Asmongold TV - League Monetization Is Now ILLEGAL In EU | Asmongold TV

Episode Date: September 27, 2025

League Monetization Is Now ILLEGAL In EU Asmongold show for all of his stream highlights, competitions, reactions & more. --------------------------- ------ Keywords: twitch clips, gaming reactions, twitch streamer, streamer podcast, gaming news, gaming hot takes, streaming moments Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Basically, there is a law now in Europe that they are actually changing and holding these companies accountable for their micro transactions. I have been waiting on this for years. And it's been something that we've been wanting for years. This is a massive fucking W. So we're going to look at see some of the details about this here. The day I decided to talk about stuff regarding League of Legends, I did not realize I would be diving into League of. stuff. But oh well, here we are. In case you missed it, a few days ago, the European Union made a move on the predatory practices in gaming. The funny thing is that they are finally focusing on something

that has been part of the entire microtransaction system from day one. That's right. And that's because the day micro transactions were born, they were led by people who knew how to milk people's wallets. I mean, why else would we replace the name expansion packs with DLC? And of course here, we are specifically going to talk about the use of premium currencies. That's right. Now, what is surprising? Premium currency serves no purpose in video games other than to obfuscate and confuse the player on how much money they're spending. It is fundamentally manipulative and it serves no purpose or value to the consumer other than to make them less aware of how much money they're spending.

Amazing is that most people don't realize that premium currencies, are a really bad thing. And because people don't know about this, it kind of proves why they exist. Simply said, the real reason why premium currencies exist is because people have an idea of how much things should cost in their own native currency.

But if I see something available for robots, I have no idea how much that is. Yeah, how much, how much is this pink flower crown? 50, 50 items. And like, this especially works well on kids because like kids don't understand conversion because they're seven. You don't like you're like they're not even supposed to understand it. On purpose of the premium currencies is hiding real value.

On top of this, when you buy the premium currencies, you either buy a small bundle that doesn't give you enough currency to buy something, which means you have to buy more or the bundle gives you way too much. And now the next time you want to buy something, you already have some of the leftover currency. So now you only have to buy the smaller pack to get it. So you buy again. I find this to be annoying, but I don't even think this is as bad because like this is

about a purchase decision. Now, would it be better if you could instead of using the premium currency, you could just spend the exact amount that the premium currency would be equivalent to in your local currency? So like, for example, if something equates out to $5.4 and $4. 14 cents, would it be better for the consumer that the consumer could just simply buy that and that's it? I cannot see a reason why that would not be better for the consumer. You see what I'm you see what I'm saying? Currency rates change? Well, not really though, because the currency rate for the crystals is the same. So you can't make the argument that the currency rate changes

when the crystal rate doesn't change. And you may think, sure, these are pretty bad cases. So surely there has to be some kind of a catch, right? Yeah. There has to be something positive to premium currencies. Well, the thing is... There's not. Nope. The only reason premium currencies exist is because they make more money.

That's right. There is literally no other use for them. You could argue that premium currencies work for brand building. I mean, look at the famous V-Bucks or Primo-Gemes. I don't think that there's a problem with premium currencies. It's just that they need to be displayed alongside. their local currency equivalents. That's the problem.

The problem isn't that they exist. It's the problem that they are the only thing that exists in the store page. That's the issue. So there could be an argument made there. However, that would only be true if the companies also didn't pull off their shenanigans with the bundles.

Regardless, this has been the case with premium currencies since the early days. That's right. And surprisingly, this doesn't mean the infamous horse arm. While that is considered one of the first proper micro transactions, that one was just bought for good old $2.50. No, instead, we are talking about early EA stuff. Does anyone remember BioWarePoints? Does anyone remember having to buy a premium currency to buy a Mass Effect DLC?

That's so stupid. While all other games just sold you normal expansion packs for normal money. Imagine just buying a game. normal person Well, EA may not have been the first one who invented this use of premium currencies, but they surely were one of the first ones to heavily profit from it. They were ahead of the curve and because it worked so well, these days simply everyone uses it. Well, fast forward 10 years and after way too many people got too many cases of getting scammed by video games,

which technically they are not getting scammed, they are just getting baited into paying more. And after many boycotts that happened from gamers, which means they did not succeed because they were done by gamers. The European Union... They're not going to succeed because the problem is that even if gamers vote against something and boycott it, the problem is that actually here's the real reason. Most people don't care. And they don't understand the problem well enough to realize what the issue is.

That's what the problem is. And realized, hey, those are some pretty bad practices. And just like other forms of gambling, lotteries and addictive practices, premium currencies and micro-transactions should be regulated. Otherwise, things will keep getting worse, which is exactly what's been happening over the last five years. And so, the European Union gave us this. Commission and national authorities take action to protect

children from harmful practices in video games. It's about fucking time. This is an action against a game called Star Stable Online, which apparently was really good at sucking money out of parents. Wow. However, even though this is focusing on this specific game, this enforcing of action will also affect everyone else.

It's categorical. Because if other companies ignore what happened here, well, they might get the same strike later too. Now, in short, the summary that circled the industry, internet is honestly a pretty bad summary. Especially if you move around video games and you know what's going on, this one is not really for you. For the most part,

it is focusing on the advertising to children in video games. Well, that's the issue, right? Is that they're advertising to people that are too young to understand what these conversion rates are because in some cases they're literally like, you know, it's like you're in fourth grade, you don't understand what a conversion rate is and you're not supposed to either. Like it's direct, it's made with the explicit purpose to confuse kids. That is, that is its goal.

Throughout gaming history, there have been many cases of children bankrupting their parents in video games. However, overall, everything is also aimed at protecting adults. So first, here it mentions that you are not allowed to advertise to children specifically, which also means you can't urge them to quickly buy something for the game, which is where we can mention that this is not preventing from the game, saying, hey. I don't know, I don't know how can you, how do you define what an advertisement to a, to a kid is? Is it like, the, how do you do that?

If you want the premium skin, you better pay up. Yeah, it's like, how do you enforce that? It's more along the lines of showing that if you don't buy a boost or something, something really bad will happen to a character. Maybe they will leave or they will get hurt or something like that. Yep, there are games who actually. The doctor kids app cries when a child clicks away from the ad. Okay. Okay.

That's a lot. And you can find entire articles about this back in 2018. Next, the games are not allowed to bait people with limited time purchases. Now, as far as I know, this is not talking about something like limited skins that are up during an event or something like that. Those should be fine. This is more focusing on those flesh sales that happen in some games, where you can see something on sale, but it is only up for you for, for like, like an hour and you quickly have to buy it and no one else can see it.

I'm looking at you, Warcraft Rumble. The problem there is that these sales are specifically up only for the people who are more likely to buy. But then it mentions that there should... Yeah, it's just a selected targeted advertisement. Pretty simple. Be purchases hidden behind. Small purchases.

I'm not exactly sure what kind of a game would do something like that, a star stable online. I assume it is something like, hey, you buy like a small horse, but in order for the small horse to run or something, you have to buy a bit. Big stable later. I don't know. I'm making this up. And lastly, it also mentions that if an influencer is talking about a video game, they should also mention the monetization.

To be fair, this should have been a thing from the very beginning. Back in the day, I've made a Hoyover's video or two. And yes, I still made jokes about the gacha machine. But here's the thing. After reading this, none of this really sounds that bad, right? No, it's good. It's not like any of this. All of this is good, because it's in the best.

interest of the consumer. All of this is like absolutely good. It's great. Actually going to affect any of the big video game corporations, right? Well, that's because this summary is mostly aimed at the European parents, I guess. Yeah, of course. It is supposed

to tell them, hey, we are protecting you and your children. However, should we dive into the other documents that go into more details, we may realize that this also affects someone like Riot Games. See, this is what's good is that as soon as they make the rule for one group, then all of them have to follow it.

And that's the best part about this. Let me tell you, that other document is a whole another beast. One that might actually improve monetizations in gaming. So here, the network's key principles on in-game virtual currencies is an eight-page long document, which is not that big, which is why at the very beginning. They mentioned that this is not an exhaustive list of all the bad things. things companies are doing. So if you start doing something bad now, run. But immediately at the beginning, we have an interesting line. After talking about what virtual currencies are, they

mention this. The CPC network considers in-game virtual currencies as digital representations of real-world monetary value when they serve no purpose other than or for which other functions are secondary to providing for a method of payment, the purchase of digital content or services in video games. We're feeling good, boys. In other words, this is mainly focusing on games that simply have their own V-Bucs or riot points. They have no purpose.

In theory, something like gold in World of Warcraft is fine. Because even though you can buy gold with real money, gold isn't exclusively used to buy things you would have normally just paid real money for. There, gold is part of gameplay. However, a later... No, it's different because... gold is translated directly to money.

So there's a direct correlation and you can buy gold and it tells you what the conversion rate is so it's one to one. The reason why premium currencies are bad is because there is a third thing inside of it. It's like if you needed to buy Blizzard bucks to

buy gold, but you don't use Blizzard bucks, you just use 20 bucks. That's why it's okay and wow. Later, you will see that even this might have to do some things, because at any point, if you pay real money for currencies, there is a funny thing every video game will have to do. And yes, this also relates to stuff like Primo Gems. Because even though Primo gems in Genshin can be earned for free,

the moment you pay for them with real money, stuff will be applied. The more interesting thing for us is that, yes, in some cases, Riot is screwed. And you will see that it's all in benefit of us, the players. Mainly if you hate something like the ancient sparks, you might have a laugh. So next, the document dives into unfair commercial practices. This is my favorite fucking thing, man. This fucking picture, this is the exact shit I've been asking for for actually years. This is the exact fucking thing that I said.

Just put the dollar amount next. This is all I want. Just put the dollar amount next to it. it and I'm happy. That's it. Which includes exploiting cognitive biases. In other words, the games bait you into paying. And here, according to the first principle, whenever a game has premium currencies,

they are allowed to have it. So no, riot points are not going away. But when you are spending it, you also have to show the players the real money value. That is exactly. This is cool. Because if you go to the skins found in league, besides the. the 1350 RP price, they will also have to show you that this is $12. Yeah, all it needs next to it is a little parentheses and showing the local currency. That's all I'm asking for. And I think

this is so fucking reasonable. Anyone with self-control when it comes to buying stuff, this won't do much. But you would be surprised how much people are willing to pay when they don't know how much they are really paying. Next, the document mentions that this price should be shown even when you are converting one currency into another one. Exactly. Specifically, we could mention something like buying mythic essence with riot points, both of which are technically premium currencies, but they will still have to show you theoretically how much one mythic essence is now.

And lastly, the price is shown have to be the base price points. If there are bundles that give you like 30% extra currency, those don't count. We're talking. That's really big. that is crazy big because everything is built around having these bundles and the bonus things and so all this does is it makes it look like the prices are even higher

I love this that should be banned yeah that is amazing about the raw value and yes the document also mentions that earning these currencies through gameplay doesn't count meaning you still have to show the full price regardless of what's really happening with the current So yes, even the glorious Primo gems are getting screwed.

Exactly. Which also includes the situations when you're buying gold in something like wow. Anyway, next, the second principle dives into multiple premium currencies, which might impact Riot too. Because first, it mentions that games should avoid offering for purchase and mixing different in-game virtual currencies in one video game for purchasing in-game digital content or services. This means that if a game has multiple kinds of premium currencies, they have to merge them all into one.

In theory, this means... Thank God. There is no... Like, all of these things, and again, keep in mind, everything with this stuff is designed with the explicit purpose of manipulating you. It is designed in order to fuck you over. Thank God. Mithic essence might be in danger.

And TFT's currency. are getting screwed too. These should all fall under the premium currencies category together with riot points. So in the future, it is possible that you will not be able to buy ancient sparks for riot points. And instead, you just spend your riot points with the real money value as you roll on the Gacha machine.

See, this is what they do, is they try to add in more and more currencies because every point of currency conversion is a point where people lose the reference of how much money they're spending. And so that's the reason why there are so many of these currencies. They're put there intentionally to make you confused. Didn't Lost Ark have 10 different currencies?

There were the purple gems and the brown gems. And the brown ones would be bought with real money. Which might be the biggest one. This might actually change the pricing. Because it mentions that games should avoid offering in-game virtual currencies only in-game virtual currencies only in bundles mismatching the value of purchasable in-game digital content and services. And... Yeah, this is the most annoying fucking thing.

It's like you need to buy something and it's 1,200 points and you can either buy your points in like 500, 1,000 or 2,000. So it's like you're always going to have an amount left over in order to keep you on the hook. Denying customers the possibility to choose the specific. It's so annoying. In game virtual currency to be purchased. Everyone hates this. In other words, you are not allowed to sell bundles that don't match the price of in-game

items, which means you know how in league you go into the store and you have a look at those 1350 RP skins. So then you decide to buy some RP and you realize, oh no, 10 bucks don't give me enough and 20. Dude, this is some rat behavior. So you can either buy 3,100. or you can buy 1,240. But all of the skins, let me go back and see if I can find this.

All of the skins are 1,900, 900, and 1,800. It's ridiculous. It's rap behavior. Yes, it is. It's ridiculous. I think what they should do is they should just allow you to buy it directly. Like, I feel like that would probably solve any of these issues is that any of these items that are in the game

need to be purchasable with the equivalent amount that it would take if you converted the currencies. That's what they really need to do. Yeah, just remember premium currency? Yeah, because, again, it just has no... It adds no value. Oh, no, 10 bucks don't give me enough and 20 bucks give me way too much.

Oh, what a shame. Well now, Riot will just have to sell you the skin for 12 bucks. And that's it. Too bad, bitch. This was the most used predatory practice by far. Oh yeah. And if this is enforced, the players will greatly benefit from this. Anyway, principle four is all about information.

It's just telling you that you're supposed to tell people what you're buying, what it does, what are the features. And surely there aren't any companies. that would be like hiding that kind of information, right? Then principle 5 is all about withdrawal. Funnily enough, this means that you now have the classic 14 days for a refund. But it also mentions that the game can just tell you, hey, if you buy this, there will be no refunds and that's it. Principle 6 is all about...

I feel like you should be able to refund any purchase in a video game within a period of time that's reasonable, like 14 days or 30 days. But if refunding causes your account to get banned, I think that's also reasonable. Using weird words which might scare people. For example, you can't tell people that, hey, if you buy this item, the EU law don't apply. Because that's not how law works. What's interesting is that as part of this, companies are also not allowed to modify the value of the currencies.

Which means they can't legally take away your right points if you get banned. But at the same time, modifying is also giving you RP for free. So maybe they can't give you RP anymore for sending them pictures. So maybe drawings for RP are gone. And lastly, principle 7 is about protecting vulnerable customers. Yeah. Meaning that games shouldn't be designed with the idea of exploiting players for money. This...

Uh-oh. That's like all of them. Could actually change the gaming industry if this worked. Also, when designing monetization, you are not allowed to target specific demographic. This is mostly a gray area because no one can prove that, but I think it's mostly aiming at not advertiserable. for children. Games should also not hide real money purchases behind just normal gameplay purchases. I guess there are games where a game will offer you something in a shop for like gold or something, but then you click it and you buy it for real money. I don't know if it happens. There is a...

That sounds really cheesy. I bet it happens. Separate point just to make sure that you do not advertise to children, damn it. Games should also have a functional parent control if it is a game for kids. And if it is on a console that has something like this, it should use the native system. For example, Switch has its own parent control. And lastly, they should avoid preying on vulnerable customers by making them pay excessive amounts of money. Now, this one might be the most vague line there is. Yeah, it's basically a backdoor for the situations where some companies are doing something really bad, but right now we are not sure what that bad thing might be.

Yeah. Because in theory, Gacha games should fall under... excessive amounts of money. But the thing is that Gacha games have a theoretical cap on how much you want to spend on a game. Because sure, it will cost you like $5,000 to cap off a character in Genshin. But in theory, you don't pay more than that because you already have them maxed out. There are some other games such as... I think that the big problem is like...

It's games that have like uncapped ceilings. I think that's really the biggest issue the most. is games that have like really big uncapped ceilings, and they allow people to just spend a ridiculous amount of money in them. I think that's the big problem. Lost Ark that don't have this. There you pay to upgrade items which only have a chance of upgrading. So theoretically, you can just keep paying more and more.

Oh, boy. I think they later implemented some kind of a cap on how much players can actually spend in the game per day. And yes, in theory, a Genshin... $400 a day, by the way. Also has something like that where you're very reasonable for rolling on like art of course So I think no one yeah you can only spend four hundred dollars a day guys kind of it Overall this is a pretty good move from the EU although it might also be a bit vague

The most important thing here is the bundles everything else is mostly a gray area on purpose Yeah, it is mostly aimed at the games that are really focusing on bankrupting people on purpose and so after was released and after Starstable Online was given one month to remove their predatory practices, will anything change? Absolutely. Absolutely it will. What I think will happen is that these features will be available in Europe, but for the clients that are in American, because you have like, you know, obviously like there's like an N.A.

and EU client, the N.A. clients will not have this, but I could be worried. I could be thinking, oh, well, maybe even they will have to because there could be European users that use NA clients. And if that happens, are they still entitled to the same laws? I think the answer to that is obviously yes. So maybe it will be applied to everything. Well, nope. I am pretty sure nothing will happen until one big corporation gets hit.

Because in theory, there is enough gray area where everyone will, just say, hey, I'm not part of this problem. And so I bet everyone will just sit quietly until someone gets hit. And when that happens, then we might get to see some kind of a change. It may start with EA and their FIFA shenanigans, or it may start with riot games. But the moment the first company falls, everyone will follow. And so finally, as soon as one of them gets caught, that's it, it's over. only 10 years later we might get back to just

buying good old horse armor for $2.50. I don't know about that. Yeah, hopefully, right? I mean, I don't know. I am very happy to see this. I'll tell you guys, like, I mean, as somebody who's been aware of this kind of stuff for a very long time,

and I remember, here's the video, give it a like, it's a NECRIT video. And I totally fucking agree with this. I am so happy to see it. There needs to be a precedent. Yeah, there does need to. to be a precedent. Absolutely there does. And so, yeah, BDO is full of this shit. Yeah, they are. And a lot of games are. And the more that you allow it, the more that it will exist. And I think

that's really the biggest issue is that the more that people are able, are able to do this and get away with it. Give me one second. The more that people are able to do this and get away with it, the more they're going to continue doing it. And so the best thing to do is to, Like put a couple of companies on notice for this and maybe find them a little bit of money. And that way, as soon as the company gets fined the first time, everybody else will immediately roach out and stop, stop doing it. Which is what I'm really, Ubisoft is a good target. Well, the problem is that basically every single games company does this.

The biggest issue that I have, there are two big issues. Number one, it's gambling. So spending money in the game where you buy something that you don't know what you're getting. And number two is when you're buying something with premium currency, and there's all these currency conversion rates that are meant to confuse you so you don't know how much money you're spending. Like those are the two problems and the two really bad things in the games. So yeah, so all gotcha.

Yeah, I feel like gotcha games again. They're predatory. And they actually, I don't even know if the word is predatory. Maybe it's predatory. But they're designed in a way that's consumer unfriendly to an extent that it's damaging and I don't really see any value in allowing it to continue to exist, right? Like, that's it. And also, like, another big reason, and this is what really matters the most, is that the intention of these systems is the explicit goal of misunderstanding and helping

people not understand what they're doing. That's really what the problem is more than anything else. And random loopboxes, in my opinion, I think that you shouldn't be able to have random loopboxes. Or random loopboxes should only be allowed. Like if you have random loop boxes, it automatically categorizes your game as 18 plus. Because like having kids that are going and using gambling mechanics, I feel like that's a bad idea. I'll be right back.