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. For spending money one requires banking/card information. How children will get their guardian's banking details without their consent?

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

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.

DOB, yes.....Fake, but yes.

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. And each time you progress to the next "level", the cost (and time needed to pay it) increases exponentially.

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.