Genshin Impact Will Soon Require Age Verification in the United States

This appears to be a direct consequence of a recent settlement with the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which had charged HoYoverse with deceiving minors into spending for their loot boxes. The Chinese developer was subsequently banned from selling them to users under 16 without a parent's express consent, paid a $20 million fine to the FTC, and was also subject to the following stipulations:
Prohibited from selling loot boxes using virtual currency without providing an option for consumers to purchase them directly with real money;
Prohibited from misrepresenting loot box odds, prices and features;
Required to disclose loot box odds and exchange rates for multi-tiered virtual currency;
Required to delete any personal information previously collected from children under 13 unless they obtain parental consent to retain such data; and
Required to comply with COPPA, including its notice and consent requirements.
@Die4Ever@retrolemmy.com @JoMiran@lemmy.ml
- The why is rarely argued. The how is always the point of contention. That's why I am wondering what they are asking for age verification.
  
  I don't understand what you mean. They're clearly requesting ages over 13 and disabling purchases for those under 16.
- Rare US W ?
- But the adults, they weren't deceived in any way. Hoyo scammed them fair and square.
  Ban the entire business model.
  
  No laws against that (lootboxing), yet, and I doubt EA doesn't have their lobbyists against such laws if enacted. It's also something that has existed so long as to become a cornerstone of mobile gaming... well, a cornerstone outside of the stupid Voodoo dot-io kind, anyways. While extremely unethical IMO I wouldn't call it any more deceptive than any regular casino, that is.
- I don't understand. For spending money one requires banking/card information. How children will get their guardian's banking details without their consent?
  
  Have you paid for things on mobile in-app? The operating system stores your info behind a password (or biometric) because adults (non-gambling as well) also hate having to memorize 16 digits flawlessly every time they needed to make payments.

What are they requesting for age verification?

TDLR: "If you don't give us PII information within a made up deadline, we will deny you access to any content you paid in the past."
- A settlement with the FTC is not some "made up deadline" Hoyo can change.
  
  TBF the FTC is currently the least legitimate it has ever been as an organization
- Blame the US for declaring that US minors are too stupid and US parents too neglectful to pay attention to what is purchased online.
  They have to kick off kids from their game, legally, and nearly all mobile and online games that have any way to spend real money will be doing the same within the next year.

Largest simp/grindwage DB ever

Force government ID and I'm out. Max I'm giving you is DOB.
... And I don't even play anymore
- DOB, yes.....Fake, but yes.
  
  I'm old enough for any DOB check, yet I still lie.

Ha. I hope it kills it.

Deleting friends lists seems pretty extreme for being late to verify your age? What age are they requiring? 18?

Yeah because they intentionally sexualise their extremely youthful characters
... And promote gambling.
- wait how exactly are the kids sexualized? i know there's like one or two, but are they actually sexualized canonically?
  
  erm aktually they're 2000 years old
  
  IMO minimal clothing on a <18 y/o person with slitted clothing is enough to me to be considered sexualized

Killing off your largest player base. Smooth.
- People say that, but kids under 16 probably aren't the majority of people spending thousands in gachas. They usually don't have money, save for the ones who steal their parents's credit card.
  
  No, but kids under 16 are hooked into the content drip on their favorite social media. This significantly impacts the drip, a big part of online gaming is sharing what you have or have done through YouTube, TikTok, etc.
  Everybody wants to be a content creator. Nobody wants to be a content creator in default skins.

people under 18 will just jerk off to the girls instead of spending money on the game

Dang there is a lot of hate for this game here, like it's definitely not the best game ever but it is one of the most compelling mobile experiences out there, with a decent story that has some great moments, and it can absolutely be played completely for free without missing out on much. The only thing spending money is good for is specific characters and weapons, none of which are required, and you can absolutely save up from playing for free and get almost any of those characters/weapons without spending a dime.
It's not for everyone but I feel like this game gets a lot of hate simply for the Chinese origin, cartoony style, and microtransactions without any actual knowledge of what it's like to play it.
- The only thing spending money is good for is specific characters and weapons, none of which are required, and you can absolutely save up from playing for free and get almost any of those characters/weapons without spending a dime.
  This is dramatically underselling the gacha loop. There is absolutely a ceiling for F2P content, where grinding to progress becomes unbelievably time consuming.
  It's deep in the game, I'll grant that, but that's the point - like every mobile game, you're meant to get completely hooked on the progression loop with fast early rewards, then each loop drags longer and longer and longer until you either have to abandon the game entirely or start P2W.
  It's not that hard to get characters and items, but the FOMO system is ridiculous. Just invested all the grinded resources you had to mercy pull a character you've had your eyes on? Guess what, the next patch just launched an even better character, or the next banner brought back a 5* that is so meta for your team comp that getting that character will exponentially increase your damage output.
  Now you have a limited amount of time to grind all that shit again, or let the banner pass and wait for that massive improvement to your team comp to be available some months/years into the undefined future.
  And actually upgrading those items and characters to be useful in late game content?
  Time to fork over $$, or at least dozens of hours grinding out dungeons that you can only play on certain days and with a limited number of the same daily grind resources that are required for every different type of progression from level ups to ascensions to gold to skill upgrades... the same materials that you can also buy. And each time you progress to the next "level", the cost (and time needed to pay it) increases exponentially.
  Basically, the "good" parts of Genshin are specifically (and very effectively) designed to increasingly consume your time or your money. There is nothing "good" about it because it's all just a massive investment in stealing away your life or your life savings.
  They didn't make all that awesome content for you to have fun - they made it so that you don't notice when your brain starts telling you "I've put hundreds of hours into this game, $5 is totally worth all that time... just $20 and maybe I'll get that character or skip the next 30 hours of grinding... if I spend $100 I'll get all the stuff I want at a discount, and then I won't have to grind for awhile... except I still need to keep progressing and now that I've skipped ahead by investing money, the gacha loop is even more punishing now, but I'm locked in an ever spiralling sunk cost fallacy now"
  And yeah, don't even get me started on the sexualization. What the actual fuck.
  
  So basically your argument is, if you don't like the gameplay loop, they force you to pay? I'm not arguing that there are idiots out there who will spend their life savings on digital crop, but you are dramatically OVERselling the difficulty of upgrade requirements. Sure if you wanna play 8 hours a day you're eventually gonna have to spend money, but. If you play for an hour or so each day, hit the events that are worth the time, do some daily/weekly dungeons as they are available, a little exploration and a little questing, and have any sense of "progress takes time", the actual gameplay is fun enough to carry without spending money. If it isn't, for you or someone else, then just don't play?
  Also, oversexualization of minors is a term that gets thrown around a LOT with this game and I just don't see it, basically ever. The few characters that are actual children are dressed conservatively, act like children, are treated like children by other characters, there's never inappropriate commentary about them... if you wanna offense to the anime-style art that makes everyone, including adults, cartoonist, that's your opinion. It's weird that a lot of people act like it's a pervasive issue when it really doesn't exist at all in the game.
- When it comes to gacha games or even just Asian developed games in general, Lemmy is equally as bad as Twitter, maybe even worse. Not only in hostility, but also in making comments on things that are just outright wrong or completely ignorant because they don't play the game and literally never will.
  I don't play Genshin anymore (stopped playing around the time of the "Rosaria Nerf Incident" because I wanted to play other games), but when I did play it, it was pretty fun. The gacha did not feel forced, I never spent a dime on the game and never felt like I needed to. The community was fine when you ignored the Twitter people.
- What the fuck are you talking about. This is an insane take.