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Orongorongorongo t1_j0vit3x wrote

Reply to comment by nostalgic_dragon in Epic Games to Pay $520 Million Over Children’s Privacy and Trickery Charges by 08830

>Epic employees expressed concern about its default settings. As early as 2017, Epic employees urged the company to change the default settings to require users to opt in for voice chat, citing concern about the impact on children in particular. Despite this and reports that children had been harassed, including sexually, while playing the game, the company resisted turning off the default settings. And while it eventually added a button allowing users to turn voice chat off, Epic made it difficult for users to find, according to the complaint.

I wonder why on earth Epic resisted making voice chat opt in for children? It seems a no-brainer. I must be missing something obvious.

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Heartable t1_j0vl48g wrote

Gonna guess that voice chat helps players get hooked into the game.

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Orongorongorongo t1_j0vm5pe wrote

Hmmm yeah. More hooked = more in game purchases. Morals and ethics aside, it seems so risky from a business point of view.

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linguotgr t1_j0xohgx wrote

One of the key points of that Fishing for Whales presentation from however many years ago was that harassment is profitable, because in a freemium economy the people using default skins can be browbeaten in to making skin purchases to avoid that harassment. I have very little doubt that part of the reason they wanted voice chat on for everyone was so that everyone would be able to push each other in to more sales.

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erosram t1_j0vlqw5 wrote

Probably felt it was integral to the experience.

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