You wouldn’t subscribe to a service like Netflix if they required you to pay an additional fee to unlock each piece of content, nor would you pay money for a Netflix app that’s useless without a subscription, but that’s essentially what you’re doing when you “buy” a live service game. Don’t do that! Either pay once for a game that’s fully playable offline, or pay monthly for a subscription to a live service game where the software to access it is free.
The publishers are being greedy assholes, but they couldn’t do it if people didn’t pay for the privilege of being scammed.
Not a bad tipp for individuals. Won’t solve the problem though. The few individuals who actually go through with this dont make a dent while children and their parents will gobble up this stuff because marketing. We need policy for shit like this.
You’re not wrong, but if you want to use policy to regulate business models that exploit dumb consumer choices, there are way bigger fish to fry than videogames.
I know. It is a pattern. It’s roughly summarized under anti trust. You know, the stuff that has been dismantled in the US over the past couple of years.
Same goes for europe but not as brutal. When these laws were made, there were no insanely fast growing international conglomerates with a product that changes shape like a chameleon. No wonder they didn’t keep up but now we‘ve got homework. We gotta push politicians to revise laws and change the status quo.
We need to balance the scales so consumers get the info they need (instead of constantly changing terms and conditions, 10+ pages long), the power to actually change stuff (be able to sue if apple does not let you mass extract your fkin passwords if you dont own a mac) and keep new transgressions from happening by putting long jail terms on anti competitive behavior.
I have mixed opinions on whether regulation is needed. Maybe just more transparency in marketing would be enough, and I’d be happy to see that, but an outright ban on the business model seems heavy handed to me, given that it’s a problem individuals can simply choose not to participate in if they’re informed of the risks.
I wonder how many people would buy a game where the piece tag says something like this:
$60 + $10/month. Not playable without a subscription.*
And then in the fine print:
*The publisher may discontinue all subscriptions at any time after 1/1/2025. If that happens, it will no longer be possible to play the game.
It’s a very good idea. But I‘m sorry to inform you that this is regulation. It is a very nuanced piece though. Much better than banning it outright, at least to try first.
You wouldn’t subscribe to a service like Netflix if they required you to pay an additional fee to unlock each piece of content, nor would you pay money for a Netflix app that’s useless without a subscription, but that’s essentially what you’re doing when you “buy” a live service game. Don’t do that! Either pay once for a game that’s fully playable offline, or pay monthly for a subscription to a live service game where the software to access it is free.
The publishers are being greedy assholes, but they couldn’t do it if people didn’t pay for the privilege of being scammed.
Not a bad tipp for individuals. Won’t solve the problem though. The few individuals who actually go through with this dont make a dent while children and their parents will gobble up this stuff because marketing. We need policy for shit like this.
You’re not wrong, but if you want to use policy to regulate business models that exploit dumb consumer choices, there are way bigger fish to fry than videogames.
I know. It is a pattern. It’s roughly summarized under anti trust. You know, the stuff that has been dismantled in the US over the past couple of years.
Same goes for europe but not as brutal. When these laws were made, there were no insanely fast growing international conglomerates with a product that changes shape like a chameleon. No wonder they didn’t keep up but now we‘ve got homework. We gotta push politicians to revise laws and change the status quo.
We need to balance the scales so consumers get the info they need (instead of constantly changing terms and conditions, 10+ pages long), the power to actually change stuff (be able to sue if apple does not let you mass extract your fkin passwords if you dont own a mac) and keep new transgressions from happening by putting long jail terms on anti competitive behavior.
I have mixed opinions on whether regulation is needed. Maybe just more transparency in marketing would be enough, and I’d be happy to see that, but an outright ban on the business model seems heavy handed to me, given that it’s a problem individuals can simply choose not to participate in if they’re informed of the risks.
I wonder how many people would buy a game where the piece tag says something like this:
And then in the fine print:
It’s a very good idea. But I‘m sorry to inform you that this is regulation. It is a very nuanced piece though. Much better than banning it outright, at least to try first.
I know it’s a regulation. I’m just saying I prefer less intrusive regulations when they’re enough to get the job done.