The why is rarely argued. The how is always the point of contention. That's why I am wondering what they are asking for age verification.

I don't understand what you mean. They're clearly requesting ages over 13 and disabling purchases for those under 16.

I am asking **how** will they verify the age?

Yeah because they intentionally sexualise their extremely youthful characters

Yeah, if the end consequence is creating a giant database of photos of US ID's (and storing which accounts theyre associated with as a nice bonus) then that is, in my opinion, not great. I understand Discord is already rolling out ID verification in the UK and their solution is to use a 3rd party service (you send them your, they just send discord a "is over 18? YES/NO). Personally I don't think thats much better but it won't be Discord's own liability when they find out call center employees in India or Vietnam are using the images of your ID to sell online or something.

People say that, but kids under 16 probably aren't the majority of people spending thousands in gachas. They usually don't have money.

Rare US W ?

Dang there is a lot of hate for this game here, like it's definitely not the best game ever but it is one of the most compelling mobile experiences out there, with a decent story that has some great moments, and it can absolutely be played completely for free without missing out on much. The only thing spending money is good for is specific characters and weapons, none of which are required, and you can absolutely save up from playing for free and get almost any of those characters/weapons without spending a dime. It's not for everyone but I feel like this game gets a lot of hate simply for the Chinese origin, cartoony style, and microtransactions without any actual knowledge of what it's like to play it.

If it was an American deveper making Genshin, I would be just as, or even more disgusted with it. It's not sinophobia, it's that the game is pure cringe that commodifies and hypersexualizes young girls. The whole waifu sim genre is the gateway to the Manosphere, and part of the same toxic sociatal problem.

TDLR: "If you don't give us PII information within a made up deadline, we will deny you access to any content you paid in the past."

> The only thing spending money is good for is specific characters and weapons, none of which are required, and you can absolutely save up from playing for free and get almost any of those characters/weapons without spending a dime. This is dramatically underselling the gacha loop. There is absolutely a ceiling for F2P content, where grinding to progress becomes unbelievably time consuming. It's deep in the game, I'll grant that, but that's the point - like every mobile game, you're meant to get completely hooked on the progression loop with fast early rewards, then each loop drags longer and longer and longer until you either have to abandon the game entirely or start P2W. It's not that hard to get characters and items, but the FOMO system is ridiculous. Just invested all the grinded resources you had to mercy pull a character you've had your eyes on? Guess what, the next patch just launched an even *better* character, or the next banner brought back a 5* that is so meta for your team comp that getting that character will exponentially increase your damage output. Now you have a limited amount of time to grind all that shit again, or let the banner pass and wait for that massive improvement to your team comp to be available some months/years into the undefined future. And actually upgrading those items and characters to be useful in late game content? Time to fork over $$, or at least dozens of hours grinding out dungeons that you can only play on certain days and with a limited number of the same daily grind resources that are required for every different type of progression from level ups to ascensions to gold to skill upgrades... the same materials that you *can also buy*. Basically, the "good" parts of Genshin are specifically (and very effectively) designed to increasingly consume your time or your money. There is nothing "good" about it because it's all just a massive investment in stealing away your life or your life savings. They didn't make all that awesome content for you to have fun - they made it so that you don't notice when your brain starts telling you "I've put hundreds of hours into this game, $5 is totally worth all that time... just $20 and maybe I'll get that character or skip the next 30 hours of grinding... if I spend $100 I'll get all the stuff I want at a discount, and then I won't have to grind for awhile... except I still *need* to keep progressing and now that I've skipped ahead by investing money, the gacha loop is even *more* punishing now, but I'm locked in an ever spiralling sunk cost fallacy now" And yeah, don't even get me started on the sexualization. What the actual fuck.

Blame the US for declaring that US minors are too stupid and US parents too neglectful to pay attention to what is purchased online. They have to kick off kids from their game, legally, and nearly all mobile and online games that have any way to spend real money will be doing the same within the next year.

What the fuck are you talking about. This is an insane take.

wait how exactly are the kids sexualized? i know there's like one or two, but are they actually sexualized canonically?

So basically your argument is, if you don't like the gameplay loop, they force you to pay? I'm not arguing that there are idiots out there who will spend their life savings on digital crop, but you are dramatically OVERselling the difficulty of upgrade requirements. Sure if you wanna play 8 hours a day you're eventually gonna have to spend money, but. If you play for an hour or so each day, hit the events that are worth the time, do some daily/weekly dungeons as they are available, a little exploration and a little questing, and have any sense of "progress takes time", the actual gameplay is fun enough to carry without spending money. If it isn't, for you or someone else, then just don't play? Also, oversexualization of minors is a term that gets thrown around a LOT with this game and I just don't see it, basically ever. The few characters that are actual children are dressed conservatively, act like children, are treated like children by other characters, there's never inappropriate commentary about them... if you wanna offense to the anime-style art that makes everyone, including adults, cartoonist, that's your opinion. It's weird that a lot of people act like it's a pervasive issue when it really doesn't exist at all in the game.

But the adults, they weren't deceived in any way. Hoyo scammed them fair and square. Ban the entire business model.

> So basically your argument is, if you don’t like the gameplay loop, they force you to pay? Lol no, I'm saying if you *do* like the gameplay loop, you will eventually get trapped in it. The more you play, the more time-gated walls you hit in the daily grind, and the more time-gated ceilings you hit in the weekly/monthly grinds, all while the game is designed to hook right into your dopamine reward system and never let go. Want to play more? Better cough up some money! Finished your dailies? But today' the last day time is running out on the banner! Cough up some money! Oh, lol, you don't see it? The fact that there is an entire model type called "short female" with eight characters... but no short males? "Modestly dressed" lmao they're like 60% exposed skin, short shorts and skirts. And oh, right, there are some modestly dressed children that look like children, and act like children... but coincidentally several of those short female models who *aren't* modestly dressed fall under that "I look *exactly* like the children but I'm not! I'm actually an adult! Or even an immortal" lolicon trope. It's. Fucking. Gross.

No, but kids under 16 *are* hooked into the content drip on their favorite social media. This significantly impacts the drip, a big part of online gaming is sharing what you have or have done through YouTube, TikTok, etc. Everybody wants to be a content creator. Nobody wants to be a content creator in default skins.

A settlement with the FTC is not some "made up deadline" Hoyo can change.

https://genshin-impact.fandom.com/wiki/Category:Short_Female_Characters I clicked on 4 among the grand total of 10 characters of this type and don't see what you mean. Do you mean that the miniskirts are supposed to be sexy or something? ...I don't really see it. Maybe it's a cultural thing where as an Asian I don't find that sexy?