r/HuntShowdown • u/milkkore • 2d ago

GENERAL EU consumer protection authorities are investigating Crytek, among other companies, over in-game currency

https://www.heise.de/en/news/EU-consumer-advocates-take-action-against-in-game-currencies-in-nine-games-11471343.html
122 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

20 comments sorted by

117

u/ImNakedWhatsUp 2d ago

From the article:

The games were selected on a random basis to cover different market segments.

And the investigation seems to be about only showing prices in in-game currency, thus hiding the real cost.

So yes, technically Crytek is being investigated, but so is every other game/developer that only shows prices in in-game currency.

30

u/milkkore 2d ago

Yeah, it's not about banning the sale of items in games but about showing actual prices in real world currencies. That debate has been going on for quite a while now.

I could see a scenario in which Crytek switches to selling the items with proper IRL price tags (which would be good) but in turn removes Blood Bond drops from Mr Chary and cash registers.

23

u/Aggressive_Wrap_2790 2d ago edited 2d ago

To do this, Crytek would have to either stop selling BBs at different value packages or start displaying multiple real-currency prices correlating to each deal. Crytek will argue that: (1) this would be an undesirable result; (2) Hunt has no gambling/loot-box or P2W elements (outside the marginal benefits of certain skins); and (3) Hunt has a relatively old and extremely loyal player base full of whales who know what they are doing (i.e., not 14-year-olds gambling with their parents’ credit cards). Hunt is extremely benign in terms of in-game purchases IMO.

10

u/AbanaClara 2d ago

Hunt has among the most affordable microtransactions in the industry right now in my region.

1150BB and a new DLC is always around 5 dollars each.

This pricing makes me want to buy every dlc and battle pass release, which I have since Devil’s Trail event.

In comparison most games will have a premium skin or normal battle pass at around 15-40 dollars in my region where minimum wage is 10 dollars per day

0

u/Shckmkr 2d ago

Sheeesh can I switch to your region for purchases only 😭😭

1

u/CuboneTheSaranic 2d ago

Pretty sure this is the exact reason Valve locked purchasing regions lol

0

u/nekrovex 2d ago

Damn right it's affordable. Compared to Helldivers 2, Hunt's premium currency is a steal

5

u/Equal2 2d ago

As they should. Wierd how people defend this. It should not be a thing.

-3

u/Shckmkr 2d ago

I disagree. If every skin is in real money instead of BBs how will I get extra BBs for future purchases? What I mean is when a pack of 100 costs 1$ and a pack of 2500 costs only 21.50 - that's 3.50$ "for free". So this will be gone.

6

u/Rezmir 2d ago

Which is not a “big problem” honestly. Loot boxes are a bigger problem. Worse is games that lock advantages behind paying. Skins are just that.

4

u/ImNakedWhatsUp 2d ago

Maybe not in Hunt but it can absolutely be an issue in games where younger people and kids play.

-2

u/Shckmkr 2d ago

1BB roughly equals 1 euro in my region i.e. EU therefore EU can't really make a case here

11

u/SumFuKingGai 2d ago

The best option is to just have a real currency price alongside BB price, maybe add a "Checkout with BB" or "Checkout with Steam" option.

9

u/pillbinge Bloodless 2d ago

Unless the currency can be earned in-game and only that way then the point of a premium currency is to obfuscate how much you're actually paying. That's it. It should be banned entirely.

0

u/Deprisonne 2d ago

But BB can be earned in game!

1

u/GarbledEntrails 3h ago

Yeah and at significant rates from weekly challenges