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[Updated] FTC Bans Genshin Impact Developer From Selling Loot Boxes To Children Under 16

By 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Joshua Robertson

Published Jan 17, 2025

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Summary

Genshin Impact developer Cognosphere has been fined $20 million and banned from letting children under 16 make in-game purchases without parental consent.
In this case, it was claimed that Genshin Impact deceived children by obfuscating how much money is required to obtain rare characters.
Cognosphere has since issued a statement, explaining that it will "introduce new age-gate and parental consent protections" for US players in the coming months.

168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Genshin Impact is a gacha game, which means players have the ability to spend ludicrous amounts of cash in an attempt to pull desired or rare characters. It's a business model that has served HoyoVerse very well, which has since released other popular gachas like 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Honkai Star Rail and - more recently - 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Zenless Zone Zero, but it's that same bℱusiness model which has now landed the developer in 𒁏hot water.

Last summer, Genshin Impact developer Cognosphere found itself on the wrong end of a court case put forward by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which claimed that Genshin Impact was deliberately targeting and deceiving children with its loot box-style currency system, obfuscating how mu✱ch money is likely needed to obtain rare characters. It also claimed that Cognosphere collected personal information from them, and broke the Children’s Online Pri👍vacy Protection Rule (COPPA) by doing so.

Genshin Impact Developer Banned From Selling Loot Boxes To Minors

Shenhe from Genshin Impact doing a gesture with her hand with an icy spirit floating behind her.

Fast-forward to right now, , as Cognosphere has been ordered to pay a $20 million fine and 🌺ban children under the age of 16 from making in-game purchases in Genshin Impact without parental consent. , Cognosphere has claimed it will soon "introduce new age-gate and parental consent protections" for players in the US in the coming months.

"Genshin Impact deceived children, teens, and other players into spending hundreds of dollars on prizes they stood little chance of winning," said Samuel Levine, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. "Companies that d🌱eploy these dark-pattern tactics will be held accountable if they deceive players, particularly kids and teens, about the true costs of in-game transactions."

As far as we can tell, this case only applies to Genshin Imꦍpact, but you woul🧸d have to assume games such as Honkai Star Rail and Zenless Zone Zero will be impacted as well, given they have almost identical monetization methods. It's possible whatever solution Cognosphere implements in Genshin Impact could be implemented in its other games, in an attempt to avoid another hefty fine and lengthy court cases in the future.

While it's also very unlikely, you have to wonder what this means for the live service landscape in general. The FTC claims it went after Genshin Impact for hiding how much money would be required to pull desirable or rare characters, but you could make a very convincing argument that this is what other live-service titles like 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:EA Sports FC. If the FTC is serious ab💜🌱out "dark-pattern tactics" like it says it is, we could see more cases like this in the future.

Update 16:30 BST 19/01/25: HoYoverse has provided TheGamer with a statement claiming “many of the FTC’s allegations are inaccurate”. .