Developers across Europe and Japan are taking steps to regulate spending within games, with studios bringing in caps to prevent children splashing large amounts of their parents' cash in play.
That's according to a report on Siliconera, which claims the drive is being led by Tecmo Koei. The studio has unveiled a new policy that restricts the amount minors can spend within its social titles per month.
You shall not spend
The new policy, which will be in place by the end of the year, will prevent children who are 15 or younger spending any more then 5,000 yen (around $50) per month.
Similarly, players aged 16 to 19 will be capped at 20,000 yen ($200) per month.
"[We aim to] Offer services that minors can use without having to cause any worries," explained the publisher.
In a similar move, Japanese developer GungHo Online is to roll out a similar measure according to a screenshot that surfaced on Tumblr recently.
The screenshot shows an in-game notification from the Japanese version of mega-hit Puzzle & Dragons. It details a similar payment cap to the one Tecmo Koei is implementing, again based on age.
Puzzle & Dragons
Despite these restrictions, however, it appears that there's no standardised way to stop minors simply lying about their age before embarking on a wallet-destroying spending spree. Studios are, instead, working on their own solutions.
Adopting a somewhat different approach, UK developer Big Bit has also opened up to Eurogamer about its decision to limit in app spending in The Snowman and The Snowdog to £20.
Big Bit's cap means that once a player hits the £20 limit in the game, everything automatically unlocks and players are unable to spend any more money.
Playing fair
The company explained that it wanted to ensure the game doesn't break any of the rules put in place by the UK's Office of Fair Trading, which has recently looked to bring the industry to order.
Speaking about the future of microtransactions, Big Bit CEO Nick Baynes claimed more and more developers will start capping spending in the coming months and years.
"I think we'll see a lot more of this in F2P games and in-game transactions over the coming months, which can only be a good thing for players," Baynes concluded.
