Children and younger teens may soon be unable to play Genshin Impact gruel. The developer behind the game has agreed Prevent players under 16 from making in-game purchases without parental consent 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 that “Genshin Impact tricked children, teenagers, and other players into spending 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 entity, is allegedly misleading players “about the odds of winning” its rarest loot box. prizes and uses a confusing virtual currency system that is unfair to children and younger teens. The FTC says this misleads players about how much they really have to spend to get rarer prizes. Genshin Impact uses a gacha system instead of a traditional loot box mechanic, in which players can “pull” posters to earn a random item or character.
Under the FTC's proposed order, it wants to prohibit Genshin Impact sell loot boxes using virtual currency unless you also provide the option to purchase them directly with real money. It wants to prohibit the developer from misrepresenting loot box odds and processes, and wants to require the company to disclose gacha odds and the virtual currency exchange rate. The commission wants to order HoYoverse to delete personal information collected from children under 13, unless it was also obtained with parental consent. However, a federal judge has yet to approve the proposed order with all of these requirements, so they will not apply immediately.
