Comic for Friday 5/20 (Early High Res)
So Blizzard is getting sued again (seems to be their new hobby), this time by a father who is upset that his child bought a bunch of Hearthstone card packs and can't refund them after getting garbage.
Polygon reported on it here, but the gist is this: Dad gives his daughter access to a device connected to his credit card, and over the course of three years, she buys $300 worth of Hearthstone booster packs. He eventually wises up, and upon realizing that a) she didn't get any good cards and b) can't refund the purchases, decides to sue Blizzard because they didn't properly educate his child on the shittiness of random-draw card packs.
There's a lot of angles to this thing. I am a parent, and I know as well as anyone, being a parent is hard. Especially in this day and age. There are so many things you have to watch out for, dangers you have to be aware of and educate your kids on... it isn't easy. I try my best not to be too critical of other people's parenting; we all have our own approaches, and we all make mistakes.
I can understand not realizing that you connected your credit card to an app your kid is using. I can understand not being aware a game includes lootbox-esque purchases (and I can get on board with the idea that those mechanics shouldn't be marketed to kids).
But the moment a parent decides that those two mistakes are no longer their mistakes, but the responsibility of a massive corporation that requires litigation to remedy... I don't know. At that point I have a hard time finding the angle to that I can agree on.
Comments (6)
I like Tim's version of "surprised Pikachu face". 😄
If the father complained after a few weeks or month or so, I could be understanding. Letting it go for three years cannot be just ignorance.
Eh, intentional ignorance. You've be surprised at how many people 1) don't bother to monitor their kids' activities, especially in the digital space, unless something reaches out and slaps them about it, and 2) don't bother to track their bank account/credit card register and transactions that are occurring. I find it very believable that someone could just straight up not notices the transactions, and not bother looking for them or checking their kids' activities, for 3+ years. Doesn't make it not *their fault*, though. Even if the company published the probabilities, very few kids have the capacity for understanding those probabilities *and* the understanding of money actually having value (and a proper understanding of "how much" that value is) for it to make a difference. Hell, many *adults* lack the capacity to properly process that information. This is just another "something bad happened, and I need someone else to blame for it so I don't have to take responsibility for my own laziness/stupidity/inattention".
Yeah, no app purchases can be made on our boys' tablets without entering an auth password, which they don't have. Nothing is set up to allow them purchasing power without our consent, but we've also explained to them how these apps work, and that the robux or whatever cosmetic nonsense costs real money. They understand the correlation. But while we stay on top of that sort of thing, I get how a parent could miss it, or not realize their kid can charge things until it's already been done. But I feel at that point you just say "whoops, my mistake, let me fix this going forward" not "this is the company's fault."
I think it's fair to expect government to restrict "random", paid, loot-boxes in the gaming industry for games particularly targeted directly at children. This is a simple extension of the gambling laws, and I generally believe forcing the industry to avoid preying on people is probably good. As a player, I'd also love if there was a labeling standard on paid lootboxes they had a "tell me more" icon that gives you a listing of the odds. Net result of the current industry choices is regular frustrated players/customers/payers and plenty of people don't come back (or the reverse are gambling-addicted). Definitely struggle to sympathize with the father based on his lawsuit, however. No refund on losing lotto tickets is a pretty normal expectation.
A Marvel mobile app I played for a short while had the odds of obtaining each item in a random pack, so I've seen it in practice. I think it should be info available, but I'm skeptical that we cn expect a kid to read and understand it if they are not even aware that they're spending money on these things/that it's an irreversible action.