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Genshin Impact Developer HoYoverse Required to Disclose Gacha Banner Odds In US FTC Settlement Accus
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Genshin Impact Developer HoYoverse Required to Disclose Gacha Banner Odds In US FTC Settlement Accusing Developers of Exploiting Players, Violating In | MMORPG.com
A newly published settlement between the FTC and HoYoverse targets HoYoverse's unchecked permissions for children to play and exploitative loot box and microcurrency systems.
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Start taking ALL the profits off it, then we might see some change.
The odds are known. Anyone who plays a Hoyoverse game knows what the odds are; they literally have them posted.
At this point the FTC was looking for a handout; fucking scumbags.
I'm not defending the practice, but i will defend miHoYo, because out of ALL the different developers and gacha games out there in the world; they are widely known as the most generous with it's currency being given out for free via dailies, promotions, contests, and just straight-up playing the game.
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-advertising "probability increase" when they make previously unattainable characters attainable
-commissioning a streamer who proceeded to fake loot box victories
To me it looks like those devs did minor infractions, and received a fine that for them is minor.
Mihoyo fans don't care about logic, they care more about their precious company taking advantage of them. Let's not include the FOMO or the fact that they're meant to be played like job. Once you're done with the world in Genshin, there's only so much to do, and if you're not min-maxing, you're out of the Spiral Abyss 11F~12F rewards. Star Rail still expects quite a bit of grinding despite having auto-play.
Designs are tanking, player-base has taken a modest decrease, earnings have dropped by a mere 300M, and people still throw money to an overseas gacha because having money fueled to pretty anime tropes is amazing.
And contests exist solely to use fans for free advertisements. Giveaways that force you to interact in specific channels is also funneling people, or, statistics, into another box. What else would one gain from fan-art contests? Recognition, and a potential red dot on one's head if Mihoyo decides one thing went too far.
Mihoyo is also super-defensive over specific types of information that aren't leak-related, and would rather have fans not discuss parts of the game.
But yeah, super 'generous'. Yeah, ZZZ, where there's only one non-paid Ether character despite having an elemental weakness/resistance system, while the other one is limited. Tying in characters to the story but making them limited isn't generous.
Shows what you can really do by taking full advantage of consumer gullibility, surprised the Mafia and other organized criminal groups haven't moved in yet on this racket.
They probably already have, nevermind.
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Mafia has been all over it since ever, it's called gambling
The "probability increase" is clearly explained, tho. It refers to the 50/50 guarantee to obtain said character/s when you get a 4/5 star one on that banner, which is exclusive to these banners. The regular/permanent banner is 100% random when you get a 4/5 star, so you don't have a probability increase to obtain a desired character from its list. It's easy to understand, so I don't know where's the issue there.
While I like to play MiHoYo's games -like ZZZ now- casually as a F2P player (on the side of other games, and taking breaks sometimes), I'm not gonna defend a gacha system per se, since it is what it is. I know that it can be exploitative for people with issues or kids, same as gambling in general is.
That being said, it should be worth mentioning that in order to actually gamble (since I consider rolling on characters for free the same as the RNG when getting a drop in a dungeon) you need to have access to a payment method. Something that kids shouldn't have access to, and which is effectively a better age check than a simple "are you 18 or older?" checkmark. In other words, this will change nothing for the real issue. In my opinion, the same way that adults with gambling issues need help, parents should also keep an eye on their kids, on what they play and what websites they browse. That includes not giving them a smartphone, which comes with problems like this one as well as several others.
EDIT: Reading that FTC file, it looks like they can get away with advertising probability increase if they just explain it more visibly/better.
It is a probability increase. Just not on the base probability, which is something not stated anywhere. For example, the base chances of getting a 5 star/S tier are X%, and then a 50% chance of it being the featured character. Meanwhile, on the regular banner, the base chances are also X%, but the chances of it being a specific character are 16.67% (assuming there are 6 5 star characters in the pool). In the case of the featured banner that would be a 14.29%, due to there being an additional character in the pool.
50% > 14.29%
Moreover, if you don't roll that character the first time, the next time the probability increases to a 100%. The same applies to the featured 4 star/A tier characters, with different base probabilities.
These are both probability increases, and it's already explained in a transparent way that's it's not talking about the base probability (paraphrasing, "increased probability of obtaining [character] among A/S/4/5"). There a lot of things to criticize about the gacha system, but that's not one of them. We should focus on the real issues if we want to possibly solve them.
Doesn't mean I will play every gacha game that is remotely interesting only the absolute best as far as story and gameplay goes which I think some of MiHoYo has and recently Reverse 1999 seems to be one I am considering too. So all in all no skin off my back and I can safely play and not have any serious hang up of having lost real money and agonizing over it.
I feel people with gambling problems should set limits. These games can seriously compromise these folks rather innocuously draining away and chipping at them to finally consume them in a slow spiral to dissolution.
The underlying system is basically the same, which I think is what ZenJelly is talking about. There's a chance when you make a roll on the loot tables to get that specific BiS piece of gear that will make you stronger or give you a different set of abilities in any random MMO or RPG, for example, just like there's a chance when you roll for a character that will also make you stronger or give you a different set of abilities in a gacha game. The only difference is the money involved, or the possibility of using money to roll. That's what makes it gambling, not the system itself. What would be the difference if now an RPG would allow you to pay money in order to roll for gear more times than you already could without paying? None (and it would suck as much as gacha does: P2W, gambling, etc.).
Anyway, as I said earlier, I'm not going to defend the gacha system as it is today, since it can be gambling and cause serious issues for certain people. But it's not inherently bad, unless people with mental issues or kids with access to a credit card get involved. And that's the problem, that it leaves the door open for that to happen. My perfect change to this genre to potentially fix the problem would be charging for skins, and not being able to pull on the character banners for money. Maybe also keep the alternative subscription, since it's a limited purchase, but that would be all. Just like your regular RNG loot tables work in any game. After all, that's how I play them and I have zero issues enjoying them, but certain people need actual enforcing in order to play this way too.
So this will help people that don't want (can't do) to waste 5 minutes doing elementary school math.
Now I see why USA needs this.
The gameplay element of banners is playing the game's content to earn the tickets. Rolling on a banner is not only similar, but exactly like opening the chest after you beat the raid or dungeon boss, which then allows you to roll for loot. You aren't usually guaranteed to get the piece that you are after from the loot table (for example, you're after the chest piece but you get the pants instead), and the guild making a spreadsheet to distribute loot would be the equivalent of a pity system in the gacha games. Moreover, the process to get to that point is literally the same: play the game, complete content, and get your chance to roll. Does it matter if after that you're clicking on a chest or on a couple of buttons in the UI?
To use another example, do Warframe's relics count as lootboxes? They work the same way, but you don't pay to get or open them. A lootbox is, after all, just a regular chest with a loot table, with the only difference being that you need to pay to get and/or open it. That's the point, that the difference is not the mechanism involved (which we can like more or less the RNG nature of it, just like it happens with any kind of gameplay element), but the ability to repeatedly pay in order to be able to roll more times without actually playing. That ability doesn't necessarily change the core mechanics from those that we're used to, but it's something added on top of them that can alter how some players play around them.