this post was submitted on 17 Oct 2025
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[โ€“] xpey@piefed.social 155 points 2 weeks ago

This is a huge win against predatory monetization

One more step towards removing shitty in-game currency with awful set bundles and conversion that forces you to spend more than you want to

[โ€“] warm@kbin.earth 117 points 2 weeks ago (7 children)

Virtual currency that you purchase with real money should have been banned a long, long time ago.

[โ€“] Ek-Hou-Van-Braai@piefed.social 21 points 2 weeks ago (4 children)

Should get rid of crypto while we're at it.

[โ€“] ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)
[โ€“] Ek-Hou-Van-Braai@piefed.social 38 points 2 weeks ago (8 children)

Bitcoin alone uses more electricity than the entire country of Norway.

It's a REALLY REALLY wasteful way to do transactions and is terrible for the environment.

Other than that, it's fueled the black market and illegal business, it doesn't really have any real world benefits you can't get from regular banking for the vast majority of people.

One bitcoin transaction is estimated to use between 50 and 700kwh of electricity. Your average dutch household uses ~2000kwh, so ~10 transactions burn more electricity than a whole household.

[โ€“] Griffus@lemmy.zip 8 points 2 weeks ago

And to add to how bad that is, Norway is a small country, but we use really, really much energy per capita, since our energy has always been so cheap due to hydro power and politicians in 1905 going all in on that the benefits of our nature should benefit us all. Only in the last few years, prices have aligned more with the rest of the continent, though that price hike is supported for the many by the government, since the continental standard is so foreignly high for us.

[โ€“] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 3 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

Bitcoin is basically a prototype, though. (Some) other cryptos are far more efficient.

The illegal transactions complaint is legit, but there's cases where that's not a bad thing.

[โ€“] Ek-Hou-Van-Braai@piefed.social 17 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (7 children)

I get that it's very nice during a revolution or something like that, but there are also massive downsides and to me it looks like it mostly benefits criminals and people taking advantage of others.

Trump has made a fortune on his shit-coin, it's a great way for people to get around regulations and hide things they usually wouldn't get away with.

I'm open to have my opinion changed, it's just what it looks like to me

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[โ€“] FauxLiving@lemmy.world 12 points 1 week ago (2 children)

The biggest problem with virtual currency is that they intentionally price it so that you can't easily determine how much something is.

If they're charging $50 for 7500 coins and something costs 300 coins, how much are you spending? It's not easy to know without taking time to do the calculations.

Some games, Path of Exile for example, make it easy to know how much things are even using their currency. 100 points is $10, 200 points is $20... so it's very easy to figure out that a skin that costs 125 coins costs $1.25.

[โ€“] imecth@fedia.io 6 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Most people aren't buying their virtual currency 1:1 in the path of exile shop, they buy it through FOMO bundles which distorts its value just the same. For example right now you can buy into the early access, but here's the kicker at 30$ it also comes with 300 points, so what's the value of the early access or the points?

Path of exile has other positives aspects going for it, you can finish it without spending any money and it's not P2W, although there's a pay for convenience buy-in that costs about the same as a regular game. But its micro transactions and virtual currencies are as predatory as everyone else with overpriced items, rotating sales and gambling boxes.

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[โ€“] warm@kbin.earth 3 points 1 week ago

Might be in USD, but that probably doesn't translate to other currencies. Either way, they are using it to circumvent laws, refunds etc. They will still be pricing things so you have just under the amount you need, so you have to buy the next package up... then leaving you with too many coins than you needed, but still just short of another item. It's all predatory and needs to be abolished.

[โ€“] Korhaka@sopuli.xyz 4 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Generally agree but where does that leave us with the system that I think EVE started where can buy an in-game token for ยฃ15, redeem it for a month subscription or trade them with other players.

[โ€“] warm@kbin.earth 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I'm sure they could draft something that allows that sort of thing still. The currency in games like EVE/WoW/RuneScape is technically an in-game item rather than a currency for a storefront.

If that sort of thing would end up being abused, then it'd have to go obviously.

[โ€“] Korhaka@sopuli.xyz 2 points 1 week ago (2 children)

That is the problem I can see though, allowing one allows pushing it too. Games start to sell a shitload of cash shop things with the same method, EVE seems to be trying to do that too last time I played it.

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[โ€“] merdaverse@lemmy.zip 80 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

It's funny that they would rather handle the EU case differently, rather than give in to the Brussels effect and just show prices everywhere. Just shows how much money this little scam is making them.

[โ€“] dax@feddit.org 6 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

I'm sure they have the statistics that tells them how many purchases aren't being completed once users start seeing the real price. It really puts things into context. 7,50โ‚ฌ for what looks like a lego skin?

[โ€“] sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 71 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

From the American POV:

Clear and accurate pricing for digital transactions in a hypercapitalist system?

... believe it or not, 'socialism', straight to the antifa terrorist gulag for you.

Christ I hate living here.

Peter Fifa told me that i'm very smart, wow what a smart president you are, he said. He told me about his video gem, Fifa. Wow, i said, that's a lot of people in this game, they can't all be free you know. Many people like to unpack FIFA's, i heard. If people knew how much money they ~waste~ spend, maybe they spend less. What happens to Peter then? Yachts are not cheap fellow patriots. Antifa is gonna win if we suppord these dirty EU tactics, very billionaire phobic they are, nasty people.

[โ€“] pulsey@feddit.org 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)
[โ€“] sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

I'd love to, problem is I am crippled and broke.

[โ€“] craigers@lemmy.world 48 points 1 week ago (1 children)
[โ€“] petersr@lemmy.world 9 points 1 week ago

You are my world fam

[โ€“] rustydrd@sh.itjust.works 37 points 1 week ago

The what? OP, the what???? DON'T LEAVE ME HANGING LIKE THIS!!!!

[โ€“] abbadon420@sh.itjust.works 34 points 2 weeks ago

I don't really care about the shitshow that is ttye current state of gaming, but even I can see that this is a big win

[โ€“] Trainguyrom@reddthat.com 14 points 1 week ago

I remember back before I swore off games with microtransactions i was playing one and wanted to buy some in-game currency to support the developer, but it was one of those games with multiple in-game currencies where you buy currency A with real money or sometimes earn small amounts in-game, you buy currency B with currency A at a difficult to calculate exchange rate, and currency C is only purchased with currency B at another difficult to calculate exchange rate, so ultimately it was so heavily obfuscated how many dollars I needed to spend for the small goal I had that I gave up and decided maybe the developer wasn't worth supporting after all

[โ€“] carrylex@lemmy.world 5 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

Sauce? (aka "can someone reference the EU regulation that did this")

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