Consumer Rights Wiki - User contributions [en]

Tekken 8 retroactively introducing micro transactions

2025-08-28T00:42:13Z

MaxRussel: Minor grammar and rewording.

Micro transactions and a battle pass were added to the game Tekken 8 a month after its release. This was not disclosed or hinted at prior to the game's release or in the game’s first few weeks.

==Background==
[[Tekken 8]] is a video game released on January 26, 2024, by [[Bandai Namco Entertainment]] for the [[Sony]] Playstation 5, [[Microsoft]] Xbox Series X/S and PC via [[Steam]]. Upon its release, the game contained no micro transactions. The only in-game purchases were downloadable content (DLC) packs. The absence of micro transactions was indicated by the game’s Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) rating lacking the necessary label.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20231017075002/https://www.esrb.org/ratings/39605/tekkentm-8/ TEKKEN™ 8 - ESRB - web.archive.org, October 17, 2023]</ref><ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20240126054125/https://www.playstation.com/en-us/games/tekken-8/ Tekken 8 - PS5 Games | PlayStation (US) - web.archive.org, January 26, 2024]</ref><ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20240203111112/https://www.xbox.com/en-us/games/store/tekken-8/9PPSM14VKCLW Buy TEKKEN 8 | Xbox - web.archive.org, February 3, 2024]</ref>

==Introduction of micro transactions==
With the update to version Ver.1.02.01 on February 29, 2024, a feature called "TEKKEN SHOP" was introduced.<ref>[https://www.bandainamcoent.com/news/tekken-8-patch-notes-v1-02-01 TEKKEN 8 Patch Notes v1.02.01 | Official Site]</ref> This feature is an in-game shop where cosmetic items for characters and consumables can be acquired. Besides some free items, the majority of items cost "TEKKEN COINS," a premium currency introduced alongside the "TEKKEN SHOP". Because of this update, the game’s ESRB rating had to be updated to include the "In-Game Purchases" label.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20240222041526/https://www.esrb.org/ratings/39605/tekkentm-8/ TEKKEN™ 8 - ESRB - web.archive.org, February 22, 2024]</ref><ref name=":0">[https://web.archive.org/web/20240302152902/https://www.playstation.com/en-us/games/tekken-8/ Tekken 8 - PS5 Games | PlayStation (US) - web.archive.org, March 2, 2024]</ref><ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20240228223711/https://www.xbox.com/en-US/games/store/tekken-8/9PPSM14VKCLW Buy TEKKEN 8 | Xbox - web.archive.org, February 28, 2024]</ref>

The pricing for "TEKKEN COINS" is as follows:

* $2.99 for 300 "TEKKEN COINS"
* $4.99 for 500 "TEKKEN COINS"
* $9.99 for 1050 "TEKKEN COINS"
* $19.99 for 2120 "TEKKEN COINS"
* $29.99 for 3210 "TEKKEN COINS"
* $49.99 for 5500 "TEKKEN COINS"

Items in the "TEKKEN SHOP" are grouped in three categories:

* "Party Effects"
* "Avatar Items"
* "Character Items"

"Party Effects" are consumable fireworks the player can launch in the "Tekken Fight Lounge". The "Tekken Fight Lounge" is a game mode where players can create their own avatar and interact with other players in a closed area. Single colored fireworks can be purchased for 50 "TEKKEN COINS" for 10 usages while 10 usages of rainbow colored fireworks can be purchased for 100 "TEKKEN COINS".

"Avatar Items" are cosmetic items the player can equip to their "Tekken Fight Lounge" avatar. These packs can be purchased for 300 and 400 "TEKKEN COINS"

"Character Items" are cosmetic items the player can equip to their characters. These packs cost 400 "TEKKEN COINS" each.

There are also "Collaboration Packs" which cost 500 "TEKKEN COINS"

The conversion of real-world money into "TEKKEN COINS" is necessary to purchase items. They cannot be bought with money directly. Many items are priced at 400 "TEKKEN COINS" which is 100 "TEKKEN COINS" more than the cheapest option and 100 "TEKKEN COINS" less than the second cheapest. This leads to the player needing to purchase more "TEKKEN COINS" then they actually need for one such item pack. This is a common tactic used by many game publishers to push players to spend more money, as they will have premium currency left over after purchasing the desired item, which then makes the player more likely to purchase premium currency again.

On top of that, with the update to version Ver.1.03.01 on April 1, 2024, a feature called "TEKKEN FIGHT PASS" was introduced to the game.<ref>[https://www.bandainamcoent.com/news/tekken-8-patch-notes-v1-03-01 TEKKEN 8 Patch Notes v1.03.01 | Official Site]</ref> The "TEKKEN FIGHT PASS" is a battle pass system which gives the player a set amount of time to progress through the battle pass tiers, unlocking new rewards on the way. If the player is not able to complete the battle pass in the set amount of time, the rewards will not be able to be earned at a later point in time, unless the game developer makes those rewards available again. A battle pass is inherently an abuse of the [[Fear of missing out]] (FOMO) [[dark pattern]]. The rewards include cosmetic items for characters and player avatars, "TEKKEN COINS,” and other items. The "TEKKEN FIGHT PASS" has a free version alongside a premium version which costs 600 "TEKKEN COINS" or 2000 "TEKKEN COINS" with the benefit of skipping 20 tiers. Again, the price is just slightly higher than the amount of "TEKKEN COINS" the closest pack gives the player. The premium version of the "TEKKEN FIGHT PASS" includes more items and 600 "TEKKEN COINS" on top of the free rewards. The free version did not offer any "TEKKEN COINS" in its first run. Starting from the second pass, the free version offers 100 "TEKKEN COINS" as a level reward.<ref>[https://tekken.fandom.com/wiki/Tekken_Fight_Pass Tekken Fight Pass | Tekken Wiki | Fandom]</ref>

===Bandai Namco Entertainment's response===

Bandai Namco Entertainment has not given an official response to the criticism. However, TEKKEN Project Chief Director Katsuhiro Harada has stated on multiple occasions that this choice was made to combat the increasing game development costs.<ref>[https://x.com/Harada_TEKKEN/status/1760182225143009473 <nowiki>Katsuhiro Harada on X: "@Daturaf4 @AH_alhumaidi Development costs are now 10 times more expensive [...]</nowiki>]</ref>

==Consumer response==

While many players are fine with those additions, many other players have criticized Bandai Namco Entertainment's decision to add micro transactions to a game priced at $69.99 without extra content, or $109.99 for the "Ultimate Edition"<ref name=":0" />.

Another point of criticism is the addition of micro transactions a month after the game's release in order to, allegedly, gain a lot of positive reviews in the initial review phase. Supporting this allegation is the update of the game's ESRB rating and not hinting at an addition of micro transactions in any way.

==References==
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Tekken 8]]

Adobe

2025-08-28T00:35:20Z

MaxRussel: Added additional information, grammar fixes and improved wording.

{{InfoboxCompany
| Name = Adobe
| Type = Public
| Founded = 1982
| Industry = Software
| Official Website = https://adobe.com/
| Logo = Adobe.png
}}

[[wikipedia:Adobe_Inc.|'''Adobe''']] is a software company based in San Jose, California, specializing in software for creative uses such as photo and video editing, animation, and illustration.

==Consumer impact summary==
Adobe has switched from a perpetual license model to a subscription model (Creative Cloud).

Adobe has also been accused of using user information to train artificial intelligence; mandatory cloud syncing in applications such as Adobe Fresco and Adobe Scan, without a choice to opt out and without end-to-end encryption; monitoring the reading behavior of users within eBooks; and employing [[Dark pattern|dark patterns]] to re-enable, when an application is updated, features which a user has disabled.

Besides that, Adobe has undergone multiple data breaches which have exposed millions of users' personal and payment information.

==Incidents==

===Transition to subscription based software===
{{Hatnote|Read More: [[Adobe Lightroom: Perpetual to Subscription Transition]], [[Adobe Subscription]], [[Adobe CS Activation]] and
[[Adobe Sued by FTC Over Hidden Fees in Subscription Plans]]
}}

Adobe initially distributed their software with perpetual licenses, where the user would pay only once for the ownership and access to a copy of an application (or, through Adobe's Creative Suite, a collection of applications). In 2011, Adobe introduced Creative Cloud, a service which allowed users to access an individual application or multiple applications for a monthly or yearly fee. In 2013, Adobe announced it would discontinue Creative Suite.

As of today, the only way to legally access up-to-date versions of many of Adobe’s applications is through Creative Cloud. Moreover, many of the activation servers for perpetual licenses of prior versions of these applications have been shut down, meaning that even with a legitimate copy of the software and a serial number, the software cannot be activated.

Creative Cloud offers monthly (with options to be billed either monthly or annually) or prepaid annual plans, as well as plans for individual applications and bundles containing multiple applications. These subscriptions can cost, for many of the individual applications, $22.99/month or $263.88 prepaid annually, and for Creative Cloud Pro (which includes 22 applications and some additional extras including 100gb of cloud storage), $69.99/month or $779.88 prepaid annually.

For annually billed monthly subscriptions, there is also a cancellation fee after 14 days which charges the user 50% of the remaining balance of the contract (e.g., if the user cancels within the 7th month of an annually billed monthly subscription, the user will still have to pay 50% of the fee for the remaining 5 months, which, in the case of a $69.99 plan, for instance, would cost the user $174.98). As for prepaid annual plans, they offer no refund or cancelation whatsoever after 14 days.

===Alleged use of user data for AI training===
{{Hatnote|Read more: [[Adobe's AI policy]] and [[Adobe Firefly]]}}

===User documents forced into the cloud with no opt-out===
Some of Adobe's iPad applications, including, but not limited to, the digital painting application Adobe Fresco and the document scanning application Adobe Scan, require an account to access and do not offer any option to opt out of syncing all documents created in these applications with Adobe's cloud servers. Similarly, the new non-Classic versions of Lightroom are fundamentally built around uploading all images to Adobe's cloud.

There is no end-to-end encryption, i.e., Adobe has full access to all of these files. Disabling internet access makes it possible to work offline, but any files created in the affected apps immediately sync to the cloud in the background as soon as the device is connected to a network again.

As an American company, Adobe is subject to the United States Cloud Act, which requires all US companies to grant the US government access to any user data even if stored on servers outside their jurisdiction and comply with requests to help with spy operations upon request.

===Spying on users' eBook reading activities===
In 2014, it was revealed that Adobe Digital Editions, Adobe’s e-book reading application, reported extensive information about users' reading habits back to Adobe. This included several unique identifiers; which e-books were added to the application; when which one was opened, and for how long; percentage read; and page navigation information.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Gallagher |first=Sean |date=8 Oct 2014 |title=Adobe’s e-book reader sends your reading logs back to Adobe—in plain text |url=https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/10/adobes-e-book-reader-sends-your-reading-logs-back-to-adobe-in-plain-text/ |url-status=live |access-date=16 Mar 2025 |website=[[ArsTechnica]]}}</ref>

Moreover, all of this information was transmitted completely unencrypted in plain text. This meant that even someone who was on the same public Wi-Fi would have been able track their reading activities in realtime, entirely undetected.

===Disrespect for user choices===
Adobe uses a [[dark pattern]] where settings which a user has disabled are re-enabled during or after each update. The same choice is presented with the desired setting as a default many times in the hope that the user will either give up or accidentally forget to uncheck the option.

For instance, this happed with the option to automatically install updates in the Adobe Flash installer. The same dark pattern is currently used in the Adobe Creative Cloud Desktop application, which presents the same option on each update and requires the user to disable it manually every single time if they do not wish to relinquish control to Adobe over when updates happen.

Whether this is to be attributed to stupidity or malice is debatable, as for instance Adobe Lightroom Classic also has a habit of resetting the language to the system language after every update instead of what was manually chosen in preferences, and the Windows version of Adobe Illustrator had, for a very long time, required the user to manually maximize the application window and re-enable the document rulers after each startup until the issue was finally addressed when the application was moved to a different GUI framework.

===User information leaks and data breaches===
In 2013, credit card information and personal data of 38 million users was exposed in a data breach.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Patel |first=Maaz |date=26 Mar 2023 |title=The Adobe Attack of 2013: A Cautionary Tale of Cybersecurity Failure |url=https://medium.com/@maazptl240602/the-adobe-attack-of-2013-a-cautionary-tale-of-cybersecurity-failure-1ef4ec74eb64 |url-status=live |access-date=16 Mar 2025 |website=[[Medium]]}}</ref>

In 2019, Adobe left about 7.5 million Creative Cloud customer records in a database publicly accessible online in gross negligence. The database was not even protected with a password.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Cimpanu |first=Catalin |date=26 Oct 2019 |title=Adobe left 7.5 million Creative Cloud user records exposed online |url=https://www.zdnet.com/article/adobe-left-7-5-million-creative-cloud-user-records-exposed-online/ |url-status=live |access-date=16 Mar 2025 |website=[ZDNet]}}</ref>

==Products==

*Creative Cloud (20xx):
*Photoshop (199x):
*[[Adobe Lightroom: Perpetual to Subscription Transition|Lightroom]] (200x):
*[[Adobe Digital Editions' ebook DRM|Digital Editions]] (20xx):

==References==
<references />
*{{cite web |author=((Wikipedia contributors)) |date=2025-02-03 |title=Adobe Inc. |url=https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Adobe_Inc.&oldid=1273676016 |access-date=2025-02-06 |website=Wikipedia}}
*{{cite web |last=Rossmann |first=Louis |title=Adobe roofies all of their customers |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXxMCm941WA |date=2024-06-07 |website=YouTube |access-date=2025-01-15}}

[[Category:Adobe]]