If you or your kid played Fortnite between January 2017 and September 2022, you may be eligible to get a refund from a $520 million settlement between Epic and the Federal Trade Commission for bending online privacy laws protecting minors and getting those minors to buy in-game items from gacha-style* loot boxes. Go here to file that claim.
And if you don't need to file a claim, you can still marvel at two things:
- Wow, Fortnite may have 37 million paying users in the US -- over 1 in 10 people in America! That's how many Americans with Fortnite accounts who are being contacted by the FTC. (Then again, the FTC may be messaging anyone in the US with a registered Fortnite account -- I'm double checking this.)
- This seems to be the first of its kind: A successful fine/settlement by US government regulators against a metaverse platform.
There's been close calls before -- for instance, earlier this year, Roblox started hiding ads from 13 and under players after an FTC complaint. But far as I can recall, the Epic case is the first one where US dollars earned from virtual world purchases were then collected by the Federal government to be returned to consumers.
This also means the FTC knows enough about how metaverse platforms work (or don't work for consumers) to start pursuing other policies on other platforms. I do know government agencies have been quietly gathering notes:
Continue reading "Fortnite FTC's First Fine on a Metaverse Platform - But Expect More Soon" »
Second Life Mass Growth Won't Raise Premium Prices (Probably)
Lots of interesting conversation around Linden Lab's new (and still active) job search for a senior product manager to help grow Second Life into "millions of customers" as the virtual world expands to mobile. Kaylee West understandably worries if this growth will impact the long-term existing community and the rates they pay for premium subscriptions:
Historically the high end for virtual world premium subscriptions tops out at around $15/month, and I don't see average SL Premium rates ever getting higher than that -- though platinum Premium plans will probably start including larger and larger land allotments, or even whole sims.
The real thing for long term creators to think about is planning for a virtual world economy that has millions of users, most of them coming in via mobile. As Ryann Palianta comments:
Continue reading "Second Life Mass Growth Won't Raise Premium Prices (Probably)" »
Posted on Wednesday, September 06, 2023 at 12:53 PM in Comment of the Week, Economics of SL | Permalink | Comments (2)
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