it is it might help a few kids realize that no, this is not free, and giving mommy’s credit card number WILL get her a charge, even if they cannot read all the legalese on screen. This is probably the one I understand least, that will probably be the least friction in my opinion for Infold to add to IN because it feels like it won’t lose many sales at all, if it doesn’t comply already.

Consumers’ right of withdrawal should be respected

American who’s never heard of that before. According to https://www.europe-consommateurs.eu/en/shopping-internet/14-days-to-withdraw.html “The right of withdrawal is a period during which you can cancel an online purchase, even if you have already paid.” The period appears 14 days. They have to respect it and make people click an agreement to waive it.

No idea if IN violated this because I do not play in the EU and don’t have this right, so I would not be shown anything about it. If they have violated it, complying seems like an easy implement, in my opinion it doesn’t sound like it’ll lose much money because all they have to do is throw up the right legal language in a popup, and people who were going to buy will probably also click to waive. Although I admit extra clicks, even the slightest bit of friction towards spending money, might help dissuade an impulse purchaser as they have more time to think it over.

Contractual terms should be fair and written in plain and clear language

I think the specific terms to avoid are quite interesting to look at:

• Terms that give the trader the unilateral right to cease, modify or withdraw the purchased digital content or services or the purchased in-game virtual currencies at any moment in an unfair manner
• Terms which deny or limit consumers their legal rights or their ability to exercise those rights, including when making purchases using in-game virtual currencies
• Terms giving unilateral rights to traders to remove content or features in the video game at any moment, particularly if the content or feature is purchasable for consumers, and consumers could expect it to remain at the time of purchase
• Terms granting traders a right to unilaterally modify the value of in-game virtual currencies
• Terms granting traders the ability to ban, suspend or remove consumers’ access to their accounts or purchased digital content or services without the ability to contest the reason for this action

Sounds pretty great. I do not think IN has done any of these rug pulls but I don’t know Infold’s history with other Nikki games and if they’ve done any of these. I figure if a company cannot remove actual whole content for EU players they might consider it easier to not remove it for the rest of us, at the very least because PR backlash, so this might be a small case of EU legislation also helping people outside out.

Game design and gameplay should be respectful of different consumer vulnerabilities

This one mostly focuses on not taking advantage of children, but also points out whaling in a description paragraph and says in its list of practices to “Avoid basing the business model on practices exploiting vulnerable consumers’ willing to spend excessive amount of real-world money in a video game”. I’m pretty sure IN depends on whales, so this is probably the one hardest-hitting bit for them.

I know that Insight and Bling limits are there at least partially because of some Chinese rules around gaming addiction, so Infold has shown willingness to comply with legislation around gaming before, though how much is bare minimum lip service and how much is good-faith compliance I’m unsure since I have not read the Chinese laws, and these limits are probably what keeps people coming back daily as a habit instead of gaming their fill for a lot of hours in a relatively small time period and then putting it away forever once they’ve beaten everything, lessening exposure to banners.

I do not personally see them pulling out of the EU so they can keep these practices, but hey, if losing EU business loses less $ than they think reducing these practices would lose them… might be within the cards.