Games industry should make in-app purchase costs clear and distinct from gameplay, says watchdog

The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has concluded that some of these games unfairly pressurise children to pay for additional content. These practices could potentially breach consumer protection laws, it said. It has published draft 'principles' for makers of online and app-based games (20-page / 153KB PDF), designed to tackle what it says are "inconsistencies" in the way in which these companies are interpreting their legal obligations.

"This is a new and innovative industry that has grown very rapidly in recent years, but it needs to ensure it is treating consumers fairly and that children are protected," said Cavendish Elithorn, the OFT's Executive Director.

"The way the sector has worked with us since we launched our investigation is encouraging, and we've already seen some positive changes to its practices. These principles provide a clear benchmark for how games makers should be operating. Once they are finalised, we will expect the industry to follow them, or risk enforcement action," he said.

The principles should be finalised earlier next year, and the OFT said that it would consider enforcement action against firms under existing consumer protection laws one month after they come into force. It intends to share the finalised principles with international regulators, with the intention of ultimately working towards "some common international standards", Elithorn said.

The watchdog examined 38 games produced by businesses in the UK, Europe and elsewhere, which it believed were likely to appeal to children, as part of its investigation. It found examples of "potentially unfair and aggressive commercial practices" in some of those games, including implying that the player would be "letting other players or characters down" if they did not obtain something by making a purchase, and of "blurring the distinction" between spending in-game currency and real money.

Among the principles set out by the OFT include the need to provide up-front information about the costs associated with a game before download or sign-up; ensuring players are not led to believe that they must make a payment to proceed when they could, for example, wait for a period of time instead; and not using language that could "exploit a child's inexperience". In addition, games should make it clear that in-game payments cannot be taken without the "informed consent" of the account holder, such as a parent; and not use default settings to allow multiple purchases over a particular period of time.

The document provides practical examples of practices that were more or less likely to comply with the law, related to each of the principles. For example, a free to download game based on collecting horses that is free to download but with promotional screenshots showing a "stable full of horses" that would have to be paid for with real money would be less likely to comply with the law; as would one that ordered a child to feed a hungry seagull with ice cream, paid for with real money, "or he will be unhappy".