> Additionally, the order bars Epic from blocking consumers from accessing their accounts for disputing unauthorized charges.<p>This could be bigger than people realize. This is very common in many tech companies like Uber/Doordash/Sony/etc. where if you do a chargeback, you often get blacklisted on their service. It would be amazing if this starts to end this practice, and you can actually have authority to get your money back from your credit card and not be penalized by the service for it when they refuse to actually help.
> In Spring 2018, Epic executives and managers discussed adding a confirm purchase button to prevent accidental purchases. Though employees were concerned that “it is a bit of a dark UX pattern to not have confirmation on ‘destructive’ actions,” Epic feared that adding a confirmation button would add “friction,” “result in a decent number of people second guessing their purchase,” and
reduce the number of “impulse purchases.”<p>> Epic has never allowed users to cancel or undo charges for Battle Passes or Llamas and did not begin allowing users to cancel Cosmetics charges until June 2019. Even then, Epic uses design tricks, sometimes referred to as “dark patterns,” to deter consumers from cancelling or requesting refunds for unauthorized V-Bucks charges.<p>> On July 20, 2018, an Epic Community Coordinator asked if there were any plans to add a confirmation step for in-game purchases, noting: “This is actually a huge complaints on our side and could remove most of the ‘excuses’ about accidental purchase: ‘I wanted to press Replay, my PS4 was in sleep mode’, etc. This is something I wanted to push forward but didn’t have time to build a real case around, has this already been discussed in the past?”<p>> In addition, Epic deliberately requires consumers to find and navigate a difficult and lengthy path to request a refund through the Fortnite app. To start, Epic hid the link to submit a refund request under the “Settings” tab on the Fortnite app menu, far removed from the purchase screen, even though requesting a refund is not a game or device setting. The Epic user experience (“UX”) designer who helped design the refund request path reported that he put the link there in an “attempt to obfuscate the existence of the feature” and that “not a single player found this option in the most recent round of UX testing.” When the designer asked whether he should make the feature easier to find, he was told by a superior, “it is perfect where it is at.”<p>Many more examples in this complaint doc: <a href="https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/1923203EpicGamesComplaint.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/1923203EpicGame...</a>
>Under the FTC’s order, Epic must pay $245 million, which will be used to provide refunds to consumers. The order also prohibits Epic from charging consumers through the use of dark patterns or from otherwise charging consumers without obtaining their affirmative consent. Additionally, the order bars Epic from blocking consumers from accessing their accounts for disputing unauthorized charges.<p>Too bad there aren’t punitive damages. Hopefully this action by the FTC chills other businesses that use dark patterns or ban users for charge backs. Not offering competent customer service is a liability not a cost savings.
> <i>Additionally, the order bars Epic from blocking consumers from accessing their accounts for disputing unauthorized charges.</i><p>I really wish more companies were required to still allow account access after disputing a credit card charge.
My comment is going to get downvoted (or worse, ignored), but here I go again:<p>We, as software engineers (or working in the field), have the power to not implement these features when our employer asks us to do it.<p>Everyday we read about organisations using dark patterns in their (software) products and then we come to HN to complain about it.<p>How did these features get built? By whom?<p>Yes, I realise not everyone has the privilege to say "NO", but at least some of us can and should push back.
That's the second time now I read about Epic Games paying a fine for doing something obviously shady and illegal. I slowly get the impression that Epic Games might be a bit more scammy than your average company.
> the FTC said that Epic deployed a variety of design tricks known as dark patterns aimed at getting consumers of all ages to make unintended in-game purchases.<p>Isn't it funny how they $h!t on Apple/Google gate keeping practices? Is this a part of Project Liberty to bypass stores and scam users?
Hah. A few years ago my young child (6) racked up an $800 bill on consmetics playing on the Wii. It was my fault - I didn’t require a password to make purchases and he spammed the buy button.<p>To his credit he came straight to me and told me he got all of the items “for free”.<p>After a huge muck around I finally got a refund (dealing with a combination of Nintendo and Epic) but the outcome was that I could no longer use a credit card to make purchase on my account ever again.<p>They’ve known for a long long time that accidental purchases happen and avoided having a decent path to refund (up until somewhat recently according to TFA) so I’m glad they’re being slapped with regulations.
Quite frankly in-game purchases has destroyed an entire industry for me.<p>Mobile games are so filled with this junk I don't even bother looking at them any more.<p>I avoid anything on PC that has a store, repeating season passes or virtual currency of any kind. It's even coloured my view of the types of add-on DLC that 20 years ago would have been a legitimate expansion pack, purely because it feels too similar to the dark patterns used in stores.<p>I refuse to give money to the companies that push these financial cons on people.
This type of thing definitely makes me less sympathetic to their complaints about Apple's anti-consumer practices (regardless of the validity of those complaints)
"After receiving five comments, the Commission voted 4-0 to approve the complaint and order against Epic and the responses to the commenters."<p>What? Were these just five people who happened to be in the room? How do you receive only 5 comments?
Who gets this penalty? The FTC?<p>Why do these penalties always end up as a fine for the company? They should also be forced to simply go and refund the amount they overcharged at least and preferably add a multiple too.
I hope that class action suits will force companies that use “Buy” buttons to actually give ownership of digital products to the buyer. Making the companies unable to revoke a “Buy” later for whatever reason.<p>If your customers are just buying a limited license to use a digital product until cancelled at the whim of the company then make that 100% up-front obvious. And adjust the prices accordingly.
I'm just curious for the actual UX and platform details.<p>At least on my iPhone even if an app doesn't ask for confirmation before a purchase, Apple Pay shows a confirmation dialog that requires Touch ID.<p>Are there mobile flows that don't require a confirmation dialog by the payment service itself (in my case, Apple Pay)?<p>Or is this mainly about platforms outside of mobile, like PC games where Epic itself has your credit card or something?
I've honestly never understood the point of buying skins. Admittedly I guess game monetization is difficult, I'm not going to pay to get nothing, and I'm not going to play pay to win games either. Most games I play are paid upfront.
Duplicate / part of - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35168285" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35168285</a> - Americans lost a record $10.3B to online scammers last year, FBI says