Today, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a United States government agency tasked with ensuring that people are treated fairly by banks and financial institutions, proposed a new rule that targets, among other things, video games. In short, the Bureau is hoping to ensure that companies operating games with robust in-game currency marketplaces – think Roblox – actually help players struggling with unintended transactions, hacks, theft, and scams.
The CFPB explained its rationale in a post that it shared with Aftermath, noting that over time, some games have grown to function more and more like banking and payment systems.
“Gamers – or in some cases their parents and guardians – have reported issues such as trouble when converting dollars to in-game currency, unauthorized transactions, account hacks and takeovers, theft, scams, and loss of assets,” the agency wrote. “They have also described receiving limited to no help from gaming companies and the banks or digital wallets involved. Refunds are often denied, people are finding their gaming accounts suspended by the video game company after a player tries to get a refund from their financial institution, or people are left caught in doom loops with AI-powered customer service representatives while they’re just trying to get straight answers.”
To help mitigate these issues, the CFPB is proposing an interpretive rule, meaning one that draws on preexisting laws rather than drawing up new ones. In this case, it aims to clarify that the Electronic Fund Transfer Act – signed into law by Jimmy Carter in 1978 – extends to video game companies, as well as virtual currency wallets and credit card rewards points accounts.
“The proposed interpretive rule clarifies that gaming companies that are subject to the Electronic Fund Transfer Act could violate federal consumer financial law if they fail to address problems gamers have with their accounts,” wrote the CFPB.
The proposed interpretive rule, viewed by Aftermath, further specifies that it’s taking aim at accounts with features that include but are not limited to “paying for goods or services from multiple merchants, [the] ability to withdraw funds or obtain cash, or conducting person-to-person transfers.” This would seem to imply that games like Roblox and Second Life are covered, but a game like Fortnite – which does not allow any of the above – might not be. Fortnite in particular, it’s worth noting, used to do exactly what the CFPB is describing and ban accounts associated with chargebacks under the assumption of fraud, even if, say, the account holder purposefully initiated a chargeback to counteract an unwanted purchase (for example: a kid got their hands on a parent’s credit card and bought a bunch of V-Bucks). Epic has since amended its policy.
The CFPB is seeking to bolster its proposal by collecting “experiences with gaming assets that are stored on their accounts and used for all sorts of transactions within these worlds, including the purchases of goods and services, converting dollars to in-game currency and back, and P2P transfers” as well as anecdotes about “the things that have gone wrong and how [players] have been affected when trying to get help.” So get in there and tell them about that time a person fraudulently obtained your credit card info and used it to buy $100 worth of Fortnite items (or whatever has happened to you).
The comment period runs until the end of March. Ideally, the CFPB will still be around to do something with those comments when the time comes, but it's far from guaranteed. Elon Musk, who incoming president Donald Trump selected to co-lead the newly-created and stupidly-named Department Of Government Efficiency (DOGE), has suggested that the CFPB should be eliminated.
