this post was submitted on 17 Oct 2025
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[โ€“] xpey@piefed.social 155 points 1 week ago

This is a huge win against predatory monetization

One more step towards removing shitty in-game currency with awful set bundles and conversion that forces you to spend more than you want to

[โ€“] warm@kbin.earth 116 points 1 week ago (7 children)

Virtual currency that you purchase with real money should have been banned a long, long time ago.

[โ€“] Ek-Hou-Van-Braai@piefed.social 21 points 1 week ago (21 children)

Should get rid of crypto while we're at it.

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[โ€“] FauxLiving@lemmy.world 12 points 1 week ago (2 children)

The biggest problem with virtual currency is that they intentionally price it so that you can't easily determine how much something is.

If they're charging $50 for 7500 coins and something costs 300 coins, how much are you spending? It's not easy to know without taking time to do the calculations.

Some games, Path of Exile for example, make it easy to know how much things are even using their currency. 100 points is $10, 200 points is $20... so it's very easy to figure out that a skin that costs 125 coins costs $1.25.

[โ€“] imecth@fedia.io 6 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Most people aren't buying their virtual currency 1:1 in the path of exile shop, they buy it through FOMO bundles which distorts its value just the same. For example right now you can buy into the early access, but here's the kicker at 30$ it also comes with 300 points, so what's the value of the early access or the points?

Path of exile has other positives aspects going for it, you can finish it without spending any money and it's not P2W, although there's a pay for convenience buy-in that costs about the same as a regular game. But its micro transactions and virtual currencies are as predatory as everyone else with overpriced items, rotating sales and gambling boxes.

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[โ€“] warm@kbin.earth 3 points 1 week ago

Might be in USD, but that probably doesn't translate to other currencies. Either way, they are using it to circumvent laws, refunds etc. They will still be pricing things so you have just under the amount you need, so you have to buy the next package up... then leaving you with too many coins than you needed, but still just short of another item. It's all predatory and needs to be abolished.

[โ€“] Korhaka@sopuli.xyz 4 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Generally agree but where does that leave us with the system that I think EVE started where can buy an in-game token for ยฃ15, redeem it for a month subscription or trade them with other players.

[โ€“] warm@kbin.earth 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I'm sure they could draft something that allows that sort of thing still. The currency in games like EVE/WoW/RuneScape is technically an in-game item rather than a currency for a storefront.

If that sort of thing would end up being abused, then it'd have to go obviously.

[โ€“] Korhaka@sopuli.xyz 2 points 1 week ago (2 children)

That is the problem I can see though, allowing one allows pushing it too. Games start to sell a shitload of cash shop things with the same method, EVE seems to be trying to do that too last time I played it.

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[โ€“] merdaverse@lemmy.zip 81 points 1 week ago (1 children)

It's funny that they would rather handle the EU case differently, rather than give in to the Brussels effect and just show prices everywhere. Just shows how much money this little scam is making them.

[โ€“] dax@feddit.org 6 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

I'm sure they have the statistics that tells them how many purchases aren't being completed once users start seeing the real price. It really puts things into context. 7,50โ‚ฌ for what looks like a lego skin?

[โ€“] sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 72 points 1 week ago (1 children)

From the American POV:

Clear and accurate pricing for digital transactions in a hypercapitalist system?

... believe it or not, 'socialism', straight to the antifa terrorist gulag for you.

Christ I hate living here.

[โ€“] pulsey@feddit.org 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)
[โ€“] sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

I'd love to, problem is I am crippled and broke.

[โ€“] craigers@lemmy.world 48 points 1 week ago (1 children)
[โ€“] petersr@lemmy.world 9 points 1 week ago

You are my world fam

[โ€“] rustydrd@sh.itjust.works 37 points 1 week ago

The what? OP, the what???? DON'T LEAVE ME HANGING LIKE THIS!!!!

[โ€“] abbadon420@sh.itjust.works 34 points 1 week ago

I don't really care about the shitshow that is ttye current state of gaming, but even I can see that this is a big win

[โ€“] Trainguyrom@reddthat.com 15 points 1 week ago

I remember back before I swore off games with microtransactions i was playing one and wanted to buy some in-game currency to support the developer, but it was one of those games with multiple in-game currencies where you buy currency A with real money or sometimes earn small amounts in-game, you buy currency B with currency A at a difficult to calculate exchange rate, and currency C is only purchased with currency B at another difficult to calculate exchange rate, so ultimately it was so heavily obfuscated how many dollars I needed to spend for the small goal I had that I gave up and decided maybe the developer wasn't worth supporting after all

[โ€“] carrylex@lemmy.world 5 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Sauce? (aka "can someone reference the EU regulation that did this")

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