
Dad horrified at £4,642 gaming app bill - pmoriarty
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-53272411
======
kevin_b_er
> But he says he's amazed that in a game designed to be played by children it
> would even be possible to spend thousands of pounds across a thousand
> transactions over the course of just a few weeks.

These games are designed around this. The dark patterns are intentional.

> "We encourage parents to review their payment settings on third-party
> services, such as Google Play, as they typically have an option to require a
> password for each purchase made and/or to prevent any information from being
> saved in browser settings that could allow them to be reused."

Then you blame the parents for being scammed.

~~~
balladeer
A friend, who worked at a famous mobile/Fb gaming company, once told me his
company would, sometimes, assign an engineer for an individual user or just
few users. High spending users.

~~~
lapsed_pacifist
"whales" is the free-to-p(l)ay/ freemium games industry term for this sort of
power user, who will spend vastly more than the average user and carries the
lions share of the profit for the developer.

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michaelmrose
Maybe require all apps to have a built in spending limit and an affirmative
act per app to raise it with a mandatory password prompt and click on an
emailed link to verify.

Make it up to $50 one time or greater than $100 in one calendar month. Given
how people actually spend 99% of people will never see such a prompt and
virtually everyone that hits it will be one of these people who is being
scammed out of their money inadvertently by their kids.

While we are at it we could simply ban all games designed to appeal to the
scratch ticket mentality and nothing of value will have been lost.

~~~
CaptainZapp
While that's a good idea it will never happen, since it's diametral to the
interest of the app stores, which is to make as much money as possible.

Of course, if the abuse gets too bad there will be regulatory backlash.

~~~
apsanz
Which of course is the same reason why android and ios will never show you
data on how often you use your phone and allow you to send less time on your
phone...

They don't want kids sending thousands of dollars. It is bad PR for pocket
change for them. They already have options in the OS to prevent this. They
just need to change the defaults and a few additional features.

~~~
occamschainsaw
Both iOS(Screen Time)[1] and Android(Digital Wellbeing)[2] show how much you
use your phone and let you set limits for smartphone usage. 1\.
[https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208982](https://support.apple.com/en-
us/HT208982) 2\. [https://wellbeing.google/](https://wellbeing.google/)

~~~
michaelmrose
Is a reasonable spending limit set by default?

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1MachineElf
Being a long time Elder Scrolls fan, I was disappointed yesterday upon trying
out Elder Scrolls Online for the first time. The constant stream of reminders
and up-front placement of things to spend money on is extremely immersion-
breaking. I'm going to put more hours into it just to see if there really is a
hidden kernel of fun in there, but so far it hasn't done anything to hide the
fact that it's a brazen cash-grab wearing TES clothing. I really don't mind
paying for quality games and DLCs, but in ESO, doing anything except for
failing basically requires sending a stream of cash to Zenimax. :/

~~~
BearOso
There won’t be any fun hidden in there. Once a game developer passes the
barrier of accepting cash for progress it won’t be balanced in any way that
makes it fun to play.

~~~
JackMorgan
Not always, due to shutdown I revived my old WoW account, and the latest
content is far more engaging for me than the original content. But that's a
game you're already expected to pay monthly.

------
runawaybottle
How can a game developer ethically justify a $4500 price tag for a game?

Yes, we can put in limits on spending, but let’s say we didn’t, does that mean
a game could be worth that much money? Ever?

~~~
econcon
No one putting gun to their head to cough up $4500. They are paying because of
their own weakness or maybe because of market forces as they can't get their
fix elsewhere.

I can easily justify it ethically as "it's what my offering is valued by
market". All my engineering education skills have not gone waste, those
sleepless nights, missed dates - all paid off finally!

 _Revs up Lamborghini bought on installment paid with $4500 check_

~~~
benologist
They are paying because app stores are allowing "authorize one payment" to
mean "unlimited transactions are authorized". This is fraud, which is why
Apple had to settle a class action for the exact same problem. Relying on a
password, pin or parental control to prevent unauthorized purchases is
irrelevant since in their absence, fraud is still illegal.

[https://www.macworld.com/article/2029384/apple-to-settle-
law...](https://www.macworld.com/article/2029384/apple-to-settle-lawsuit-on-
in-app-purchases-by-minors.html)

~~~
adrianmonk
I think there are basically four categories of big spenders:

(1) People who don't understand that they are spending actual money. Kids can
fall into this category. Also people who are confused by an intentionally
obfuscated user interface.

(2) People who are spending someone else's money, so they don't care. Kids can
also fall into this category. (And when they do they may pretend they are in
category 1.)

(3) People who can't afford it but have some kind of compulsive shopping
disorder, addiction to the game or spending, etc. (People in this category
might pretend they are category 1, i.e. request a refund and blame it on
children who might even be fictional.)

(4) People rich enough that they will feel no ill effect from dropping $1,000+
on something of little value.

Whales are, at least theoretically, presumed to be category 4. There really
isn't too much of an ethical problem IMHO with category 4.

The real ethical problem comes from the fact that you don't truly know which
category the user is in.

Anyway, I think you are talking about category 1 and the person you replied to
is talking about category 4.

~~~
benologist
If #4 actually existed platforms and developers would put real prices in the
games instead of obfuscate the transactions and currencies. This would make
them the same as every online and brick-and-mortar shop, where children and
adults alike are not inadvertently spending thousands of dollars stemming from
a single small purchase but may do so with explicit consent.

There are definitely millions of #1 though, we know this because Apple,
Facebook, Amazon and Google have all been sued for the sheer volume of #1s
they allowed/enabled to be defrauded.

[https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-
releases/2014/09/googl...](https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-
releases/2014/09/google-refund-consumers-least-19-million-settle-ftc-
complaint-it)

[https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-
releases/2014/01/apple...](https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-
releases/2014/01/apple-inc-will-provide-full-consumer-refunds-
least-325-million)

[https://www.reuters.com/article/us-facebook-classaction-
idUS...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-facebook-classaction-
idUSKBN0M724720150311)

[https://www.ftcadlaw.com/ftc-scores-big-win-against-
amazon-i...](https://www.ftcadlaw.com/ftc-scores-big-win-against-amazon-in-
kids-apps-unfairness-case/)

------
econcon
Dad can provide a minor credit card/debit card, they are very popular these
days with spend limit. Many platforms allow you to set spend limit.

It's also possible to turn on a heater and forget to turn it off by a minor
and accure mega electricity bill and same is true if your data is being
charged per unit data consumed by your internet provider. In none of those
cases, refund would be provided.

~~~
_pmf_
> It's also possible to turn on a heater and forget to turn it off by a minor
> and accure mega electricity bill

A heater has not been psychologically engineered to incite minors to turn it
on.

~~~
lopmotr
Enticing makes you happy, inciting makes you angry. Both persuade you do to
something.

------
notwhereyouare
It’s not the app stores fault, but I think the App Store could start throwing
up notifications if you go from spending 0 to 500 in a small period of time.

That is crazy how the girl managed to spend THAT much in a period of a month.

~~~
libertine
>That is crazy how the girl managed to spend THAT much in a period of a month.

If you think about it, it's not that hard if she keeps getting queues to spend
more without any track of how much she spent.

Hell when I was a kid and internet was paid by the hour, we got a lot of
months with spending out of control and big bills for our standards, because
you lose track of time/spend.

I bet the game doesn't tell "You've spent X so far!".

Such apps are designed precisely for that.

Hopefully some EU country will label such behaviors as gaming addiction, and
make stores have triggers to control such behavior.

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deeblering4
Do the app developers or store have any legal ground to stand on when charges
are being made by an unauthorized minor?

~~~
gizmo686
That no damage was done since they refunded the charges (or rather, that they
have already granted the relief that would be sought in a hypothetical lawsuit
case).

They can do that do this because it doesn't actually cost them anything to
provide the digital "goods" that are being purchased; and not every parent
notices. Their defense in the cases where the parent doesn't notice is that
the plaintiff must be be aware they were wronged in order to file suit.

