I think we should hear more about Crowns expiring after 6 months in Japan

wolfie1.0.

ssewallb14_ESO wrote: »

belial5221_ESO wrote: »

ssewallb14_ESO wrote: »

That's interesting. You'd think the law would distinguish between currencies that can be traded for real world goods or currency and those that can't.

Well,any game currency can be exchanged for real world money,how else do you thing gold sellers buy/sell gold/crowns.They need a separate sub for 8-10$ a month without the crowns.Would be useful for countries with those type laws,and might bring in more subbers for craftbag and DLCs.

Crowns can only be exchanged with a single buyer/seller (ZoS), which makes them effectively a token/voucher rather than a currency. If we count illicit exchanges then the law would apply to anything digital that could be physically traded in any way.

Unfortunately, zos and other companies have to rely on legal definitions of what is considered virtual currencies. And Japan apparently defines it differently from US law. This is nothing new. Really what you would have to do is either fight the law in Japanese courts and claim it violates their governing constitution (good luck), get the law changed/ammendment (good luck) or comply. Compliance is the cheapest and easiest part.

The gift card argument is an interesting one from a US perspective, and could reinforce why this will likely not impact us residents. But really it's going to be the politicians and the lawyers that determine that.

Holycannoli

Japan has a law now that virtual currency must expire after 180 days? It's really odd.

Toanis

I guess it's more about responsibilities for issuers of virtual currencies, targeted at the crypto currency market, but worded so vaguely hat it applies to any "long term investment" in virtual currency.

Likely ZOS would need a japanese banking licence and reserve assets to safeguard player "investments".

Cantankerous_Kuma

Holycannoli wrote: »

Japan has a law now that virtual currency must expire after 180 days? It's really odd.

Not exactly. the law doesn't absolutely require them to have an expiration date on crowns, essentially they put the expiration date on crowns so that they would be exempt from numerous additional requirements under the law (ultimately to save money even if only in the form of payments for someone to handle all the extra filings, etc. and costs incurred in some employee's salary to deal with all of that).

The (Japanese) Payment Services Act, which requires that any unused virtual currency balance that equals or exceeds 10 million JPY must be reported to the tax authorities or expire within six months

https://xsolla.com/blog/how-to-grow-your-video-game-in-japan-2021-edition

So basically if crowns don't have a 6 month expiration, they are considered a "currency" ("virtual", but still a currency with real world value like bitcoin, etc.) for tax, legal, reporting, etc. purposes therefore subject to all sorts of controls to prevent tax fraud, money laundering, various criminal activities, etc.

I don't know what the associated costs would be or what level of income they gain from players from Japan, but I imagine someone did the math and figured out it wasn't worth the cost.

The root cause is the law (and it's arguably over-broad language/application), but there are different possible options on how to deal with it.

Cantankerous_Kuma

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Just following up on this. The note for Japan is due to us keeping in accordance with Japanese law regarding virtual currency. This only for Japan and will not impact other territories.

Is this something that is being applied going forward or retroactively?

Like am I going to login and have the crowns I got from my sub this past January all be gone?

Essentially, what is the expiration date for all prexisting crowns people had before this change?

Cantankerous_Kuma

Soarora wrote: »

Cantankerous_Kuma wrote: »

ESO was the exception up until now for some reason, not sure why it is changing now (several years after the relevant law changes)

It might have to do with the situation regarding crown store gifting. Not directly, but I mean that ZOS might be working on catching up with legal things.

Indirectly I think so. Part of the definition of "virtual/electronic currency" in the laws has to do with the ability to transfer the currency to other users, so it's possible that crown gifting is what makes crowns subject to the laws at all.

Which is kind of ironic considering I will probably have to rely on crown gifting more with this change .

Araneae6537

Cantankerous_Kuma wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Just following up on this. The note for Japan is due to us keeping in accordance with Japanese law regarding virtual currency. This only for Japan and will not impact other territories.

Is this something that is being applied going forward or retroactively?

Like am I going to login and have the crowns I got from my sub this past January all be gone?

Essentially, what is the expiration date for all prexisting crowns people had before this change?

There’s a post from Gina about this in the Extended Maintenance thread saying that it is NOT being applied retroactively.

I’m sorry to hear of this change for players in Japan and hope that the law gets changed/clarified!

Cantankerous_Kuma

ssewallb14_ESO wrote: »

That's interesting. You'd think the law would distinguish between currencies that can be traded for real world goods or currency and those that can't.

It does, it's just by the Japanese definition crowns are a currency which can be traded for goods with "real value", if not necessarily for physical goods (not legally within the terms of use at least, but the fact that it is possible for bad actors to misuse them to, for example earn "real world" currency is why they are subject to the law to begin with).

TaSheen

Araneae6537 wrote: »

Cantankerous_Kuma wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Just following up on this. The note for Japan is due to us keeping in accordance with Japanese law regarding virtual currency. This only for Japan and will not impact other territories.

Is this something that is being applied going forward or retroactively?

Like am I going to login and have the crowns I got from my sub this past January all be gone?

Essentially, what is the expiration date for all prexisting crowns people had before this change?

There’s a post from Gina about this in the Extended Maintenance thread saying that it is NOT being applied retroactively.

I’m sorry to hear of this change for players in Japan and hope that the law gets changed/clarified!

Here's the statement from Gina:

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

thejadefalcon wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

dragonlord500 wrote: »

I don't like that is says I have 0 crowns on my account page...I had over 1k after I signed out for bed last night.

Once you get in-game, could you confirm if you have the correct amount? Also, I'm assuming you are not in Japan?

Sorry, by that last point, are you saying that ridiculous change hidden at the bottom of the patch notes for Japanese players applies retroactively?

No, it's not retroactive.

Cantankerous_Kuma

Nebs wrote: »

Honestly, if this is designed to avoid regulations on digital currencies, I feel like players in those regions should have the option to buy crown store goods directly, or at least the big purchases like homes and the like, but I get how that might be a nightmare for the development team to manage.

It would be nice if some sort of system could be implemented to at least mitigate damage to those of us affected, like maybe expiring crowns get converted to crown gems (which are non-transferrable and therefore outside the scope of virtual currencies according to the relevant laws) at some exchange rate decided by ZOS.

But yeah, I don't know how worthwhile that is for ZOS from a business/financial standpoint. Considering the implementation of this change is most likely to avoid additional costs/work in the first place, probably not likely, but it would be nice.

Cantankerous_Kuma

ssewallb14_ESO wrote: »

belial5221_ESO wrote: »

ssewallb14_ESO wrote: »

That's interesting. You'd think the law would distinguish between currencies that can be traded for real world goods or currency and those that can't.

Well,any game currency can be exchanged for real world money,how else do you thing gold sellers buy/sell gold/crowns.They need a separate sub for 8-10$ a month without the crowns.Would be useful for countries with those type laws,and might bring in more subbers for craftbag and DLCs.

Crowns can only be exchanged with a single buyer/seller (ZoS), which makes them effectively a token/voucher rather than a currency. If we count illicit exchanges then the law would apply to anything digital that could be physically traded in any way.

Crowns can be exchanged with other players through crown item gifting, which unfortunately causes them to fall within the definition of "virtual currency" in this case.

I think crown gifting is a net positive for the game and playerbase overall, but unfortunately in this situation there is a (major) downside for those of us in Japan.

Cantankerous_Kuma

Araneae6537 wrote: »

Cantankerous_Kuma wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Just following up on this. The note for Japan is due to us keeping in accordance with Japanese law regarding virtual currency. This only for Japan and will not impact other territories.

Is this something that is being applied going forward or retroactively?

Like am I going to login and have the crowns I got from my sub this past January all be gone?

Essentially, what is the expiration date for all prexisting crowns people had before this change?

There’s a post from Gina about this in the Extended Maintenance thread saying that it is NOT being applied retroactively.

I’m sorry to hear of this change for players in Japan and hope that the law gets changed/clarified!

Thanks for that, I likely would have never seen that post since the maintenance is over at this point so I'd have no reason to back to that thread.

jle30303

This is bad because it means you can't actually *save up* for the stuff that happens to cost more than 6 months' subscription of currency.

Like, for instance, a house that costs 11k+ crowns, but you get 1650 per month, which adds up to 9900 in six months, so you can't save up for *seven* months to buy an 11k house.

TaSheen

jle30303 wrote: »

This is bad because it means you can't actually *save up* for the stuff that happens to cost more than 6 months' subscription of currency.

Like, for instance, a house that costs 11k+ crowns, but you get 1650 per month, which adds up to 9900 in six months, so you can't save up for *seven* months to buy an 11k house.

This is true, but you can't blame ZOS for the legal necessity to follow laws in Japan (or any other country outside the US).

Alinhbo_Tyaka

I was reading a discussion that claimed one of the drivers for the law was one of the larger MMOs having tokens that have real cash value and that can be traded for in game gold and game time. It appears that these tokens were somehow being traded as a way to bypass using real currency for transactions outside the game. This use avoided taxation and financial tracking. I suspect that rather than get into nuances of whether an in-game currency lends itself to use as an out of game currency or not the government decided to make a blanket law for all in-game currencies.

Personally I would be less likely to buy Crowns if they expired since I only buy Crown Store items under specific circumstances.

TempPlayer

I think the law state that if the company hold more than 10,000,000 Japanese yen worth of unredeemed in game currency, they have to deposit half of those at the legal affaire bureau. Just so that if the company suddenly went under, the player can still get half of the unredeemed currency they owned.
The exemption to this law is if the in-game currency has a time limit.
No capitalistic company want to hold any frozen capital, so instead of choosing the customer friendly approach, they just take the easy way out here.

GooGa592

I'll be sure to link this thread to the many Japanese players on my friends list. They probably don't want to be subbing to ESO+ or buying crowns in the future now, not if ZOS is just going to reposes the crowns sooner or later.

Galeriano

There is a law in Japan called "payment sercives act". If You put an expiration date on virtual paid service of 180 days or less and You specify that expiration date than You are excluded from being subjected to that law so basically ZoS can save money in Japan by adding expiration date on crowns. It's pretty common practice that has been done for many years. Bethesda for example does that already for almost 5 years.