FTC orders Genshin Impact developer to prevent young teens from making in-game purchases
Children and younger teenagers may soon no longer be able to play Genshin Impact Gachas. The developer behind the game has agreed to prevent players under 16 from making in-game purchases without parental consent, to resolve a Federal Trade Commission complaint. It has also agreed to pay a $20 million penalty. Samuel Levine, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, said: “Genshin Impact enticed children, teens and other players to spend hundreds of dollars on prizes they had little chance of winning.”
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 US company, is allegedly misleading players “about the odds of winning” its rarer loot box prizes and using a confusing virtual currency system that is unfair to children and younger teenagers. The FTC says this misleads players about how much they actually have to spend to get rarer prizes. Genshin Impact uses a gacha system instead of a traditional loot box mechanic where players can “pull” banners to win a random item or character.
Under the FTC’s proposed order, it wants to ban this Genshin Impact Refrain from selling loot boxes with virtual currency unless there is also the option to purchase them directly with real money. It wants to prohibit the developer from misrepresenting loot box quotas and processes, and it wants to require the company to disclose gachas quotas and the virtual currency exchange rate. The Commission would like to order HoYoverse to also delete personal data from children under the age of 13 unless it has been obtained with parental consent. However, a federal judge still needs to approve the proposed order with all of these requirements, so they won’t be enforced immediately.
