Illegal Advertising

[DeletedUser19458]

Not sure about the laws in Germany, but in Canada where I'm being advertised to, this is illegal. The item is not for sale to begin with, so you cannot offer me a discount on it. Not the first time Inno has done this, doubt it is the last.

 

[ajqtrz]

The laws governing such things are complex and subject to change at any time. Since the item is not offered, the advertisement for a discount on it would be considered a "mistake" rather than something illegal. The reason is that since the item isn't for sale little to no harm can be done to the consumer and, ultimately, in most cases, laws are created to reduce the harm to someone or increase the benefit. Like in sports, "no harm, no foul." Thus, while it may be technically "illegal" nobody's going to bother pushing the matter.

I am curious, though. Why is offering a discount on a product against the law in Canada? Do you know the reasoning behind it?

AJ

 

[edeba]

Very true, they aren't offered for direct sale. Something that I find really interesting is that if you look at say the prince for 100, it is 31.5 diamonds each for RR spells. KP are now 25 diamonds each. I've always thought KP were grossly over priced, to the point that it is insanity to ever purchase them.

Anyway, I bring it up because I can see that if you want to upgrade a building and you need the RR spells, well, I'd spend some diamonds sometimes just to be able to upgrade now. I want to keep my evolving buildings and I like them to be fully upgraded.

Consider an AW level requiring 1150 KP, that's 28570 diamonds for a single level... Those same levels that they've slaughtered with the new tournament design. Anyway, checking out how many diamonds I'd have to buy to do that, well, the closest with enough diamonds is the $199.99 diamonds package for 30000 diamonds, so there'd be 1430 diamonds left over, about 4.8%, so seriously, about $190 for a single AW level based on the current KP pricing.

It is just my thinking, but if you actually want people spending money on KP I would tend to think the price should be around 3 diamonds for a KP. That would be 3450 diamonds for that same level, which is still expensive and to me crazy to spend money like that, but for the say $49.99 diamond package you could purchase 2167 KP and do the better part of 2 levels, depending on the AW level. At the very high AW levels it is like 1 AW level.

 

[edeba]

You can offer a discount on a product for sale in Canada, but you can't present a product that doesn't have a retail price as a sale price. No where in the game can you directly purchase RR spells. You can indirectly purchase them through the MA by buying a blueprint and converting to RR spells. I don't think there is even an option to just buy the number of RR spells you need when upgrading a building. You have to wait for a spell in the MA and buy a blueprint.

The laws governing such things are complex and subject to change at any time. Since the item is not offered, the advertisement for a discount on it would be considered a "mistake" rather than something illegal. The reason is that since the item isn't for sale little to no harm can be done to the consumer and, ultimately, in most cases, laws are created to reduce the harm to someone or increase the benefit. Like in sports, "no harm, no foul." Thus, while it may be technically "illegal" nobody's going to bother pushing the matter.

I am curious, though. Why is offering a discount on a product against the law in Canada? Do you know the reasoning behind it?

AJ

 

[ajqtrz]

You can offer a discount on a product for sale in Canada, but you can't present a product that doesn't have a retail price as a sale price. No where in the game can you directly purchase RR spells. You can indirectly purchase them through the MA by buying a blueprint and converting to RR spells. I don't think there is even an option to just buy the number of RR spells you need when upgrading a building. You have to wait for a spell in the MA and buy a blueprint.

Thanks. Yeah, offering something at a discount but not telling the person what the actual price is before the discount could be construed as an unethical sales technique (often called, "inductive sales."). But of course, that's only if the sale can be completed. Since no sale can be completed the advertisement may be technically illegal, but, like I said, "no harm, no foul" will probably apply. I really doubt Inno is trying this on purpose since they can't collect anything on it. It's probably just a mistake.

AJ

 

[Deborah M]

I do remember they were for sale in the past at crazy high price.

A case I remember in the USA was when Macy's got all kinds of fines for constantly offering % off sales when products were never offered at the price they were stating. I'm pretty sure that My Pillow also got in trouble for "Truth in Advertising" for the same thing. In essence that is the same as what you are saying Canada law is.

 

[DeletedUser19458]

It is part of our consumer protection laws, to prevent advertisers from misleading consumers into thinking they are getting a deal e.g. "10% off!" - so consumer falsely thinks they are getting a deal.

In this case it is just an annoyance of Inno tactics, from my perspective. A disclaimer: Ignoring the "sale" banner, I still spent some diamonds on this

 

[Pheryll]

It appears that they are discounting the price for the exchange of 350 diamonds for 10RR. Looking at the MA crafting recipe this valuation looks reasonable. I have never been out of CC and spell fragments so I cannot view the diamond cost for purchasing the recipe as a whole, but I do know the blueprint portion is 300 diamonds, leaving 50 for the rest and possibly to cover the time of crafting.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

It appears that they are discounting the price for the exchange of 350 diamonds for 10RR. Looking at the MA crafting recipe this valuation looks reasonable. I have never been out of CC and spell fragments so I cannot view the diamond cost for purchasing the recipe as a whole, but I do know the blueprint portion is 300 diamonds, leaving 50 for the rest and possibly to cover the time of crafting.

But when they offered those 3-packs of artifacts last Thanksgiving, it was set up the same way, with a supposed discount price and a percent savings. But artifacts have never been available for diamonds or cash any other time no comparison or a supposed discount.

 

[Ashrem]

Not sure about the laws in Germany, but in Canada where I'm being advertised to, this is illegal. The item is not for sale to begin with, so you cannot offer me a discount on it. Not the first time Inno has done this, doubt it is the last.

That is a misunderstanding of consumer law. Per Subsections 74.01(2) and 74.01(3) of the Competition Act of Canada, something does not even have to sell regularly in Canada, as long as it is frequently offered at that price, to have a retail price and therefore go on sale. When the RR spells are offered in the MA, which is several times a week to every player who has an MA,, they are normally offered at a given price. The advertised price is a discount from the normal price at which they are offered, when they are offered.

either a substantial volume of the product was sold at that price or a higher price, within a reasonable period of time (volume test); or the product was offered for sale, in good faith, for a substantial period of time at that price or a higher price (time test).

 

[Pheryll]

It appears that they are discounting the price for the exchange of 350 diamonds for 10RR. Looking at the MA crafting recipe this valuation looks reasonable. I have never been out of CC and spell fragments so I cannot view the diamond cost for purchasing the recipe as a whole, but I do know the blueprint portion is 300 diamonds, leaving 50 for the rest and possibly to cover the time of crafting.

Let me correct that statement. I do have an old account which I stopped playing before the spell fragment system was added. Loading it up, it appears that recipes requiring CC value each CC at 75 diamonds, and those requiring spell fragments value approximately 5.8 fragments for a diamond.

The cost for 10 RR recipe is 1 blueprint + 3 CC, and for each extra 10 RR found in the 20 and 30 recipes, the increase in cost is 1 blueprint + 2 CC. (The spell fragment cost for the special 30 RR recipe is about the same diamond value as the 7 CC cost for the normal 30 RR recipe). So going by the increment, the lowest cost for 10RR normally is 450 diamonds (300 for blueprint + 150 for 2 CC).

 

[Deleted User - 1178646]

Not sure about the laws in Germany, but in Canada where I'm being advertised to, this is illegal. The item is not for sale to begin with, so you cannot offer me a discount on it. Not the first time Inno has done this, doubt it is the last.

View attachment 8341

There are a few things you need to consider.

• It's a german company, also there is no direct target to canada, therefore there is 0 jurisdiction. It's similar to canadian youtubers who do not have to follow US advertisement laws as they are not based in the US.
• Most items can be replaced for diamonds in game giving these items a value even if you can't just outrigt buy them as in "stocking them up

 

[ajqtrz]

either a substantial volume of the product was sold at that price or a higher price, within a reasonable period of time (volume test); or the product was offered for sale, in good faith, for a substantial period of time at that price or a higher price (time test).

If I understand this correctly, it means you have two tests to determine what the price of the thing of which you offer a discount would be -- the first requiring a "substantial volume being sold" and the second relying upon the price at which it was offered over a "substantial period of time." But it's my understanding from the original poster that the item has never been offered in Canada, or are the other posts claiming that it has been offered in Canada only on a different platform or method (i.e. indirectly paid for in diamonds in crafting?). If they have never offered the direct purchase of RR spells, does that mean, as I suggest above, that there is no actionable error here? "No harm, no foul?" Or does it mean that, since the RR spells are offered by paying in CC and blueprints, which can be, themselves, indirectly purchased through spending diamonds in one way or another, that RR spells have been offered for real $$ (indirectly through a bunch of steps). The valuation of the RR spells would then be set by the forumula suggested by Pheryll (or some such formula) and thus the original poster's point that you can't purchase them in Canada anyway, would be moot. However, one does wonder how the Canadian courts would view the complexity of a several stage computation needed to arrive at the "price" of the thing and if it's in the consumers best interest to allow such indirect sales and the calculations of value needed to understand of what you are getting a 10% discount. And I do think that would be the question the courts would consider. But like I said, I doubt anybody's going to do much about it as the harm is so small that it might not rise to the level of an actionable offense.

AJ

 

[Ashrem]

If I understand this correctly, it means you have two tests to determine what the price of the thing of which you offer a discount would be -- the first requiring a "substantial volume being sold" and the second relying upon the price at which it was offered over a "substantial period of time." But it's my understanding from the original poster that the item has never been offered in Canada, or are the other posts claiming that it has been offered in Canada only on a different platform or method (i.e. indirectly paid for in diamonds in crafting?). If they have never offered the direct purchase of RR spells, does that mean, as I suggest above, that there is no actionable error here? "No harm, no foul?" Or does it mean that, since the RR spells are offered by paying in CC and blueprints, which can be, themselves, indirectly purchased through spending diamonds in one way or another, that RR spells have been offered for real $$ (indirectly through a bunch of steps). The valuation of the RR spells would then be set by the forumula suggested by Pheryll (or some such formula) and thus the original poster's point that you can't purchase them in Canada anyway, would be moot. However, one does wonder how the Canadian courts would view the complexity of a several stage computation needed to arrive at the "price" of the thing and if it's in the consumers best interest to allow such indirect sales and the calculations of value needed to understand of what you are getting a 10% discount. And I do think that would be the question the courts would consider. But like I said, I doubt anybody's going to do much about it as the harm is so small that it might not rise to the level of an actionable offense.

AJ

You are correct that the relevant Canadian agency applies two tests to whether a sale price is valid.

I don't have sufficient information about how Consumer and Corporate Affairs (or the courts)would interpret sales from a foreign seller to Canadians. I can say that despite people claiming it's never been offered in Canada, I think that would probably be interpreted as false. Players who register an account from a Canadian IP address are not offered the option of buying diamonds in Euros or U.S. dollars, regardless of the server they are on. We are required to buy diamonds in Canadian Dollars (at, by the way, a price which is higher than the exchange rate for either of those currencies), and as such I anticipate (but do not know) that Canadian courts would consider those items to have been offered in Canada to Canadians.