Genshin Impact has become over the years one of the biggest video games of all, and its main source of income is through its gacha system, where players spend in-game coins to obtain characters and other items. But apparently, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTV) found a serious infraction centered on this system and it is that Genshin Impact would have misled children and other users about the real cost of transactions in the game, as well as the probabilities of obtaining items. This led to a fine of up to 20 million dollars.
Genshin Impact to pay a $20 million fine
The developer of the popular gacha-style video game Genshin Impact, HoYoverse, reached an agreement with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to pay a fine of US$20 million. The offense of which the game is accused is that of violating the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), since the real costs of the transactions within the game were not correct, and it is even accused of not being clear about the probabilities of obtaining prizes with its gacha system.
Although HoYoverse will pay the fine, they also declared that “many of the FTC’s accusations are inaccurate”, showing that they do not agree very much with the decision of the American entity, but to avoid major problems that could actively affect the players, they preferred to pay the 20 million dollars. For his part, Samuel Levine, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, stated that Genshin Impact tricked children, teenagers and other players into spending money on the game, even though the chances of winning a prize were very low.
If the settlement is approved by a federal judge, Cognosphere (the name of HoYoverse in Singapore and California) will not only have to pay the fine, but will also make several important changes to Genshin Impact, one of the most relevant being that minors under 16 will not be able to make any in-game purchases without parental authorization. In addition, the exchange rates of the loot boxes, as well as their prices, will have to be presented in a precise way, so that those who accept to buy some kind of bonus know how close or far they are from getting a prize.
Finally, among these changes we find that any type of information obtained from children under 13 years old must be removed from the records of Genshin Impact, only remaining firm if the respective permissions of the parents of those involved are obtained. For its part, Cognosphere was present confirming that they will maintain a commitment to transparency and trust with the community, especially accepting all these changes that will be made over the months. Now we will only have to wait to see how these modifications really affect the players and if this is the first step for other gacha-style games to have the same fate.
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