The FTC orders the developer of Genshin Impact to ban youth from purchasing the game

Children and young adults will soon be unable to play Genshin Impact is part. The game developer has he agreed prohibiting players under the age of 16 from buying in-game without parental consent to resolve complaints from the Federal Trade Commission. It has also agreed to pay a $20 million penalty. Samuel Levine, director of the FTC’s Consumer Protection Bureau, said “Genshin Impact deceived children, teenagers, and other players into spending hundreds of dollars on prizes they had no chance of winning.”

The developer’s advertising is aimed at children, the agency said in its complaint, and the company also violated COPPA by collecting personal information from children under 13. HoYoverse, a US developer, allegedly misled players “about a chance to win” its rare box. . they reward and use a confusing financial system that is unfair to children and young people. The FTC says this misleads players about how much money they have to spend in order to get unlimited rewards. Genshin Impact they use a gacha system instead of a loot box type system, where players can “pull” on signs to win a random item or person.

Under the FTC’s plan, it wants to ban it Genshin Impact from selling loot boxes using real money unless it also offers the option to buy directly with real money. It wants to prevent the developer from misrepresenting the difficulty and methods of loot boxes, and wants the company to disclose the difficulty of gachas and real money changes. The agency would like to call on HoYoverse to delete personal information collected from children up to 13 years of age unless it is obtained with parental consent. The federal judge must approve the request and all of these requirements, however, so that it cannot be used immediately.