A European consumer advocacy group has published an open letter to the European Union Commission expressing concerns about video games that use in-game premium currencies that can be purchased with real money, such as Minecoins in Minecraft's Bedrock Edition.
The group in question is the Bureau Européen des Unions de Consommateurs, or BEUC, which represents 44 non-governmental consumer organizations from 31 countries and has been around since 1962. They accuse the publishers of Fortnite, EA Sports FC 24, Minecraft, Clash of Clans and others of misleading people—especially children—with in-game premium currencies and violating European Union consumer protection laws. In a press site summarizing the results of several lengthy studies, they offer the following common complaints about the practice.
Consumers are blind to the true cost of digital goods, leading to overspending: The lack of price transparency for premium in-game currencies and the need to purchase extra currencies in bundles are pushing consumers to spend more.
The companies' claims that players prefer in-game premium currencies are false.
Consumers are often disenfranchised when using premium in-game currencies due to unfair terms that favor game developers.
Children are even more vulnerable to these manipulative tactics. Data shows that children in Europe spend an average of €39 per month on in-game purchases. While they are among the most likely to play, they have limited financial literacy and can be easily influenced by virtual currencies.
Drawing on European Parliament surveys, Statistia and Steam data, BEUC notes that “more than half of EU consumers play video games regularly,” 84% of whom are aged 11-14, and that “in-game purchases generate more than $50 billion (around €46 billion) globally, representing around a quarter of revenues in the video game market.” They add that 21 of the 50 most-played games across console, PC and mobile in 2023 feature in-game premium currencies, and eight of those 21 games have an age rating of 12 or under.
BEUC makes a series of recommendations in its 35-page statement of investigations and complaints, which I have shortened and rephrased for easier digestion:
– The EU should consider banning the use of premium currencies in games and apps, pending the results of the Digital Fairness Fitness Check, an ongoing review of existing EU consumer law. Or at the very least, the EU should ban their sale to minors.
– The EU should amend consumer law to introduce stricter transparency requirements. In particular, the value of an in-game currency in real money should be “clearly displayed to consumers before each transaction with premium in-game or in-app currencies, for example using the same font and size”
– If in-game and in-app premium currencies are not banned, the EU Commission should conduct a study to determine which way of displaying them is most “effective” for consumers, especially children.
– EU Consumer Law should be changed to require publishers to disable in-game payment mechanisms by default and make them “optional”
– People should be notified and asked to verify every in-game transaction and be required to set a password to stop unwanted transactions.
– Games should have the strictest privacy settings enabled “by default” so people can play “without having their economic behavior algorithmically influenced.”
– The European Commission should clarify in law that consumers have the same rights to make in-game transactions using in-game premium currencies as they do for purchases made with real money.
– In particular, the Commission should amend the Annex to the Unfair Contractual Terms (UCTD) Directive to state that refusals of refund requests for in-game and in-app premium currencies are “probably unfair”.
– People should be able to decide exactly how much premium in-game currency they want to buy, instead of buying fixed packages decided by the publisher
– EU consumer law should “require the separation” of in-game premium currencies and in-game earned currencies so that “consumers fully understand how much they are spending in-game”
– Existing consumer laws should be applied more consistently in relation to in-game purchases, and enforcement groups across different sectors, such as data protection or financial services, should cooperate more.
– Investigating authorities should use the “vulnerable consumer” benchmark set out in the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive (UCPD) with increased professional care, as most of those exposed to in-app purchases are children under the age of 16.
My brief take: While I don’t necessarily believe in the Theresa Lovejoy-esque moral panic that has shaped some of BEUC’s statements, I do agree that in-game premium currency systems are fundamentally misleading and need to be properly regulated. Many of the arguments above have been presented by other groups and authorities in the past, and it’s not hard to find individual examples of publishers doing brazen things with premium currencies.
Based on my previous experience in consumer group advocacy, I doubt that many of BEUC’s recommendations will be implemented, but they are an opportunity for discussion, and the more we talk about these issues, the less we will buy into them.