Office of Fair Trading to consider whether developers are abusing in-app purchases
Free to play (F2P) games are to be investigated by the Office of Fair Trading over in-app purchases.
The games are being looked at to see if they put undue pressure on players – particularly children – to pay for additional content.
The investigation comes after a number of incidents where children ran up credit card bills often reaching into many thousands of pounds.
The concept behind F2P has increasingly come under fire from gamers recently. Many accuse developers of deliberately make it close to impossible to progress in game without paying.
Many games allow users to buy coins or other virtual items to speed up their progress.
The investigation is focusing on whether or not F2P games aggressively push in-game content to children.
That includes looking at whether F2P games that deliberately make it hard to progress without paying for content, or ask for amounts of money that are grossly disproportionate.
Last month Apple refunded £1,700 to the parents of five year old Danny Kitchen. He ran up the bill while playing F2P game Zombies versus Ninjas.
However, Apple hasn't refunded every incident. At the end of March, police officer Doug Crossan was forced to report his son for fraud after he ran up a bill of £3,700 on several games.
Apple refused to refund the in-app purchases on that occasion, meaning Crossan had to report his son in order to be able to reclaim the money from his credit card company.
According to UK regulator PhonePayPlus, complaints about in-app purchases in F2P games have risen by 300 per cent.
Speaking to the BBC, Cavendish Elithorn, the OFT's senior director for goods and consumer said: "We are concerned that children and their parents could be subject to unfair pressure to purchase when they are playing games they thought were free, but which can actually run up substantial costs."
Elithorn stressed that the OFT isn't looking to ban in-app purchases. However, the organisation did stress that game developers should be aware of UK consumer laws.
HAVE YOUR SAY: Do you think in-app purchases should be capped? Vote on our Facebook page now
The games are being looked at to see if they put undue pressure on players – particularly children – to pay for additional content.
The investigation comes after a number of incidents where children ran up credit card bills often reaching into many thousands of pounds.
The concept behind F2P has increasingly come under fire from gamers recently. Many accuse developers of deliberately make it close to impossible to progress in game without paying.
Many games allow users to buy coins or other virtual items to speed up their progress.
The investigation is focusing on whether or not F2P games aggressively push in-game content to children.
That includes looking at whether F2P games that deliberately make it hard to progress without paying for content, or ask for amounts of money that are grossly disproportionate.
Last month Apple refunded £1,700 to the parents of five year old Danny Kitchen. He ran up the bill while playing F2P game Zombies versus Ninjas.
However, Apple hasn't refunded every incident. At the end of March, police officer Doug Crossan was forced to report his son for fraud after he ran up a bill of £3,700 on several games.
Apple refused to refund the in-app purchases on that occasion, meaning Crossan had to report his son in order to be able to reclaim the money from his credit card company.
According to UK regulator PhonePayPlus, complaints about in-app purchases in F2P games have risen by 300 per cent.
Speaking to the BBC, Cavendish Elithorn, the OFT's senior director for goods and consumer said: "We are concerned that children and their parents could be subject to unfair pressure to purchase when they are playing games they thought were free, but which can actually run up substantial costs."
Elithorn stressed that the OFT isn't looking to ban in-app purchases. However, the organisation did stress that game developers should be aware of UK consumer laws.
HAVE YOUR SAY: Do you think in-app purchases should be capped? Vote on our Facebook page now
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