Fortnite Makers Grilled By UK Politicians Over Game Safety (bbc.com) 132
The makers of Fortnite, one of the most popular video games ever, have been quizzed by member of parliaments in the UK over what measures are taken to protect players of the game. From a report: Epic Games representatives were asked how it ensured users did not spend too much time or money on the game. Legal counsel Canon Pence said this was not something the company currently tracked. This was "extraordinary", said Damian Collins, who chairs the Digital, Culture Media and Sport Committee. "You're the one who has responsibility," he said. The committee hearing was called to examine immersive and addictive technologies. Among the concerns raised by MPs were whether Epic Games did enough to verify the age of players or encourage users to take breaks after long periods of gameplay.
Should ask the gov (Score:5, Insightful)
how much they spend on keeping people from sitting at pubs getting wasted every day and loosing their time and money.
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But Pubs aren't an American tech company (the current American bogyman in Europe now), so....
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Kids aren't allowed in pubs. You are both morons.
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OK, smart guy... then what is your take on companies doing things that reduce revenues for no legal reason?
I say that because corporate officers have been sued and removed by shareholders if they intentionally reduce revenues.
In this case, the MP is asking if the gaming company intentionally requires that their customers NOT pay them as much money as possible.
Are you suggesting that this is a case where governments need to pass laws on playing time for everybody (not all players are minors)?
And, particularl
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Do you have a reading comprehension problem?
Sure there are LAWS that mandate that children cannot buy alcohol or tobacco, gamble in casinos, etc...
However, in the context of my ACTUAL question, "what is your take on companies doing things that reduce revenues for no legal reason"
There are no laws that mandate how much time a child can play video games.
When there is, THEN you can expect video game companies to comply in some way, until then you are just blowing hot air around
wanna try again?
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Of course they are.
Some pubs and most city centre bars ban children but every pub in my village (and indeed, every pub I've been to in the UK in the last decade) has allowed kids.
You are both morons.
No comment.
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Nobody is *forcing* anybody to play these games, anyhow. That's a personal decision, and if I want to sit in the privacy of my own home, with my own computer and internet connection and play this game, the GOVERNMENT CAN **FUCK OFF**.
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economic model: MK vs Fortnite (Score:3)
the economic model has changed between the experience of Jr and Sr.
back in the Mortal Kombat era, games were bought on cartridges. a single object that you buy once.
the point of the marketing department is to make you buy the box and not much more thinking goes beyond that.
it might be a game with a nice attractive box, but once you plug the game in you realize the game sucks - at that point they already have your money. (and seriously this did happen quite a lot. some current-day YouTube channels are specia
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how much they spend on keeping people from sitting at pubs getting wasted every day and loosing their time and money.
They should turn around and ask them, what they're doing about the police that are ignoring street crimes but arresting people for posts on social media. Then ask them, what they've done to deal with the police and city councils in various areas that allowed massive child exploitation; and when confronted their responses boiled down to "We didn't want to arrest them, because we were afraid of being labeled racist."
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Pubs are closing fast in the UK, the numbers in steep decline. The ones that remain do have a duty to look after the customers to some extent, e.g. cutting them off when they appear to be getting drunk. The days of the dingy boozer where working men lose all their money are largely over.
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The days of the dingy boozer where working men lose all their money
..never really existed. Working men raised families, often without income from their wives. Someone was paying for that, and it sure as fuck wasn't the Government.
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The government is actually doing a lot to keep KIDS from sitting at pubs getting wasted every day and loosing (sic) their time and money.
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how much they spend on keeping people from sitting at pubs getting wasted every day and loosing their time and money.
Not much, seeing as most people are at the pub tightening their time and money.
However this is closer to gambling, which the UK spends a fair bit on putting out public service announcements, reducing maximum bets on FOBTs, et al. However the critical difference is, if you go to a betting shop you need to demonstrate that you're 18, same as when you're buying liquor or tobacco. EPIC conducts no such checks with Fortnight.
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
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What the fuck is funny about this? The cunt can't fucking spell and is shallowly repeating a shit meme that entirely fucking misunderstands the UK, misrepresents the UK and was never even fucking funny to start with.
Stop being a cunt and stop moderating these imbeciles up.
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You mean before someone points out that parents should be parents?
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Would you ask an ice-cream shop that? (Score:5, Insightful)
Stern looking politician : "At your ice cream store, what measures do you take to ensure the fat customers are limited to a certain number of scoops, or that the vile money you collect each day does not exceed a specific threshold".
Bewildered Ice-Cream store owner: "We let them buy whatever they think they will enjoy and just hope we make enough money to live"
Stern looking politician : "HRUMP HRUMP HRUMPH Take them away constable!!"
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I'm terribly sorry, this discussion is about the UK.
Don't tarnish the US with the idiocy of British politicians (the US ones are more than adequate for that themselves).
Aha, knew it (Score:3)
Bars are required, most places are required to look after the general wellbeing of patrons.
Physical well-being only. They don't care if you ask for however many expensive bottles of Jack or Pappy. Also this was done long before laws existed on this point, as bartenders do look out for customers generally.
What are the requirements anyway? Or are you making that up (likely). The only law around that I am aware of opens up the potential for bartenders to be sued if they let someone get too drunk, not expli
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Casinos are required to do age checks and are illegal in many countries. Excellent comparison indeed.
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Actually... yes, casinos are one of very few industries with significant pressure (though I don't know actual laws on the subject) to ensure their customers engage responsibly. I know of one casino that 100% funded the local gambling-addiction help group, mostly anonymously (through a foundation).
In the casinos' case, though, it's mostly a matter of public image. They've traditionally been cast as evil, so it's in their best interest to reduce gambling addiction to reduce the much-larger stigma.
Tabacco and
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What I want to know is the extent to which the UK Gov thinks that the business in question should spy on their customers...
After all, you can't really tell if someone is spending too much unless you have info on their bank balance and income.
And you won't know if they're playing too much unless you know exactly who is sitting at the keyboard at any particular moment. So they'd probably need to control the user's camera so that they
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Are casinos required to limit the amount of time and money people spend gambling there?
In some areas, the answer is actually "yes" if they have been diagnosed with a gambling problem. They're supposed to be blacklisted, and guests checked against the list and blacklisted along with the cheaters and such.
Alternatively, in many areas bars are also legally barred from serving alcohol to obviously drunk people. The level of inebriation required varies by location. In a different, sometimes overlapping areas, they're required to collect vehicle keys for people who are drinking.
Then you have the
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It's possible to believe in personal responsibility while also recognising that many individuals are ill equipped to exercise it and require assistance to maintain a healthy and enjoyable life.
Understanding who those individuals are and finding an appropriate balance between personal freedoms and protecting the vulnerable is a challenging debate that you might wish to join. Pretending that either extreme in that debate is appropriate would be a curious position.
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Are casinos required to limit the amount of time and money people spend gambling there?
Why, yes. Yes they are.
In the UK gambling establishments are expected to limit the customer's losses to what they can afford, and take steps to not allow them to get into massive debt. They pay into funds used to provide help to people with gambling addiction, and they are supposed to look out for dangerous behaviour like buying chips on credit card instead of with cash (i.e. going into debt to keep gambling).
For video games there is a legal obligation to take "reasonable" steps to protect the players. Sinc
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Lots of games now have a little popup every hour that says "you've been playing N Hours, maybe you should take a break". 10 minutes to code and it makes the nannies happy.
And there's a huge customer advocacy push going on right now over loot boxes and in-game shops in general. I have no sympathy for adults who spend too much, but adults who let their kid play the game might want a way to limit what the kid can spend. That's also pretty trivial to implement, and protects you from lawmakers.
Given that loot
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I bet if you tried, the shop would cut you off and throw you out. Certainly when you started puking all over the place.
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In this case, it's usually the amount of money the customer wants to spend. Not everyone can spend $10 a day on ice cream (which only buys you 4-5 scoops or a sundae and something else) so it really a self-limiting problem.
Fortnite isn't like that - it's a free to play game, so the devs really are encouraged to ensure people spend more time in the game (where more time hopefully they will
That's funny (Score:4, Insightful)
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He caveated
without some legal process to mandate and enforce it.
You replied
That's a built-in limitation on max profitability, by law. Boom, checkmate/headshot. You are dead.
May I please suggest you take care to avoid any personal contact with firearms, as the likely outcome appears to be inadvertent suicide.
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We do it, and often. Some of our customers have a bad habit of using some of our services in the wrong way, which can be expensive (for them). An analogy would be if you offered a backup system where customers pay per GB, and they accidentally choose to backup directories that don't need backing up. When we notice their costs racking up, we call them up and try to help them more efficiently use our services.
Of course, we are playing the long game, which you could argue is just maximizing long-term profita
No, it's not funny (Score:2)
Pretty much all highly addictive businesses have statutory responsibility to their customers that limit profitability. Bars cannot serve drunk people. Cigarette companies must pay for smoking cessation programs. Casinos have limitations in location and in some areas, have to blacklist problem gamblers. In addition, bars , casinos and cigarette vendors all refuse to serve anyone under 18. Opiod manufacturers are responsible to make
Says Who? (Score:4, Insightful)
Epic Games representatives were asked how it ensured users did not spend too much time or money on the game. Legal counsel Canon Pence said this was not something the company currently tracked. This was "extraordinary", said Damian Collins, who chairs the Digital, Culture Media and Sport Committee. "You're the one who has responsibility," he said.
Ever heard of parents?
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To the right honorable idiot Damian Collins: companies are not responsible for this stuff until you make them responsible. If you want to regulate games in thi
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Epic Games representatives were asked how it ensured users did not spend too much time or money on the game. Legal counsel Canon Pence said this was not something the company currently tracked. This was "extraordinary", said Damian Collins, who chairs the Digital, Culture Media and Sport Committee. "You're the one who has responsibility," he said.
Ever heard of parents?
And what is obvious is that you've never been one... or even had the erm... opportunity to become one.
You cannot monitor a teen 24/7 to ensure they don't accidentally see or do anything harmful... In fact being able to do so is a terrible idea. Teens need latitude to make mistakes in order to become functional adults. A helecopter parent who tries to prevent their precious little gem from making any errors only produces someone who cannot function as an adult on their own. A good parent raises their chil
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PARENTS ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR KNOWING WHAT THEIR CHILDREN DO. It is not my responsibility to stop your child from playing my game for too long or spending too much money on it, IT IS YOUR RESPONSIBILITY AS A PARENT.
It would seem to me that the inbred shit-for-brains would be you and all the fucking politicians that want to force the responsibility of parenting on anyone other than yourselves. How about you DO YOUR FUCKING PARENTAL DUTY, you STUPID FUCKS?!! WE AREN'T RESPONSIBLE FOR RAISING YOUR CHILDREN.
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Whether or not that applies in this case is open to discussion. My point is simply that there are cases w
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That's a poor analogy. Is BBC addictive and do kids demonstrably lock themselves in a room and watch BBC for days on end and not eat.
The problem with the analogy is that your same analogy could justify selling tobacco to children. After all, the candy store doesn't have to ID kids so why should the tobacco store?
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What does the BBC do to ensure that people do not spend too much time watching it or reading the website?
Exhibit a level of political bias, proselytising and general preaching that people give up and go for a walk instead.
The purpose of government... (Score:1)
... is not to protect people from themselves, it is to protect people from the violent or fraudulant actions of others, through a police force, armed forces, and the courts.
The government of a free and democratic people should not be sticking the government's nose in where it does not belong.
Now how about you stop with this nonsense and and get on with delivering Brexit?
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Nah, they actually have an enforceable case here, even on your grounds. They're targeting the company that makes the *product*, not the users of the product. That fits with "protecting people from the actions of others". They can push this through just as regulations on the products themselves, not restrictions on individuals.
Preposterous, arbitrary, capriocious (Score:2)
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Really? You could very well be too young to remember D&D being labelled as an addictive gateway to satanism, but surely you were around when Korean kids were dying in cyber cafes playing Starcraft?
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the implication their game is so fun is must be addictive and should be banned
Is that the implication? Or is the implication that the game design explicitly includes elements intended to make it more addictive, encourage further play - whether directly enjoyable or not - and elicit financial outlay from the players.
That's certainly how many mobile games are designed, it wouldn't surprise me at all to find that Fortnite had elements of this.
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Oh you sweet summer child.
Lets say you're operating at the most basic level, tracking only the key metrics - e.g. https://gameanalytics.com/blog... [gameanalytics.com]
How do you improve those metrics? Not by crossing your fingers, throwing a coin into a well and rubbing a lamp.
https://cacm.acm.org/magazines... [acm.org]
https://www.maketecheasier.com... [maketecheasier.com]
https://www.cracked.com/articl... [cracked.com]
Not that this is exactly new.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry... [huffpost.com]
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I've got no idea whether or how it's different to TF2, except that Fortnite has a level of scale and popularity amongst children that TF2 never achieved.
MTG and other collectable card games (and even the sticker collections of days past - I recall school friends spending all their pocket money on football stickers) have always been a little predatory but I guess it's easier for parents to observe and intervene. Substantively I'm not sure what would legally differentiate them from loot box mechanics in a gam
News Flash: Grandstand Against Video Games (Score:2)
Show up, let them yell at you, walk away.
PARENTS hold all the responsibility here. Everyone knows it. But politicians need voters, so they will listen to some bickering and grandstand a bit to lock in some votes.
So it goes.
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The thing is, parents vote, and they'll probably vote for regulations that enforce parental controls on these games.
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Parents vote, but so do gamers. 47 percent of gamers are between 18 and 49 years old. (https://www.polygon.com/2016/4/29/11539102/gaming-stats-2016-esa-essential-facts).
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International games in the UK will have to be played using a VPN.
A nice system of networks to Ireland, France to keep the ping low.
With the GCHQ looking into every use of a VPN account.
The UK production and sale of games will be controlled by the gov.
A good VPN now is like a what a trip to Continental Europe was in the 1950-80's
The more a UK gov says no to computer games, the more people find Happiness in a French/Irish VPN.
LOL (Score:2)
"You're the one who has responsibility"
Uh, maybe I'm crazy, but the end user or their parents have responsibility...
Parents are lazy (Score:2)
Who paid for the hardware the child is playing this game on ?
Who pays for the internet connection required for the game to be played on ?
Who pays for the electricity to power the above for said game to be played on ?
This list goes on and on, but in no instance is a CHILD paying for any of this.
The parents happily allow it because video games make great digital baby sitters.
I don't blame the game designers for children's addictions any more than I blame alcohol for drunk driving.
The fix is dead simple, the p
Maybe the biggest issue, here, for Epic (Score:2)
Is data protection. They have a different set of obligations to children under EU and UK regulations than they do to adults and in not identifying which is which on their platform they are entering a fairly interesting situation regarding their legal responsibilities. Given that they clearly make no efforts to verify the age of players (as stated by Pence in the hearing) they are most definitely in breach of EU data regulations.
Of course, whether or not the UK can do anything to inspire the EU to take act
Absolutely not (Score:2)
"Epic Games representatives were asked how it ensured users did not spend too much time or money"
They didn't. Their duty is to the shareholders' money and making the clients' money theirs.
No company would ever think about introducing methods and procedures to avoid taking their clients' money.
Even barkeepers have problems with that.
But hey, these are the people who want to leave the EU and can't figure out how.
Insanity (Score:1)
Epic Games representatives were asked how it ensured users did not spend too much time or money on the game.
"Well, since a minor's parents or legal guardian are the ones responsible for what that minor does and what they may spend, on what, and when/how often,, do you propose children become legal wards of Epic Games after they click "Play"? Who exactly are legally responsible for minors? Aren't they the ones you should be addressing instead of some foreign game company that isn't even under the legal jurisdiction of your government?"
If I were in charge of Epic, I'd be tempted to tell them "Fine, if you're worrie
most consoles and even pc's (Score:2)
on most consoles and pc's these days you can track the amount of time you played and you can set limits on it.
it's a function build into the system, people who want it, can use it.
WTF (Score:2)
It's not their job to tell peole to take a break or not spend money. God-damn nanny state fascists
Their responsibility? (Score:2)
Why is it the responsibility of the company to police it's customer's playing habits. For all the company knows, the player is a home bound billionaire whose only outlet is computer games and Fortnite is his favorite game.
If the government wants something policed then the government should pass some laws and hire a force to police it. It shouldn't be telling companies they are responsible for what their customers' behavior