Business

Epic Games Paying $520 Million to Settle FTC Charges on Fortnite

Published

1 year ago

December 20, 2022

Anthony DiMoro

Epic Games will pay $520 million to settle charges from the United States Federal Trade Commission, aka the FTC, over it’s popular title Fortnite, according to an official announcement issued by the FTC.

Per the announcement, Epic Games will pay $275 million for violating the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) and another $245 million for design relying on dark patterns “to dupe millions of players into making unintentional purchases”.

Some of the privacy violations included collecting personal information from children under 13 without parental consent or notification, as well as enabling voice and text chat for children and teens by default.

The FTC stated that employees at Epic Games had pushed for the company to make voice and text chat an opt-in feature as early as 2017, however Epic Games slowed on making changes despite reports of online harassment and sexual harassment towards children while playing Fortnite.

FTC also added that when Epic Games did add a button to turn off voice chat, they made it hard to find for users.

Additionally, the FTC (dark patterns complaint) referenced “counterintuitive, inconsistent, and confusing button configuration” and single-button purchases that meant users could accidentally buy something when trying to wake the game from sleep mode or while on a loading screen. Epic Games also put the button to preview an item in Fortnite adjacent to the purchase button, and Fortnite allowed children to purchase the V-Bucks virtual currency without parental consent or card holder action until 2018, and it locked the accounts of users who disputed unauthorized charges through their credit card companies. resulting in accidental purchases.

The FTC also determined that Epic Games ignored millions of user complaints about the wrongful charges and then used internal testing that made the cancel and refund features far more difficult for users to locate.

Epic Games said it would be “moving beyond long-standing industry practices.”

“No developer creates a game with the intention of ending up here,” the company said in an official statement. “The video game industry is a place of fast-moving innovation, where player expectations are high and new ideas are paramount. Statutes written decades ago don’t specify how gaming ecosystems should operate. The laws have not changed, but their application has evolved and long-standing industry practices are no longer enough. We accepted this agreement because we want Epic to be at the forefront of consumer protection and provide the best experience for our players.

“Over the past few years, we’ve been making changes to ensure our ecosystem meets the expectations of our players and regulators, which we hope will be a helpful guide for others in our industry.”

Business

Patreon Hires Twitch’s Adiya Taylor as New Corporate Communications Lead

Published

1 month ago

March 16, 2024

Anthony DiMoro

Content creation platform Patreon has officially tabbed Adiya Taylor as their new corporate communications lead, effective in February, according to an official announcement.

Taylor worked for Amazon’s video game streaming platform Twitch for three years in a variety of roles, most recently serving as the company’s senior monetization communications manager prior to her departure.

Taylor’s hiring comes after Patreon brought on Brielle Villablanca as Vice President of communications and creator advocacy back in November 2023.

“I’m thrilled to begin crafting and implementing a communications strategy around policy, trust and safety, product and more,” Taylor said during an official post on the networking platform LinkedIn, adding that she believes Patreon is a “true advocate” for creators.

“I’m looking forward to more storytelling around how we’re fostering fandom so that creators own long-lasting businesses built around their artistry,” Taylor added.

Business

Microsoft Bringing Four Games to Rival Consoles

Published

2 months ago

February 15, 2024

Anthony DiMoro

Microsoft has responded to recent reports that there will be changes to it’s first-party strategy and has confirmed that four game titles will be released on rival consoles.

More specifically, Xbox head Phil Spencer said that ‘Starfield’ and ‘Indiana Jones’ will not be among the four titles heading to other platforms. Both games had a number of candidate platforms, per reports, adding that this is “not a change to our fundamental exclusive strategy.”

“We don’t damage Xbox and we can grow our business using what other platforms have to help us with that,” Spencer said, according to GamesIndustry.biz. “Looking forward, I think there is an interesting story for us of introducing Xbox franchises to players on other platforms to get them more interested in Xbox. We think there’s a good brand value for Xbox there.”

Xbox president Sarah Bond announced that Activision Blizzard games would begin to be added into Game Pass offerings, starting with Diablo 4, which will be added on March 28th.

Additionally, Bond said that Microsoft is still working on hardware for the future and that their focus regarding the future is “delivering the largest technical leap you will ever have seen in a hardware generation.”

Business

Sega’s Revenue See Rise to $27 Billion

Published

3 months ago

February 9, 2024

Anthony DiMoro

Sega Sammy has released its financial report for the nine-month period that officially concluded on December 31st, 2023, and that report that demonstrated a rise in overall sales and profit despite a decrease in sales for Sega’s new titles.

That decline was offset by growth in pachislot and pachinko machines, however Sega had lowered its sales forecasts for the full financial year.

Here is a breakdown, courtesy of GamesIndustry.biz.

Net sales: ¥349.9 billion ($2.3 billion, up 28.7% year-on-year)
Operating income: ¥54.4 billion ($364 million, up 42.4% year-on-year)
Ordinary income: ¥57.2 billion ($383 million, up 42.7% year-on-year)
Net sales were up 130.3% to ¥120.2 billion ($805 million) in this segment
Ordinary income increased by 521.3% at ¥45.7 billion ($306 million).
Entertainment Contents segment, which includes video games, net sales were up 4.2% at ¥219.3 billion
Profit decreased by 52.5% to ¥19.7 billion ($131.8 million) as a result of weak game sales

You can read a breakdown of the entire report at GamesIndustry.biz here.