14 DAY TRIAL // The Office of Fair Trading, a department of the United Kingdom government that protects consumers, is currently investigating the status of free-to-play video games that have children as their primary audience.
The entity will explore whether the games are designed to pressure young consumers into buying more content using real-world money without properly explaining the transactions involved.
The Office of Fair Trading has already written companies that create free-to-play titles and will also conduct its own investigation.
Gamasutra quotes Cavendish Elithorn, the senior director of the Goods and Consumer division at OFT, as saying, “We are concerned that children and their parents could be subject to unfair pressure to purchase when they are playing games they thought were free, but which can actually run up substantial costs.”
Earlier during the year, Apple chose to pay back a parent for the money that a kid unwittingly spent on such a game.