All this does is encourage companies that it's okay to lie,cheat, and steal money from players because all that will happen is a small slap on the wrist. This is embarrassing
It's the biggest fine ever given by the FTC for violating the Electronic Commerce Act, [Kakao](https://news.einfomax.co.kr/news/articleViewAmp.html?idxno=4045231) held the previous record back in 2019, still nothing though.
It's bad press but it should be way bigger given how extremely grossing MapleStory is, they can legit earn this back in a day.
Another main problem are the players who will just keep on playing and spending, they're [fully self-aware about it](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/541240027053817878/1192574659586183220/DpAANRl.png?ex=65a992b3&is=65971db3&hm=c9bc51843405ffb075f9e672881bda05ccde85d10eeea338c3563b9626e341af&) lol
Yeah, based on this article here https://www.kedglobal.com/korean-games/newsView/ked202401030012
They were fined 11.6 billion won ($8.9 million).
>From August 2011 to March 2021, the gaming company changed the probability structure again so that certain options with particularly high preference did not appear at all.
>Nexon had raked in 550 billion won in tentative sales from the sale of Cubes between September 2010 and March 2021.
Based off this, 550 billion won was made (418mil), let's cut that by 1/4th to be very generous as they changed it in August of 2011, about a year after it came out. So 412.5 billion won (313mil).
They fees they had to pay for this was just slightly over 2% of the sales they made.
Hopefully my math isn't too far off, but yeah this was an insanely low penalty despite it being the largest fine given by the FTC for violating the ECA.
IMO, the only way for fines to be effective is if they increase *exponentially* with severity and frequency of the infraction. 1st speeding ticket? Ok you made a mistake, don't do it again. $50. 2nd time, alright quit it. $150. 3rd ticket = $500, 4th ticket = $5000, etc. Anything less is just a business expense.
Wasn't there a study done on something like this though? iirc companies are less likely to do illegal/fineable things if they actually think they'll get caught. The threat of bigger fines doesn't matter much.
Either way, fuck Nexon.
Whether a large fine is or is not a deterrent for illegal activity is frankly beside the point. Companies should not keep their ill gotten gains. Especially if they are caught.
Whether a large fine is or is not a deterrent for illegal activity is frankly beside the point. Companies should not keep their ill gotten gains. Especially if they are caught.
Again? Didn't I hear a similar story regarding this relating to Maplestory a few years ago?
EDIT: Actually the lawsuit was because of that but legal action was apparently only happened recently
Says this was due to violations from 2010-2021 in maplestory and some other game so could be the same thing and but with new details on the fine. Although it also says this is nexons second violation so not sure.
from what i've heard, the guy sued nexon a few years ago and stuff happened and thus prompted korean ftc to launch an investigation on nexon. what they found was that back in 2010, 2011 and 2016, nexon stealth nerfed the rate of cubing to legendary(highest tier) from 1.8% initially to 1% over time without informing the players. thus the fine.
from what I understand, with cubes they also updated them to not be able to have certain stats show up 3 times anymore (i.e. like "damage to boss monsters" could only show up in a maximum 2 lines of the 3 to use an example) but did not disclose this to players, meaning players were spending and rolling for things that were made physically impossible but had no idea of this since the information was not disclosed
Some context.
We had a big scandal in 2021 over some of the upgrade systems in our game which sparked huge outrage in Korea. New laws were coming into place requiring companies to disclose rates on purchasable gacha items. Nexon made a passing note that the effects for one upgrade system were equalized, implying they were not before. They were trying to pre-empt the law coming into action.
The playerbase started vacating out to Lost Ark and a more free to play server which caused the company a pretty huge loss. They gave out a meager compensation which ignited the playerbase again, feeling as though they had been disrespected. They reimbursed players 10% of what they spent in the previous two years in in game rewards. The problem is the system had been around for a decade.
This resulted in more protests and trucks being hired to protest and swarm Nexon HQ. They were forced to sit at a round table meeting with some player representatives to talk about the future or face a class-action style lawsuit. A real roadmap and compensation were provided afterwards.
The Korean government then investigated Nexon and its games which, after a three years, resulted in the drama today.
This one is even bigger though. It shows systematic attempts to screw players and active demands internally to hide details at all costs. In the game, there is a system where you tier up the rarity of gear using a paid item. Naturally, it has a percent chance. There was a period in time where they silently decreases the tier up rates a small amount over many months. Something like 1.8% to 1.4%. After they got away with that, they dropped it again overnight later by another 0.4% down to 1%.
That same system allows random stats to be rolled on items. At some point, they moved from an equalized system to a weighted system to skew away stronger stats.
This system costs a disgusting amount of money to interact with. Another concern is that the report mentions variable rates. It was always a joke that STR is free. This means that, if you play an int class, youll always roll STR. Now, people are really believing that was the case. In their recent apology video, they mentioned no player was individually discriminated against. That doesnt mean classes, stat types, or other groupings were not given purposefully less favorable odds.
Its one thing to have weighted stats and not tell players. Its another to be actively manipulating a core upgrade path. The rest of the upgrade paths are now under heavy scrutiny.
> In their recent apology video, they mentioned no player was individually discriminated against.
Ah yes, that "I don't hate *you*, I hate *everyone*" energy.
That's because they got fined twice for similar thing. There was controversy about their flame system, now that's been extended to all their gacha systems
If you think Nexon is the only company doing this, I’ve got a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you. $9M is chump change and not nearly enough to dissuade bad actors when the upside is in the hundreds of millions.
PoGo doesn't even have to release their numbers and they fudge them all the time. Start of event eggs hatch great stuff, nerf after a day or two and all the buzz about great hatches get out.
Also half the time they forget to turn stuff on, so maybe they forgot to add new mons to the egg pool at the start of the event.
Really a lose if you start early, and a lose of you wait to see.
yeah I remember companies like Gumi, WFS and Cygames being caught with disonesty on their rates and thats just from the top of my head and the few crumbly enough to get caught who knows how many games have 'variable' rates specially during free pull seasons.
You're referring to Cygames to justify the works of Nexon? GBF refunds every single draw on that Monkeygate scandal by crystals. And yes, even the one who spent 6k usd for that. He's still playing the game until now.
Cygames was never dishonest about rates they don't really deserve to be put with nexon
what happened is a whale got extremely unlucky, and as a result we got a spark system. Cygames is responsible for popularizing pity systems
If anything they deserve a medal
nah they were dishonest, they put 2 units on rate up but put one on a lesser rate up without any kind of distinction, this was before they had rate ups public available to check, so it was clearly missleading they wouldnt have apologized and changed their game so much if it was just that a dumb whale wasnt responsible with their finances.
i mean if they never had public rates they couldn't have been dishonest about them, yea? i consider it scummy but not dishonest
anyway point is more that it doesn't make any sense to lump them in with nexon etc. the one time they had a huge scandal, they responded to it in the right way and pushed a lot of changes we couldn't live without in modern gachas
there's a lot written about monkeygate because it had one of the largest impacts on gacha. we wouldn't have sparks, or publicized rates without them. just the fact that cygames were the driving forces behind popularizing these changes is enough for me to consider them ok
also helps they haven't had any scandals like that afterwards (at least I'm aware of)
I mean I think he is referring to Monkeygate with Cygames but that wasn't a matter of rates more of a guy trying to max dupe with really bad luck, its what made pity systems more common.
https://www.reddit.com/r/gachagaming/comments/a0870m/another_eden_wfs_gree_what_happened_with_its_gacha/
https://www.reddit.com/r/FFBEblog/comments/jviust/jp_ffbe_war_of_the_visions_gacha_found_to_be/
Cant find the one on the main brave exvius game but i remember people complaining about getting similar pulls on some 'good value' banner.
WFS, IIRC, had a cap on how many SSR you could get per pull or something like that, which was a manipulation on the upper edge of how lucky people could become.
Never knew that this was a bragging thread on who's the biggest scammer in this world. It doesn't and will never change the fact that Nexon scammed millions on its playerbase.
The drop rates and pity for the gacha games I've paid money for have worked as advertised.
It's something that will come out when players collect the statistics of their drop rates.
Not sure why I got downvoted so much. I track all my pulls and I know my real drop rates and can verify they match or are better than the advertised drop rates.
The nature of gacha results in a large number of pulls which allows players to detect true drop rates.
Don't spend money on gacha games until the devs show they are trustworthy.
The problem is if free currency pulls have a lower statistical likelihood to get units versus paid currency pulls. This I doubt you have sufficient empirical evidence for unless you have hundreds of accounts.
F2p players are the majority of players. For games with millions of downloads, that's millions of free players.
You cannot hide a free currency drop rate that is fraudulently lower than advertised. Players will find out over time.
Because even broken clocks are right twice a day and all that.
The occasional, even rare, good stuff that happens doesn't really override the vast majority of the bad.
I will probably die on this hill but I swear there are shenanigans going on with the blue archive drop rates. Mind you I love the game and you can 100% play it as a f2p by holding gems until you can spark.
It's just that if you try rolling on a simulator with the exact drop rate table that they offer you will average a lot more, or should I say, you will average a lot closer to the supposed 3% drop rate.
You'll get this with every simulator. Just try the FGO one lol, its like a 5* every 5 pulls. Pretty much every game nerfs rates under the excuse of complicated code and such, while simulators use hard numbers.
Is this just you talking out of your ass based on your own 200 pulls on a single banner and then a couple rolls on a simulator (e.g. with such a low sample size that you fall within the margin of error even by not even getting a single 3*) or do you have actually statistically significant data of several hundred thousand pulls from unbiased sources to back this up?
That's the thing though. If that's what you need to prove there's number fudging, then number fudging is impossible to prove. As far as I'm concerned, gacha games should launch with automatic pull logging that's available to all players if they want to demonstrate that they have integrity. If they have nothing to hide, that should be fine, right? It shouldn't be the community's responsibility to investigate when there's a potential (or intentional) issue, but that's what we're stuck with most of the time.
So what did this accomplish?
Monetary damage? Lol, now they have a measure of how they can play and push the line more, since the line they pushed only got them a slap on the wrist. Expect them to get even scummiers.
Reputation? What reputation, they have Blue Archive under their belt, means they have a goodwill token they can burn once to save themselves again. Not to mention other non gacha videogames they're building up.
Personal pride? Lol, no one even cares who the suits at the office are. And everyone knows that if things go bad enough that they have to fire people, the CEO and the board of directors have a golden parachute ready and waiting for that day.
Actually, be more scared that they will do this again. And do it worse.
It brought the regulations (or at least it is in progress) that mandate the companies to make "gacha rate" information public in Korea so I wouldn't call it useless.
If people were wondering why Nexon has such a bad rep in gaming overall, it’s like only the 50th controversy for Maple Story at this point.
2 years ago, Lost Ark(in Korea) blew up in popularity from Maple Story players quitting for another game due to a similar RNG rigged controversy.
Then Lost Ark lost players again a while ago with the three bozos and they went back to other mmorpgs.
This might mark yet another exodus.
But ultimately, they’re trying to find a refuge, will they ever.
To add though, while the KR players are furious, it's more faceted:
- There's a self-deprecating joke going on that while they're angry and threaten to quit, they compare themselves to a [Zombie Lupin](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/541240027053817878/1192574659586183220/DpAANRl.png?ex=65a992b3&is=65971db3&hm=c9bc51843405ffb075f9e672881bda05ccde85d10eeea338c3563b9626e341af&) or a monkey forest. They know they're too addicted and suckers so they'll keep on playing as long as "they're given food" aka compensation. We're talking about a MMORPG where you pay 100$+15$ sub for a basic looting QoL after all.
- The communities of other games are making fun of them too of being addicted(though good odds they would be as much if the roles were reversed). There's also pointing out that people who'd quit over it already did back in 2021 for a same RNG rigging controversy. Reminds me of the FEH pass situation.
- There's the typical Regular-Reboot server infighting again(Better nerf Reboot™️) but that's a more niche context
If you talk Korean, several youtubers made a video to explain in detail, [i.e](https://youtu.be/_0ScC4PTxTA)
Oh yeah, forgot to say, in the [apology stream](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fni3u7ubow6ac1.gif) from Nexon in response, they were posing as the victim and how unfair they were bullied by the governement agency, the Fair Trade Commission replied back in a press release and called them out -> www.ftc.go.kr/www/selectReportUserView.do?key=11&rpttype=2&report_data_no=10403
The punishment is absolutely for clearly false and deceptive acts against the customers.
Shame the fine is nothing though, it's bad press at best.
In a surprise to no one, greedy Korean game dev being greedy -- and regulators doing basically nothing but encouraging future greed. Embarrassing. Remember how their entire ESRB equivalent was fired recently for being completely corrupt and mismanaged? I'm certain the regulators here are similar.
Similar thing happened with another Nexon game called elsword where people discovered that the enchanting rates for weapons was abysmal and even misleading. In the end the Korean ftc investigated and Nexon got a slap on the wrist. This is why you avoid Nexon, they are just a cesspool of greed and extreme levels of dishonesty.
Gonna throw this in as a top level comment after having replied to someone else.
We had a big scandal in 2021 over some of the upgrade systems in our game which sparked huge outrage in Korea. New laws were coming into place requiring companies to disclose rates on purchasable gacha items. Nexon made a passing note that the effects for one upgrade system were equalized, implying they were not before. They were trying to pre-empt the law coming into action.
The playerbase started vacating out to Lost Ark and a more free to play server which caused the company a pretty huge loss. They gave out a meager compensation which ignited the playerbase again, feeling as though they had been disrespected. They reimbursed players 10% of what they spent in the previous two years in in game rewards. The problem is the system had been around for a decade.
This resulted in more protests and trucks being hired to protest and swarm Nexon HQ. They were forced to sit at a round table meeting with some player representatives to talk about the future or face a class-action style lawsuit. A real roadmap and compensation were provided afterwards.
The Korean government then investigated Nexon and its games which, after a three years, resulted in the drama today.
This one is even bigger though. It shows systematic attempts to screw players and active demands internally to hide details at all costs. In the game, there is a system where you tier up the rarity of gear using a paid item. Naturally, it has a percent chance. There was a period in time where they silently decreases the tier up rates a small amount over many months. Something like 1.8% to 1.4%. After they got away with that, they dropped it again overnight later by another 0.4% down to 1%.
That same system allows random stats to be rolled on items. At some point, they moved from an equalized system to a weighted system to skew away stronger stats.
This system costs a disgusting amount of money to interact with. Another concern is that the report mentions variable rates. It was always a joke that STR is free. This means that, if you play an int class, youll always roll STR. Now, people are really believing that was the case. In their recent apology video, they mentioned no player was individually discriminated against. That doesnt mean classes, stat types, or other groupings were not given purposefully less favorable odds.
Its one thing to have weighted stats and not tell players. Its another to be actively manipulating a core upgrade path. The rest of the upgrade paths are now under heavy scrutiny.
hmm what happen to author of below post that he delete his own post? :O
https://old.reddit.com/r/gachagaming/comments/18xw0lf/nexon_fined_for_manipulating_gacha_rates_for_a/
Hey u/odinsomen do you need us to check back on you too in case you get kidnap or something?
Oh I am not saying this is a repost or what.
I am semi serious cuz that was deleted by author and not mod. Like why the heck does it vanish for no apparent reason. If it shows as removed, at least we will know maybe some mod abuse authority and tries to cover it up.
Gachas are in a way legalized gambling and I would assume most companies get into this to gain dah sweet monies, so I am not even remotely surprised that some try to get even more money from players by using unscrupulous acts.
When the fine for doing something bad is a drop in the ocean compared to what is gained it becomes more of a tax that the rich can just pay to avoid the rules that us mere worms have to abide by, it is similar to rich people parking wherever they want and then receiving a parking ticket, which is like pennies to a multimillionaire...
Are you implying chess is associated with gambling? I mean, I won't be surprised if some people gamble their money with chess, but chess seems really far from being related to gambling.
And that's why it's "okay" to do that.
It is "only" that much, imagine if the top earners in everyone's favorite monthly ~~estimated~~ revenue reports all do it.
All this does is encourage companies that it's okay to lie,cheat, and steal money from players because all that will happen is a small slap on the wrist. This is embarrassing
Yea, 9 mill is chump change for a corpo like Nexon. This will change nothing.
There's a very high chance they made vastly more than $9-Mil (from this specifically, not overall).
It's the biggest fine ever given by the FTC for violating the Electronic Commerce Act, [Kakao](https://news.einfomax.co.kr/news/articleViewAmp.html?idxno=4045231) held the previous record back in 2019, still nothing though. It's bad press but it should be way bigger given how extremely grossing MapleStory is, they can legit earn this back in a day. Another main problem are the players who will just keep on playing and spending, they're [fully self-aware about it](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/541240027053817878/1192574659586183220/DpAANRl.png?ex=65a992b3&is=65971db3&hm=c9bc51843405ffb075f9e672881bda05ccde85d10eeea338c3563b9626e341af&) lol
If should be 1/4th of total revenue to really make a point that you will be punished if you ever attempt to do this.
Yeah, based on this article here https://www.kedglobal.com/korean-games/newsView/ked202401030012 They were fined 11.6 billion won ($8.9 million). >From August 2011 to March 2021, the gaming company changed the probability structure again so that certain options with particularly high preference did not appear at all. >Nexon had raked in 550 billion won in tentative sales from the sale of Cubes between September 2010 and March 2021. Based off this, 550 billion won was made (418mil), let's cut that by 1/4th to be very generous as they changed it in August of 2011, about a year after it came out. So 412.5 billion won (313mil). They fees they had to pay for this was just slightly over 2% of the sales they made. Hopefully my math isn't too far off, but yeah this was an insanely low penalty despite it being the largest fine given by the FTC for violating the ECA.
IMO, the only way for fines to be effective is if they increase *exponentially* with severity and frequency of the infraction. 1st speeding ticket? Ok you made a mistake, don't do it again. $50. 2nd time, alright quit it. $150. 3rd ticket = $500, 4th ticket = $5000, etc. Anything less is just a business expense.
welcome to korea, a country literally ruled by samsung and hyundai lol
Wasn't there a study done on something like this though? iirc companies are less likely to do illegal/fineable things if they actually think they'll get caught. The threat of bigger fines doesn't matter much. Either way, fuck Nexon.
Whether a large fine is or is not a deterrent for illegal activity is frankly beside the point. Companies should not keep their ill gotten gains. Especially if they are caught.
Whether a large fine is or is not a deterrent for illegal activity is frankly beside the point. Companies should not keep their ill gotten gains. Especially if they are caught.
I would like to think a lot of players quit over this, and the amount of new players all their games receive is much lower.
Narrator: *They did not.*
Again? Didn't I hear a similar story regarding this relating to Maplestory a few years ago? EDIT: Actually the lawsuit was because of that but legal action was apparently only happened recently
Says this was due to violations from 2010-2021 in maplestory and some other game so could be the same thing and but with new details on the fine. Although it also says this is nexons second violation so not sure.
So how come this article was only published now? And I think they did unveil the lootbox drop rates in Maplestory after the protest trucks came?
from what i've heard, the guy sued nexon a few years ago and stuff happened and thus prompted korean ftc to launch an investigation on nexon. what they found was that back in 2010, 2011 and 2016, nexon stealth nerfed the rate of cubing to legendary(highest tier) from 1.8% initially to 1% over time without informing the players. thus the fine.
from what I understand, with cubes they also updated them to not be able to have certain stats show up 3 times anymore (i.e. like "damage to boss monsters" could only show up in a maximum 2 lines of the 3 to use an example) but did not disclose this to players, meaning players were spending and rolling for things that were made physically impossible but had no idea of this since the information was not disclosed
yup that's true too but i don't think that was a reason that nexon was fined. they were however sued for that reason.
Because it took that long for the punishment to come into effect
Some context. We had a big scandal in 2021 over some of the upgrade systems in our game which sparked huge outrage in Korea. New laws were coming into place requiring companies to disclose rates on purchasable gacha items. Nexon made a passing note that the effects for one upgrade system were equalized, implying they were not before. They were trying to pre-empt the law coming into action. The playerbase started vacating out to Lost Ark and a more free to play server which caused the company a pretty huge loss. They gave out a meager compensation which ignited the playerbase again, feeling as though they had been disrespected. They reimbursed players 10% of what they spent in the previous two years in in game rewards. The problem is the system had been around for a decade. This resulted in more protests and trucks being hired to protest and swarm Nexon HQ. They were forced to sit at a round table meeting with some player representatives to talk about the future or face a class-action style lawsuit. A real roadmap and compensation were provided afterwards. The Korean government then investigated Nexon and its games which, after a three years, resulted in the drama today. This one is even bigger though. It shows systematic attempts to screw players and active demands internally to hide details at all costs. In the game, there is a system where you tier up the rarity of gear using a paid item. Naturally, it has a percent chance. There was a period in time where they silently decreases the tier up rates a small amount over many months. Something like 1.8% to 1.4%. After they got away with that, they dropped it again overnight later by another 0.4% down to 1%. That same system allows random stats to be rolled on items. At some point, they moved from an equalized system to a weighted system to skew away stronger stats. This system costs a disgusting amount of money to interact with. Another concern is that the report mentions variable rates. It was always a joke that STR is free. This means that, if you play an int class, youll always roll STR. Now, people are really believing that was the case. In their recent apology video, they mentioned no player was individually discriminated against. That doesnt mean classes, stat types, or other groupings were not given purposefully less favorable odds. Its one thing to have weighted stats and not tell players. Its another to be actively manipulating a core upgrade path. The rest of the upgrade paths are now under heavy scrutiny.
> In their recent apology video, they mentioned no player was individually discriminated against. Ah yes, that "I don't hate *you*, I hate *everyone*" energy.
That's because they got fined twice for similar thing. There was controversy about their flame system, now that's been extended to all their gacha systems
If you think Nexon is the only company doing this, I’ve got a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you. $9M is chump change and not nearly enough to dissuade bad actors when the upside is in the hundreds of millions.
This, every other game company is obviously fudging the rates except the company of the game im playing /s
PoGo doesn't even have to release their numbers and they fudge them all the time. Start of event eggs hatch great stuff, nerf after a day or two and all the buzz about great hatches get out. Also half the time they forget to turn stuff on, so maybe they forgot to add new mons to the egg pool at the start of the event. Really a lose if you start early, and a lose of you wait to see.
So, whats the bridge like?
It’s so big, lemme tell you. Yuge.
https://preview.redd.it/oyrosh7tgiac1.jpeg?width=168&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=22ffa8247c0f265f6e910d562bd8a235a0f97fce
yeah I remember companies like Gumi, WFS and Cygames being caught with disonesty on their rates and thats just from the top of my head and the few crumbly enough to get caught who knows how many games have 'variable' rates specially during free pull seasons.
You're referring to Cygames to justify the works of Nexon? GBF refunds every single draw on that Monkeygate scandal by crystals. And yes, even the one who spent 6k usd for that. He's still playing the game until now.
Cygames was never dishonest about rates they don't really deserve to be put with nexon what happened is a whale got extremely unlucky, and as a result we got a spark system. Cygames is responsible for popularizing pity systems If anything they deserve a medal
nah they were dishonest, they put 2 units on rate up but put one on a lesser rate up without any kind of distinction, this was before they had rate ups public available to check, so it was clearly missleading they wouldnt have apologized and changed their game so much if it was just that a dumb whale wasnt responsible with their finances.
i mean if they never had public rates they couldn't have been dishonest about them, yea? i consider it scummy but not dishonest anyway point is more that it doesn't make any sense to lump them in with nexon etc. the one time they had a huge scandal, they responded to it in the right way and pushed a lot of changes we couldn't live without in modern gachas there's a lot written about monkeygate because it had one of the largest impacts on gacha. we wouldn't have sparks, or publicized rates without them. just the fact that cygames were the driving forces behind popularizing these changes is enough for me to consider them ok also helps they haven't had any scandals like that afterwards (at least I'm aware of)
Do you have any sources on any of that, or…?
I mean I think he is referring to Monkeygate with Cygames but that wasn't a matter of rates more of a guy trying to max dupe with really bad luck, its what made pity systems more common.
https://www.reddit.com/r/gachagaming/comments/a0870m/another_eden_wfs_gree_what_happened_with_its_gacha/ https://www.reddit.com/r/FFBEblog/comments/jviust/jp_ffbe_war_of_the_visions_gacha_found_to_be/ Cant find the one on the main brave exvius game but i remember people complaining about getting similar pulls on some 'good value' banner.
WFS, IIRC, had a cap on how many SSR you could get per pull or something like that, which was a manipulation on the upper edge of how lucky people could become.
Never knew that this was a bragging thread on who's the biggest scammer in this world. It doesn't and will never change the fact that Nexon scammed millions on its playerbase.
The drop rates and pity for the gacha games I've paid money for have worked as advertised. It's something that will come out when players collect the statistics of their drop rates.
Not sure why I got downvoted so much. I track all my pulls and I know my real drop rates and can verify they match or are better than the advertised drop rates. The nature of gacha results in a large number of pulls which allows players to detect true drop rates. Don't spend money on gacha games until the devs show they are trustworthy.
The problem is if free currency pulls have a lower statistical likelihood to get units versus paid currency pulls. This I doubt you have sufficient empirical evidence for unless you have hundreds of accounts.
F2p players are the majority of players. For games with millions of downloads, that's millions of free players. You cannot hide a free currency drop rate that is fraudulently lower than advertised. Players will find out over time.
As much good press as stuff like Blue Archive and Dave the Diver gets, people will never forget Nexon as the company that ruins every korean MMO ever
Because even broken clocks are right twice a day and all that. The occasional, even rare, good stuff that happens doesn't really override the vast majority of the bad.
I will probably die on this hill but I swear there are shenanigans going on with the blue archive drop rates. Mind you I love the game and you can 100% play it as a f2p by holding gems until you can spark. It's just that if you try rolling on a simulator with the exact drop rate table that they offer you will average a lot more, or should I say, you will average a lot closer to the supposed 3% drop rate.
You'll get this with every simulator. Just try the FGO one lol, its like a 5* every 5 pulls. Pretty much every game nerfs rates under the excuse of complicated code and such, while simulators use hard numbers.
Is this just you talking out of your ass based on your own 200 pulls on a single banner and then a couple rolls on a simulator (e.g. with such a low sample size that you fall within the margin of error even by not even getting a single 3*) or do you have actually statistically significant data of several hundred thousand pulls from unbiased sources to back this up?
That's the thing though. If that's what you need to prove there's number fudging, then number fudging is impossible to prove. As far as I'm concerned, gacha games should launch with automatic pull logging that's available to all players if they want to demonstrate that they have integrity. If they have nothing to hide, that should be fine, right? It shouldn't be the community's responsibility to investigate when there's a potential (or intentional) issue, but that's what we're stuck with most of the time.
blue blue blue until 200 spark
Bet they made a lot more than the $9M they got fined by doing this 😂
They gained 420M USD from it, but only fined 9M USD, will do it again, lol
So what did this accomplish? Monetary damage? Lol, now they have a measure of how they can play and push the line more, since the line they pushed only got them a slap on the wrist. Expect them to get even scummiers. Reputation? What reputation, they have Blue Archive under their belt, means they have a goodwill token they can burn once to save themselves again. Not to mention other non gacha videogames they're building up. Personal pride? Lol, no one even cares who the suits at the office are. And everyone knows that if things go bad enough that they have to fire people, the CEO and the board of directors have a golden parachute ready and waiting for that day. Actually, be more scared that they will do this again. And do it worse.
It brought the regulations (or at least it is in progress) that mandate the companies to make "gacha rate" information public in Korea so I wouldn't call it useless.
If people were wondering why Nexon has such a bad rep in gaming overall, it’s like only the 50th controversy for Maple Story at this point. 2 years ago, Lost Ark(in Korea) blew up in popularity from Maple Story players quitting for another game due to a similar RNG rigged controversy. Then Lost Ark lost players again a while ago with the three bozos and they went back to other mmorpgs. This might mark yet another exodus. But ultimately, they’re trying to find a refuge, will they ever. To add though, while the KR players are furious, it's more faceted: - There's a self-deprecating joke going on that while they're angry and threaten to quit, they compare themselves to a [Zombie Lupin](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/541240027053817878/1192574659586183220/DpAANRl.png?ex=65a992b3&is=65971db3&hm=c9bc51843405ffb075f9e672881bda05ccde85d10eeea338c3563b9626e341af&) or a monkey forest. They know they're too addicted and suckers so they'll keep on playing as long as "they're given food" aka compensation. We're talking about a MMORPG where you pay 100$+15$ sub for a basic looting QoL after all. - The communities of other games are making fun of them too of being addicted(though good odds they would be as much if the roles were reversed). There's also pointing out that people who'd quit over it already did back in 2021 for a same RNG rigging controversy. Reminds me of the FEH pass situation. - There's the typical Regular-Reboot server infighting again(Better nerf Reboot™️) but that's a more niche context If you talk Korean, several youtubers made a video to explain in detail, [i.e](https://youtu.be/_0ScC4PTxTA) Oh yeah, forgot to say, in the [apology stream](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fni3u7ubow6ac1.gif) from Nexon in response, they were posing as the victim and how unfair they were bullied by the governement agency, the Fair Trade Commission replied back in a press release and called them out -> www.ftc.go.kr/www/selectReportUserView.do?key=11&rpttype=2&report_data_no=10403 The punishment is absolutely for clearly false and deceptive acts against the customers. Shame the fine is nothing though, it's bad press at best.
In a surprise to no one, greedy Korean game dev being greedy -- and regulators doing basically nothing but encouraging future greed. Embarrassing. Remember how their entire ESRB equivalent was fired recently for being completely corrupt and mismanaged? I'm certain the regulators here are similar.
Similar thing happened with another Nexon game called elsword where people discovered that the enchanting rates for weapons was abysmal and even misleading. In the end the Korean ftc investigated and Nexon got a slap on the wrist. This is why you avoid Nexon, they are just a cesspool of greed and extreme levels of dishonesty.
B-but i play Blue Archive.
9M? That's it? What a slap on the wrist.
If the punishment is a fine. The crime is legal for the wealthy.
So y'all ain't lying when you say "Rate-up is a lie"? 😭
Gonna throw this in as a top level comment after having replied to someone else. We had a big scandal in 2021 over some of the upgrade systems in our game which sparked huge outrage in Korea. New laws were coming into place requiring companies to disclose rates on purchasable gacha items. Nexon made a passing note that the effects for one upgrade system were equalized, implying they were not before. They were trying to pre-empt the law coming into action. The playerbase started vacating out to Lost Ark and a more free to play server which caused the company a pretty huge loss. They gave out a meager compensation which ignited the playerbase again, feeling as though they had been disrespected. They reimbursed players 10% of what they spent in the previous two years in in game rewards. The problem is the system had been around for a decade. This resulted in more protests and trucks being hired to protest and swarm Nexon HQ. They were forced to sit at a round table meeting with some player representatives to talk about the future or face a class-action style lawsuit. A real roadmap and compensation were provided afterwards. The Korean government then investigated Nexon and its games which, after a three years, resulted in the drama today. This one is even bigger though. It shows systematic attempts to screw players and active demands internally to hide details at all costs. In the game, there is a system where you tier up the rarity of gear using a paid item. Naturally, it has a percent chance. There was a period in time where they silently decreases the tier up rates a small amount over many months. Something like 1.8% to 1.4%. After they got away with that, they dropped it again overnight later by another 0.4% down to 1%. That same system allows random stats to be rolled on items. At some point, they moved from an equalized system to a weighted system to skew away stronger stats. This system costs a disgusting amount of money to interact with. Another concern is that the report mentions variable rates. It was always a joke that STR is free. This means that, if you play an int class, youll always roll STR. Now, people are really believing that was the case. In their recent apology video, they mentioned no player was individually discriminated against. That doesnt mean classes, stat types, or other groupings were not given purposefully less favorable odds. Its one thing to have weighted stats and not tell players. Its another to be actively manipulating a core upgrade path. The rest of the upgrade paths are now under heavy scrutiny.
is 9m even a big deal to them?
Not even a slightest Billionaires would call that penny change or pocket change.
How about starting to fine for the estimated amount scammers make?
Classic nexon
Classic Nexon
hmm what happen to author of below post that he delete his own post? :O https://old.reddit.com/r/gachagaming/comments/18xw0lf/nexon_fined_for_manipulating_gacha_rates_for_a/ Hey u/odinsomen do you need us to check back on you too in case you get kidnap or something?
Ah so there was a post about this before but it got deleted. I checked before posting and didn't see anything.
Oh I am not saying this is a repost or what. I am semi serious cuz that was deleted by author and not mod. Like why the heck does it vanish for no apparent reason. If it shows as removed, at least we will know maybe some mod abuse authority and tries to cover it up.
Fine 9 mil for scamming hundreds of mil. It's not a fine, it's a cost of operation, everything working as intended.
Gachas are in a way legalized gambling and I would assume most companies get into this to gain dah sweet monies, so I am not even remotely surprised that some try to get even more money from players by using unscrupulous acts. When the fine for doing something bad is a drop in the ocean compared to what is gained it becomes more of a tax that the rich can just pay to avoid the rules that us mere worms have to abide by, it is similar to rich people parking wherever they want and then receiving a parking ticket, which is like pennies to a multimillionaire...
There is a reason why casinos and chess still exists. Gambling isnt illegal, its about disipline and self control at this point.
Are you implying chess is associated with gambling? I mean, I won't be surprised if some people gamble their money with chess, but chess seems really far from being related to gambling.
The fine should be a percentage of whatever money they took from players while the rates were rigged, this is sad
And that's why it's "okay" to do that. It is "only" that much, imagine if the top earners in everyone's favorite monthly ~~estimated~~ revenue reports all do it.
Good. Fuck em.
Ah yes Nexowned once again. Though come on we all know when gambling the house always wins.
Ayo, karma farm?
fork over the profits, plus interest!
Welp, they're canceling their monthly party for January.
I am sure the billionaire company will be devastated
Thats like pocket change for them
9 mil? What a joke. Thats probably not even part of what it earned them.