‘Genshin Impact’ must pay $20 million for misleading players about Gacha spending

Genshin Impact remains one of the most popular gacha games in the world, constantly adding new regions and characters, but they have now clashed with the FTC over their primary revenue model.

HoYoverse has now agreed to pay a $20 million fine for a number of issues regarding its “gaming” model of character acquisition:

• They are accused of marketing the game to children and collecting data about them (a violation of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act in the United States).
• The FTC claims that HoYoverse “misled children and other users about the true costs of in-game transactions and the chances of obtaining rare prizes.”
• The FTC claims that Genshin Impact uses “difficult and confusing” purchases, employing the infamous “Dark Pattern” tactic to “mislead consumers about the amount of money players regularly spend on loot boxes, and the amount of money players would be likely to spend. have to spend to get certain prizes.

“Genshin Impact deceived children, teens, and other players into spending hundreds of dollars for prizes they had little chance of winning,” said Samuel Levine, director of Genshin Impact’s Consumer Protection Bureau. the FTC. “Companies that deploy these obscure tactics will be held accountable if they mislead players, especially children and teens, about the true costs of in-game transactions.”

The result of this is:

• The game must not allow children under the age of 16 to spend money in loot boxes without their parents’ consent.
• Personal information from players under 13 will be deleted until parents authorize its collection (good luck). They must comply with all COPPA regulations.
• Loot boxes that you can purchase with virtual currency must also be able to be purchased with clearly marked real money values.
• Loot box odds, exchange rates, and “tiered” currencies must be accurately disclosed to players.

If you are deep In Genshin Impact it was possible to finally understand the odds and the maximum amount you would need to pay to guarantee you land a character, but it’s a maze of game odds and 50/50 coinflips and kids confusing seems like something that could easily happen. And the FTC says HoYoverse was doing it on purpose.

The changes are… somewhat minimal. And the fine is derisory. Genshin Imapct earned $1 billion in its first six months on mobile alone. For a while, it was making a billion dollars every six months without fail, making it one of the most successful mobile games in history. Its least profitable year was 2024, where it earned “only” $710 million. So $20 million is nothing. This is also not a class action settlement, meaning the money will go to the players, it’s simply a fine.

Again, these changes only affect the United States, and other regions like Asia, where gacha games are extremely popular, would not have to make any further changes. I suppose this is a warning for other games (this same “dark pattern” claim happened with Fortnite having to pay players $72 million), but this will just be a drop in the water in the ocean for HoYoverse here.

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