Children and young adolescents may soon no longer be able to play Genshin Impact gachas. The developer behind the game has agreed to prevent players under the age of 16 from making in-game purchases without parental consent in order to resolve a Federal Trade Commission complaint. He also agreed to pay a $20 million fine. Samuel Levine, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, said: “Genshin Impact deceived children, teens, and other gamers into spending hundreds of dollars for prizes they had little chance of to win. »
The developer’s marketing actively targeted children, the commission said in its complaint, and the company also violated COPPA by collecting personal information from children under 13. HoYoverse, the developer’s American entity, allegedly misled players “about the chances of winning” its rarer loot box. prices and uses a virtual currency system that is confusing and unfair to children and young adolescents. The FTC says this misleads players about how much they actually need to spend to be able to get rarer prizes. GenshinImpact uses a gacha system instead of a traditional loot box mechanic, in which players can “shoot” banners to earn a random item or character.
Under the FTC’s proposed order, it seeks to ban GenshinImpact from selling loot boxes using virtual currency, unless it also offers the option to purchase them directly with real money. He wants to prohibit the developer from misrepresenting loot box odds and processes, and he wants to require the company to disclose gacha odds and the virtual currency exchange rate. The commission wants to order HoYoverse to also delete personal information collected from children under the age of 13, unless it was obtained with parental consent. A federal judge must still approve the proposed order with all of these requirements, so they will not be implemented immediately.
