Oral evidence: Immersive and addictive technologies, HC 1846
Oral evidence, 19 June 2019.
Witnesses
Shaun Campbell, Kerry Hopkins, Canon Pence and Matthew Weissinger.
Chair
Good afternoon. Welcome to this evidence session for our inquiry into addictive and immersive technologies. We are grateful to the representatives from Epic Games and Electronic Arts for joining us, particularly those who have travelled from the United States to be here this afternoon. We are grateful for your time and for your commitment to the evidence session. I will start by directing some questions at Epic Games regarding Fortnite, a game you make that is a global phenomenon. I am sure you are familiar with the remarks that Prince Harry made about Fortnite—it is pretty unprecedented for a member of the royal family to talk about a commercial organisation, particularly in a critical way. He believes that the game should not be played. He even said: “It's created to addict, an addiction to keep you in front of a computer for as long as possible. It’s so irresponsible.” What response would you give to Prince Harry on the concerns he has expressed about Fortnite?
Canon Pence
We were quite taken aback by that at Epic. We were rather surprised because in our view the statements that were made couldn’t be further from the truth, our intentions, our design philosophy and our multi-decade approach to developing a long-term, healthy and sustainable relationship with our audience. It has always been our effort and intent to create a fun, fair, flexible, engaging and generous form of interactive entertainment for our audience. I feel that a statement that suggests that there is some sort of nefarious attempt to extract short-term profit is a real mischaracterisation.
Chair
That’s interesting. You clearly think that he got it wrong. Do you think that what he said came from a lack of understanding?
Canon Pence
I do.
Chair
But you will be familiar with the number of press reports of people complaining about the amount of money that they spend, or are encouraged to spend, playing Fortnite, and particularly the amount of money that younger people spend. Do you recognise that for some players there is a real issue with the amount that they are spending playing the game?
Matthew Weissinger
We have a number of parental controls in place, even within the game, for purchasing habits. A parent can go in, enter PIN information and control a number of features related to how someone plays the game. Within that parental control system, we outline the various systems that people can use to control payments. If that is an issue, they can lock down those features so that payments cannot be processed.
Chair
Earlier this month, there was a story in the British press about a six-year-old who was using his uncle’s PlayStation account to play Fortnite. He spent £1,600 in a single day. These stories are not isolated. What do you do in such cases? Do you offer refunds to people? Do you accept the fact that someone maybe lost control of the account, and that money was spent that should not have been spent?
Matthew Weissinger
I am not familiar with the report. The idea that you could spend £1,600 in a day sounds—I am not sure that you can actually spend that much in Fortnite—
Chair
I have the report here from the newspaper. I don’t know if you want to put in a complaint to the press standards body if you feel that the story is not true.
Matthew Weissinger
I can check, but that amount in a single day does not seem correct. Beyond that, we have a player support system that we invest in heavily. It is global, and in these types of situations people can enter in a ticket through the game or a website. We have, basically, a protocol in place to handle these kinds of things and fraud situations. Anyone can access that and submit a report. We address those as we receive them.
Chair
In this particular case, the £1,600 in a day was spent in 15 separate transactions. Should not features be built in that either require some additional verification of the purchaser or challenge someone before they spend what seems to be an excessive amount of money on playing a game in a single day?
Matthew Weissinger
I refer back to my comments on payment control systems that we reference in-game. You can go into parental controls, where we clearly and explicitly list the ways that you can control or disable payments from within Fortnite.
Chair
So it is down to the user, as far as you are concerned—it is the user’s responsibility to make sure that those settings are in place.
Matthew Weissinger
I would say that we provide tools to allow players to make those decisions for themselves.
Chair
Do you think that it is responsible that someone could make that level of purchase anyway? Is it responsible to design a game where someone can spend that amount of money in a single day without challenge, and then say, “You should have set the settings differently if you didn’t want to do that”?
Matthew Weissinger
I think that that is a little bit of a mischaracterisation of how we have actually built the game. Canon mentioned a little about that. We are not interested in maximising some sort of very short-sighted and short-term profit from our players. Instead, we want to have a very open and honest relationship that is built to last for years. The only way to do that is in a sustainable way. That involves us being generous with our offers and being as transparent as possible about what people are purchasing when they make purchasing decisions in the game—those are just a couple of the ways.
Chair
But when something goes wrong—for example, if you have an account like that, where someone has spent £1,600 in a day, which is out of character for the playing pattern of the account owner—can someone come back to you and say, “Look, this is what happened. I didn’t authorise this; it wasn’t my intention. A child did it.”?
Matthew Weissinger
Yes.
Chair
There have been lots of complaints about that relating to Fortnite. So they can have the money back?
Matthew Weissinger
Yes. I was not aware of the specific report, but any player can submit those types of complaints or concerns through our player support system. We have family fraud rules in place for just those types of situations.
Chair
So you would refund the money in that case?
Matthew Weissinger
Yes.
Canon Pence
If they can show us that their child has done that transaction and it was not authorised, yes. Our intention is to be generous in those cases.
Chair
How would they demonstrate that?
Canon Pence
I do not oversee the player support system, but I know that we receive that kind of request regularly. On very rare occasions, some of those are escalated to higher levels of support, or even up to legal. My understanding is that that is a really small percentage of those cases and that the vast majority are addressed in the first instance.
Chair
How would someone demonstrate that their child made the purchases and not them?
Canon Pence
I think you could show the ownership of the credit card that was used to—
Chair
Yes, but in this case the card has been registered to the game. A child has gone in and played the game using the settings that are there, and has spent an adult’s money without supervision. In a case like that, how does the card owner demonstrate that it was not them who made the purchases, but someone else using their card?
Matthew Weissinger
In that particular case, they would obviously have a history with a significant number of transactions in a very short amount of time. That would basically be the information that we would look for to issue a refund.
Canon Pence
I would presume that the card and the account would have different owners. In that case, it would be a parent’s name and a child’s name, which would further support the complaint. I acknowledge that in theory it would be possible to try to take advantage of our system by claiming a family fraud case where actually there was none, but our intention is to be generous when those claims arise.
Chair
Do you have a cap on how much money people can spend in a day, a week or a month of play?
Matthew Weissinger
Yes.
Chair
What is it?
Matthew Weissinger
It depends on the game mode and the particular day. People are limited in Fortnite Battle Royale to purchasing the battle pass or purchasing an item in our daily cosmetic item shop. On a given day in the item shop, we will have maybe 10 items available, which range anywhere from $2 to $20 each. The battle pass itself costs $9.50.
Chair
What you are saying is that there is not necessarily a cap on spend, but a limited number of things that you can buy in a single day?
Matthew Weissinger
Correct.
Chair
So that would be about $210?
Matthew Weissinger
If you were to purchase a battle pass, plus upgrading that battle pass and all of the items in an item shop on a given day, you could probably spend around $200, but again, that is the extreme situation of purchasing a battle pass plus fully upgrading it. Once you have committed to that one-time transaction, you are then limited to what is in the item shop on a given day.
Canon Pence
You can’t re-buy the battle pass.
Chair
What is the average monthly revenue per player for Battle Royale?
Matthew Weissinger
Unfortunately, as a private company, we consider that competitive information that in general we have not shared and do not feel comfortable sharing.
Chair
You have given us an idea of what you think the maximum amount someone could spend on it is. What would you consider to be a regular player of the game? How often would they play?
Matthew Weissinger
How often would somebody play in a given month?
Chair
Yes.
Matthew Weissinger
Honestly, it really depends on the player. The way the game has been built, it is able to be played in bitesize consumable increments. Each game session itself lasts about 20 minutes, and everything from the way our battle pass is created to the actual 20-minute duration of a match is meant to be consumable for when you have free time. There is no extended period of grind or need to play the game continuously for hours or something like that in order to unlock something. Any progression, challenge or reward for something like the battle pass, for example, can be completed over the course of 10 weeks. That was actually a change that we built into the game based on player feedback. The original version of the battle pass would require that within a given week—I shouldn’t say “require”, but within a given week there would be challenges that are available that would allow you to more quickly unlock additional cosmetics. Based on player feedback, we actually made it so that these weekly challenges could be completed over the course of the entire 10-week season, so that again players can complete these challenges in their own free time. Again, those challenges are purely optional, and the battle pass itself is purely optional. In Fortnite, there is no actual gating of any gameplay or gameplay mode. There is no competitive advantage that you get from purchasing any items within Battle Royale. Going back to your original question, that makes it a little bit difficult to say how many times somebody plays within a month, but with weekly challenges a typical gameplay experience would have somebody jumping in multiple times a week in order to progress and unlock items.
Chair
You mentioned 20 minutes per game. That is the game time for an individual Battle Royale game, is it?
Matthew Weissinger
Yes. It can be really short.
Chair
If you are knocked out early, it could be really short.
Matthew Weissinger
If you are like me, you are out in a few minutes.
Chair
But in a session, how many games will people play? Will people play games back to back?
Matthew Weissinger
Again, it depends on the player, and it is a wide range. At this point, the game is so broad in its appeal and its adoption that it is hard to characterise that.
Chair
I imagine that as a company you probably split your game players into different categories, don’t you? There are those who are registered but barely play, those who play frequently, and those who play frequently and purchase frequently. I imagine that you have different categories of players that you analyse, haven’t you?
Matthew Weissinger
If we were to analyse them, it is probably in terms of players who have left the game for some amount of time and players who are already frequently playing. We do try to create various events within the game to pull people back in, and we do this through what we think are just exciting, amazing, entertaining experiences that you cannot find anywhere else.
Chair
To pull people back in, you would email them or message them on Facebook and try to create a hook for them to come back and play.
Matthew Weissinger
It depends. Something like our Marshmello concert was entirely organic. We had an in-game concert that took place in February, and we actually did not promote it on social. The way we promoted it was that we actually had a construction crew within the game start assembling a stage over the course of three days. You then saw some concert posters appear in the game, and Marshmello himself then went and updated his tour page, putting up that he was going to be playing in Pleasant Park inside the game. We then basically had the concert play out from within the game, at something like 2 pm or 3 pm eastern time. There were no social posts or emails promoting that.
Chair
That’s great for that one, but I am sure that that is not the only way you do it, is it? You will have social posts giving people a reason to come back.
Matthew Weissinger
That’s true.
Chair
You probably make some sort of offer or give some sort of incentive for people to come back and play. Has that ever happened?
Matthew Weissinger
Honestly, events like that are what bring people back into the game. It is not some sort of—
Chair
I am just asking; it’s nothing to be ashamed of. The answer to the question appears to be yes, and that would have been a perfectly adequate answer. However, you said that the company probably categorises players by whether they are frequent or lapsed. How do you define a frequent player?
Matthew Weissinger
Somebody who has played within the last two weeks, or 30 days, depending on the metric you are looking at.
Chair
Played any time at all?
Matthew Weissinger
Correct.
Chair
Among frequent players, what do you think the average amount of play time would be within a two-week period?
Matthew Weissinger
It is hard to characterise. I am not sure how to even—
Chair
You have just characterised them. You are saying that someone who has played within two weeks is considered a frequent player, and I imagine that there are grades within that, too. Typically, how often does a frequent player play?
Matthew Weissinger
Again, I am not sure frequency is a term that we would use. If somebody—
Chair
I am just quoting the term back to you; it is the term that you used.
Matthew Weissinger
We look at whether somebody has played in the last two weeks or 30 days. I am not aware of any efforts on our side to ensure that somebody, for some short duration, is spending an extended period of time in the game. That is just not how we build the game.
Chair
That is not what I asked you. I asked, if someone is a frequent player, how often would they play? Would they play 10 hours a month? Would they play more than that? What would you consider to be normal usage for someone who is regarded as a frequent player?
Matthew Weissinger
Again, I am having difficulty pinning down a single period of time that could qualify as frequent.
Chair
I appreciate that—within the last few minutes, “frequent” has gone from two weeks to 30 days, by your own definition. You said that the company would categorise people, and that one way it does that is to look at frequent play. I will ask you again: in terms of hours played for a frequent player, what is considered normal for Fortnite? If you consider someone to be a frequent player, what would you consider to be a normal amount of time that they would play?
Matthew Weissinger
A normal amount of time for someone? We have daily and weekly challenges. It would be normal for some players to jump in every day to complete the daily challenges. Other players might only have free time available on the weekend and would jump in and perhaps play for a longer duration, to pick up all their weekly challenges. Some people might have an extended break of a week—a holiday from school or an end-of-term session—where they might play for an even greater duration. Again, defining who is a frequent player is difficult.
Chair
What I struggle with is that this is a game that makes money out of people playing it—it is a hugely successful game played by millions of people around the world—so this sort of basic information, as we know from the other games companies that we have spoken to, will be gathered and analysed all the time. I do not believe that you do not know this information. To me, it arouses suspicion that this is not something that we can discuss, because obviously for our inquiry this is fairly basic information. We do not need to know your corporate secrets, but we want to get a sense of a normal or a frequent player’s engagement with the game and the amount of time they will typically play. Of course it will vary, but I am sure that you have an idea of the answers to those questions.
Canon Pence
I am confident that Epic has the means to track and understand the finer points of player engagement. Neither of us are in the data analytics department, which would oversee that kind of effort. More to the point here, we would consider a very fine and specific point like that to be commercially sensitive. As a side note, I disagree with the statement that Epic makes money from people playing the games. The Battle Royale mode is free to play, so people playing it—
Chair
You are not a charity, are you? You’re not creating free-to-play games for the joy of it; you make money out of it. There’s nothing wrong with being a commercial entity, but let’s not beat around the bush—you make money out of people playing the game. You can challenge that if you like, but that is the reality of the situation.
Canon Pence
Sure. We would not have a viable business if no one played and spent money in it, but I wanted to be careful with language about the notion that playing—
Chair
That’s why you are the general counsel. That’s your job, isn’t it?
Canon Pence
It is, yes.
Chair
Matthew, you are head of marketing, so presumably you have marketing targets when you initiate your campaign for people who have stopped being frequent players. You must have metrics for what you expect the return rate to be, and presumably you have targets as head of marketing. It is your job to encourage people to play the game more, visit the game’s site more often and enjoy the benefits that are on offer and that can be purchased.
Matthew Weissinger
Yes. I’m afraid—what is the question?
Chair
To me, that would encompass what the head of marketing does. To go back to the question I asked earlier, you wouldn’t give a figure for the amount that people spend, but would you be able to tell us what you would expect to be the number of purchases that someone might make as a frequent player?
Matthew Weissinger
Again, I think we would consider that commercially sensitive information. It is very competitive in the free-to-play space and this type of information typically is not shared.
Jo Stevens
Kerry and Shaun, perhaps I can ask you some questions and then turn to the Epic people. Your business is based on creating engaging games—obviously you want people to play them. When you design the games, what thought is given to the psychological wellbeing of the people who will play them? Do you give that any thought in the design?
Shaun Campbell
It is a primary concern in the sense that we design our games certainly to be engaging, but also fun to play, to give that deep, broad and rich playing experience. But ultimately it is about players enjoying our games, and they have a number of different motivations. Why do players play games? It can be about achievement, competition, competitive relief, just having fun, or relieving stress and just being able to get away from things, but ultimately it has to be a good experience for players.
Jo Stevens
Do you do anything around working out what impact the games might have on psychological wellbeing when you develop them? Do you employ behavioural psychologists? Do you have any psychological input into the design of the games?
Shaun Campbell
I am not aware of any of us working with psychologists when we look at the design of the games.
Jo Stevens
Kerry?
Kerry Hopkins
We don’t work with psychologists, no.
Jo Stevens
Okay. What sort of player behaviours visible in people who play your games, such as the length of time they play for, the number of games they play each day or the amount of money they spend, would trigger any concern about player wellbeing?
Shaun Campbell
I guess it goes back to your first question. We want players to take a healthy and balanced approach to playing games, just like anything else.
Jo Stevens
What is healthy and balanced—how would you define that? What is unhealthy and unbalanced?
Shaun Campbell
I think it will vary depending on the individual and the reason why they are playing. We talk about balance, but what does that mean? It is different things to different individuals. For me personally, it is playing for half an hour to an hour. My motivation as a casual gamer is just for fun. Some players, such as FIFA and FIFA Ultimate Team players, are competitive and want to continue to improve. For players who want to go into a career in e-sports, that is what they do: they practise and love spending time playing the game. It is difficult to characterise what excessive is. Ultimately, it is what feels out of balance for the individual.
Jo Stevens
What is the longest recorded play time on FIFA, for example?
Kerry Hopkins
We don’t actually record play time. The FIFA game has a number of different modes. Each of the modes is built to be enjoyed differently. When we look at how players are playing, similarly to Epic, we look at whether they have come into the game recently. We look at something called session days. To be clear, the data we are able to gather through our game when people are playing shows that they have connected to the game. We can collect things like number of matches played, but we don’t actually collect data that shows that there has been ongoing input. For instance, I would know that you came into the game today and played four matches, but I not whether you left the game open on your system or how long you were actually playing for. What we can tell you is that the average number of session days for a user of our FIFA game is about 50. That means that they have played 50 times over the year.
Jo Stevens
What else do you record, in terms of player data?
Kerry Hopkins
Basically, our telemetry data collects information on how features are used, how often they are used and whether users are facing frustration in the features. We have a data analytics team, who collect this data and work to analyse it. Their main focus is looking at how to make a game that people will enjoy playing. One of the big questions that they ask is how hard a game should be, to make sure that we are appealing to the broadest group of players possible. People do like to play in different ways. Some people play a lot; some people play for a short time. These are really smart people, who can do amazing things. They have a visualisation tool that allows them to collect the data on the usage of a game and put it into a web visualiser, so that they can see, during certain features of the game, what is happening for everybody who has been playing. For instance, you might be familiar with our Battlefield game, which is a war game. People go to different maps of the game to play, and we had one map where folks just kept failing in the game. We were able to use the data we collected from the game to visualise what was happening. We found that a lot of people kept going down this one road in the map, clogging it up and failing. Through that data, we were able to say, “Let’s change the look of that. Let’s add some trees to this road. Let’s make some changes so that we don’t have thousands of players going down this road and failing at this mode.”
Jo Stevens
Can I just go back to the FIFA game? I have a particular interest in it, because I have two sons and they both play a lot of FIFA. I asked you a question about the longest play time that you had recorded, but you do not measure that. Going back to what you said originally about health and wellbeing, if you cannot measure excessive play, in terms of length of time on your games, how are you addressing the health and wellbeing of your players?
Kerry Hopkins
Even if we could measure it, I don’t think we could tell from the amount of time somebody plays whether they are playing in a healthy way or not. There are players who play quite a bit and live normal, happy lives; gaming is what they do. There are other players who like to jump in and out of the games, pretty much like any sport or activity. Some people probably think I spend too much time reading books. I know that my partner spends too much time playing pool, but he spends that time playing pool because that is what he enjoys doing and he gets very good at it. It is really not something that we could look at and say, “Well this person played too many hours and therefore it is unhealthy.” Consumers have to have choice, and they have to have a right to privacy. We think that is very important. We agree that children are special, and we have a responsibility to create tools and inform parents about those tools, to make sure that they can make the right choices for their children. We think that as an industry we do a very good job of that.
Jo Stevens
You mentioned e-sports earlier. If I want to be a professional FIFA player on your game, how does that happen? How do you find out that I’m the person who should be in your e-sports team?
Shaun Campbell
Talking about FIFA, we have global competitive gaming, as we call it, the global FIFA eSports series. It is open to all players and is skill-based in terms of being able to qualify and move through that series and tournament. Importantly, it is open to every player. You will start at the lowest level, competing locally in a weekend league. By winning you are able to progress through the tournament. For us, it is very much about wanting to celebrate and recognise the best players in the world, and those players want to be recognised. They are motivated to compete.
Jo Stevens
If I enter the tournament and end up winning it, how long will I have spent playing that game to win it?
Shaun Campbell
Again, that is difficult to characterise.
Jo Stevens
Why?
Shaun Campbell
Moving through the tournament, if you look at the structure of it, it will run over a year. So, it will go from a local to a regional to a global series just playing the tournament.
Jo Stevens
You don’t have or keep data on the winner of your tournament, how long they have spent on the game in order to win the tournament?
Shaun Campbell
No. It goes back to what my colleague Kerry talked about. In terms of what our telemetry system is measuring, it is looking at session days, when players are opening and playing that game on a particular day.
Jo Stevens
Would somebody in your company be able to identify the 100 biggest customers that you have?
Shaun Campbell
Customers, in terms of?
Jo Stevens
Players.
Kerry Hopkins
In terms of what? Spend or play time or number of matches?
Jo Stevens
Play time or spend or both.
Kerry Hopkins
I don’t believe with play time we would because, as I said, we don’t measure play time that way. We would have data on how many matches people played. FIFA is a number of different modes. It could be that somebody has the highest number of matches in one mode and somebody else has a different number in a different mode. I don’t know that if you combined them all that it would necessarily be equivalent.
Jo Stevens
What about spend? Would you be able to identify your 100 biggest spenders?
Kerry Hopkins
We do have spend data.
Jo Stevens
What do you use that for?
Kerry Hopkins
What do we use it for?
Jo Stevens
If you collect it, it must be for a purpose.
Kerry Hopkins
Sure. Customer service is the biggest thing. For instance, in the same way that Epic has a global customer support group, we do. If you spend money with us or have made purchases from us, we want to have the data on those purchases so that we can assist you. That is probably the No. 1 reason. I think any business has to have records on commerce.
Jo Stevens
What would you be assisting me with?
Kerry Hopkins
It could be anything. If you would like to know with people, the most regular calls we have are around questions about banning. You may know that with our FIFA game, you are not allowed to sell your coins, items or anything outside the game. I would say the largest number of consumer questions on FIFA, at least those that get escalated to me, relate to people who have been banned for violating those rules. So, those records are very important to us in helping to understand whether someone has complied with the rules.
Jo Stevens
How many people a year do you ban on average?
Kerry Hopkins
Oh gosh, a lot!
Jo Stevens
What’s a lot? Hundreds? Thousands?
Kerry Hopkins
Thousands.
Jo Stevens
Right. Can I turn to you, gentlemen, please? Going back to my original question about whether you have any psychology input into the design of your games, do you have any people who do that?
Canon Pence
We don’t employ any psychologists.
Jo Stevens
Do you think you should?
Canon Pence
I don’t think we need to. I think we’ve done all right.
Jo Stevens
How have you reached that decision that you don’t think you need to? What is the thought process behind that?
Canon Pence
I guess we would have to have a purpose in mind for hiring that kind of person. My guess as to the underlying import of the question is that we might hire people whose sole job it is to understand the mental state of the end user, so that we might get better at delivering game content to them.
Jo Stevens
Or somebody who is going to help you to design a game that will have the hooks that you want to pull people in to play it. Lots of industries do employ behavioural psychologists, so I’m interested as to why you don’t.
Canon Pence
That’s true. As I think I started this session by saying, it’s a deep component of Epic corporate philosophy that, just as an across-the-board design approach, we are looking to have something that feels fair and generous. We are always trying to stand out in the industry by giving the end user an experience that they view as really generous, and that has proven to us to be naturally consistent with a satisfied player base, so we don’t feel that we have a huge problem or need for—
Jo Stevens
Do you employ monetisation specialists?
Matthew Weissinger
We do not have anybody in the company who is a monetisation specialist. What we do have are people who, for example, would be in charge of curating our item shop. Just like with any shop, they are in charge of figuring out what items to feature on a given day, which ones maybe haven’t been seen in a while. They would focus on just literally stocking that shop.
Jo Stevens
As a company, have you done any research into what might be harmful levels of engagement with your games, particularly Fortnite?
Matthew Weissinger
Harmful levels of engagement?
Jo Stevens
Have you done any research?
Canon Pence
I don’t believe—at least from my point of view, consistent with what Kerry said earlier, we think it’s difficult to have a categorical understanding of what healthy engagement is. That varies from person to person and it varies from time to time, even, on a person-by-person basis. Instead—
Jo Stevens
But have you done any research into engagement and length of engagement?
Canon Pence
Research, to me, implies a—
Jo Stevens
It’s a simple question: do you do research into the length of time people play the games?
Canon Pence
We have not commissioned scientists to go and study it, no. Have we spent time thinking about it? Sure.
Jo Stevens
Thank you. Can I ask the same question of you, Kerry?
Kerry Hopkins
Not that I’m aware of, but again, we do obviously spend time thinking about how we can make our games more engaging.
Jo Stevens
Okay, but you’re not aware of any research specifically into harmful levels of engagement.
Kerry Hopkins
No, I’m not.
Ian C. Lucas
Mr Weissinger, in August 2018, it was reported that Fortnite had 78.3 million players. Do you have knowledge of the age profile of the people who play the game?
Matthew Weissinger
No. We do not collect any age information from our players. We only collect information that is necessary to run the game as a service, and age information is not required to create and produce Fortnite.
Ian C. Lucas
But there are restrictions on age for access to certain aspects of the game. Is that right?
Matthew Weissinger
On certain age aspects—
Ian C. Lucas
I don’t know whether your counsel might be able to help you on that.
Matthew Weissinger
I mean, we—
Ian C. Lucas
Do you know about the Pan European Game Information system?
Matthew Weissinger
Oh, PEGI—yes, of course.
Ian C. Lucas
That’s to do with ages.
Matthew Weissinger
Yes. We comply. Basically, in any region where we operate the game, we comply through any governing or overseeing authorities that provide age ratings. We submit information to those, and for PEGI we are rated 12+.
Ian C. Lucas
How do you comply if you don’t know the age of the players?
Matthew Weissinger
There are parental controls in place whereby you can control access to new games and the content you can have access to. By virtue of us supporting and participating in these programmes, we control access to the game. Separately, though, we have as well parental controls that people can opt into to restrict access.
Ian C. Lucas
So if I start to play Fortnite, do I start to play it without you making any inquiry about my age?
Matthew Weissinger
Yes, that is correct.
Ian C. Lucas
So there is no age verification at all to start with?
Matthew Weissinger
No. We don’t collect that information.
Ian C. Lucas
So I can gain access to Fortnite at any age?
Canon Pence
There is a distinction between delivery mechanisms—we call them platforms. If you are on a PlayStation, you create a PlayStation account and the monetisation and everything goes through Sony in that case. They are not directly engaging with us in that case. It is the same with Apple or Nintendo.
Ian C. Lucas
Can I start to play Fortnite without your knowing my age?
Canon Pence
In the case of Sony, for example, if you just have a PlayStation account and you access Fortnite through the PlayStation store, unless you have an Epic account separately, independent of that, and link it with the PlayStation account, we know very little about you as a PlayStation account holder.
Matthew Weissinger
But controls can be set up on these systems to restrict access to those game types.
Ian C. Lucas
You have said a lot about parental controls. You seem to be shifting responsibility on to the parents in your answers.
Matthew Weissinger
No, instead I would characterise it as our providing and supporting tools that allow players to make decisions. We provide information and such.
Ian C. Lucas
My concern is that some of the people who are making decisions in the way that you characterise are children. Is it right that there will be children playing without parents getting involved? That is quite possible, isn’t it, from what you and your colleague have just described?
Matthew Weissinger
For a game as mass and broad as Fortnite, there may be players who access systems where controls have not been set up.
Canon Pence
At least from my point of view, it is important to note that—in our view, and I think this is generally understood—the broad appeal of Fortnite is in part due to its being a content that is intentionally designed to be safe and comfortable in a living-room environment. The nature of the game itself is one that, in my view, should not put it into the same category for discussion as traditionally violent or realistic action games.
Ian C. Lucas
Okay. Do you have age verification systems, Kerry and Shaun?
Kerry Hopkins
I think I can help to clarify some of what Epic were explaining. Most of our games are enjoyed on consoles, and in the UK in particular, the PlayStation is incredibly popular. In order for a player to play any of our games online, they must first have a PlayStation account. You cannot make a PlayStation account if you are under 18. A parent has to create an account and then create a sub-account for a child. By the time the player comes to our game, they have already gone through the Sony system, the parent has created a sub-account if they are under 18 and the parent has been informed that they can set parental controls to make decisions about the content: do they want their child to be limited to PEGI 15+, or PEGI 3+? They can make choices about gameplay, amount of time played and purchases. One of the things we do as publishers is to ensure that our games are compatible with the PlayStation and Microsoft systems so that, when the parents have set those child accounts and have made the choices in those systems for their child, we respect them, and what they get in our games follows what they set in the console.
Ian C. Lucas
So Sony is responsible for the age verification?
Kerry Hopkins
Sony creates the accounts initially, so by the time a player comes to us, an account has been created for them. In some cases, we also create EA accounts, so we are doing a second check of the birth date. Not everybody does that. The point I was trying to make—
Ian C. Lucas
So you do have an age verification system?
Kerry Hopkins
We collect date of birth from our players.
Ian C. Lucas
So you ask them how old they are?
Kerry Hopkins
We ask them for their date of birth.
Ian C. Lucas
When they sign up?
Kerry Hopkins
When they sign up for an EA account.
Ian C. Lucas
Okay. For what reason do you do that?
Kerry Hopkins
We do that, in great part, so we can service them.
Ian C. Lucas
Is that to sell them stuff?
Kerry Hopkins
It is all the things I talked about before. It is customer service. It is also because we comply with data protection laws; it is important to us to know who we are dealing with, to make sure that we are compliant with data protection laws. It is to ensure that we can give our customers a personalised service, which is very important to us.
Ian C. Lucas
Mr Pence, why doesn’t Epic do that with Fortnite?
Canon Pence
As Matt said earlier, it is our intention to collect the minimal amount of player data that we need in order to provide the goods and services requested by that player. If you have a player coming in through Sony, all their account data and information goes through Sony, and the purchases go through Sony. We really just see that “PlayStation player No. 10,000” is engaging with Fortnite in that way. If you have an Epic account, we need less about you if you are just a free-to-play player and are not paying any money than if you were buying something in the store. At a high level, it is our view that we intend to collect the minimal amount. We don’t believe, in terms of servicing Epic accounts, that we need age in order to deliver what has been requested by the account holder.
Ian C. Lucas
So you do not think it is necessary to comply with data regulation and laws by establishing the age of the people who play your game?
Canon Pence
We don’t.
Ian C. Lucas
To be fair to all the witnesses, we have heard evidence from other social media companies that there is a really difficult issue concerning age verification. We understand that. For the industry as a whole, it would be good if we could come up with an age verification system. That is one theme that has come through in the evidence that we have received. However, I am surprised that you have given that answer, Mr Pence, because I think it is important to know the age of players. What is your response to the concept of the duty of care in the UK Government’s online harms White Paper? The idea is that platforms and social media businesses have a duty of care to the people who use the platforms.
Kerry Hopkins
We think the online harms White Paper is important, and I will staying over tomorrow to meet DCMS to talk about it further. Our view is that there is more work to be done on it. It is important to make sure that we are able to protect our players, particularly young children. We think the White Paper is a great start, but the online world is very big and not all mediums are the same. For instance, some questions asked of us games companies are different from what might be asked of social media companies. We are different products. In social media companies, some of the worries might be that kids are on there sharing photos and videos and lots of personal information. That is not really true of games, because the communications for games tend to be quite restricted and about furthering gameplay. Videos or things like that are not typically shared. When there is creativity, it tends to be part of what we call the sandbox of the game. Our view is that there is more work to be done, because a one-size-fits-all solution may not work for every company. We are really grateful to be invited by the Department to participate and to talk about what more we can do, including on this really difficult problem of age verification. I agree that there is that tension between age verification and data protection, and whether we should collect more data to verify an age, because then we have collected people’s personal data. It is a tough question, and we are happy to work with Government to explore solutions.
Ian C. Lucas
Do you agree that you have a duty of care to the people who use your game or games?
Kerry Hopkins
I would say, as a lawyer, that that is a bit of a loaded question. Are you asking me if—
Ian C. Lucas
I am a lawyer, too.
Kerry Hopkins
No, I get it. Right now, the online harms White Paper is a White Paper. If you are asking me if we have a duty of care under law, I can say that there is not a law yet. I do think we have a duty to our game players, and we take that responsibility very seriously, but legally, I do not feel like this is the place to discuss whether there is a legal requirement. That is why we are participating in the consultation.
Ian C. Lucas
We are the House of Commons; this is exactly the place to discuss the issue. The reason there is a White Paper, which is a consultation document, is that we are asking people’s opinion about what the law should be. We have an obligation to the people whom we represent to put in place laws that protect, for example, children. I agree that, at the moment, there is no duty of care, but there is a proposal from the Government that there should be. What I am asking you is whether you think there should be.
Kerry Hopkins
I think the White Paper is a good starting point, and it may be that we get to a place where—again, not a one-size-fits-all approach—there are additional legal obligations for companies. I do not believe the White Paper is there yet.
Ian C. Lucas
Thank you. Mr Pence, do you think your company should have a duty of care to your users?
Canon Pence
My views echo Kerry’s.
Ian C. Lucas
I thought they might.
Canon Pence
To me—forgive me for being a lawyer—
Ian C. Lucas
I forgive you; I am, too. That is why I am asking you the question. Mr Weissinger is glad that you are doing it.
Matthew Weissinger
I appreciate that.
Canon Pence
It feels like far too broad a question: “Should there be a duty of care?” Well, what would that duty imply? There could be extreme versions of that where I think everyone in the room would say, “Well, obviously not”, and then there are already existing obligations that are not really up for discussion, because they are already in place. I think the question is, “Ought there be something between existing law and regulation and some extreme version of walking into someone’s house every night and asking them how they are doing?”
Ian C. Lucas
But you just told me that you did not think you needed to comply with the legal obligations that are currently in place and are imposed by the Information Commissioner.
Canon Pence
I very strongly disagree with that characterisation.
Ian C. Lucas
Well, the record is there. To my mind, that is exactly what you said.
Simon Hart
There seems to be quite a lot of stuff that you do not measure as part of your offer. One of the things you mentioned along the way has been the value of parental controls, which Ian Lucas questioned you about a little bit further. Do you measure the effectiveness and the usage of those? Do you know how many parents actually apply them and how effective they are among your players?
Matthew Weissinger
I do not have that information with me at this time.
Simon Hart
But does it exist?
Matthew Weissinger
Yes.
Simon Hart
Can you let us have it?
Matthew Weissinger
I can discuss and see if that is something we can provide.
Simon Hart
But you do not have even a rough recollection of what it might reveal.
Matthew Weissinger
I’m sorry, not off the top of my head.
Simon Hart
Do you measure in any way the mental health impact of screen time on any category of your players, young or old?
Matthew Weissinger
Not that I am aware of in terms of screen time, other than going back again to our general design philosophy of trying to make a game that is available in consumable pieces that people can play when they have available free time.
Simon Hart
I think you answered an earlier question by saying that you do not measure the spending patterns, either. Do you have any matrix by which you are able to define individual spending pattern according to any kind of age group or—
Matthew Weissinger
No.
Simon Hart
You do not do that, either. That must be quite difficult from a marketing point of view. Finally on that, as a consequence of this, you don’t measure—I am not trying to put words in your mouth—what the mental health impact on your players might or might not be?
Matthew Weissinger
No, but, separately, part of the success of Fortnite is listening to our community, listening to feedback and iterating. I can certainly say from a marketing and publishing standpoint that one of our most significant staffing investments is around community. We are such a big game that, when our community does not like something, it is pretty loud. We like to take—
Simon Hart
The problem isn’t that; it is whether your community likes it too much. I am talking about an addiction to it, not an aversion to it. Do you measure that? Earlier on, I got the impression that you did not completely accept that there might be a mental health consequence for some of your customers. Do you accept that there might be?
Matthew Weissinger
We do not think our game is addictive.
Simon Hart
It is interesting. If you just google “addicted to Fortnite”, there are pages of individual case studies and references to addiction. The first thing that comes up is, “Parents Guide to Fortnite Addiction”. The first article that comes up is, “Parents losing battle with Fortnite as children forced into rehab for video game addiction”, which is in the UK as well as the US. Are they all wrong? Are they making this up?
Matthew Weissinger
I think the use of “addiction” unfortunately masks the passion that our players have and the joy that they get from playing our game. Personally, I think it is a mischaracterisation of a term like “addiction”, which is typically—
Simon Hart
It is not me on this Committee saying that; the World Health Organisation classifies video game addiction as a disease. The WHO does not reference Fortnite precisely, but it references video game addiction as real, and therefore worthy of classification. Just listening to the evidence this afternoon, there are an awful lot of things that you do not appear to think necessary to measure, which seems odd, given your moral obligations as well as your financial ambitions. There is a wealth of evidence—some of which we have heard in this Committee and some of which we can read online at any time—that challenges your assertion that it is actually a whole load of nice people having a good time. I am not suggesting that it is not a whole load of people having a good time, but I am suggesting that there is evidence out there that suggests that, among certain categories of your players, there is at least a risk of addictive tendencies. That surely warrants an investment of some of your time and energy to measure the precise effect, or, indeed, to demonstrate that you may be right and that there is no case to answer. However, all we seem to hear is that there is nothing to see here. You do not think it is necessary to measure it. You do not accept that it exists, and you do not want to spend any money trying to find out if it does. Is that a good place to be?
Matthew Weissinger
I do not think how you have characterised that is true. We actually provide monitoring from within the game. A parent can actually enter in an email address and receive a weekly play usage report from—
Simon Hart
But you can’t even tell me whether that system works. You said you didn’t have the information off the top of your head and that you would have to come back to us at another time.
Matthew Weissinger
I know that it works.
Simon Hart
That seems to me to be the most important information that this Committee is likely to ask for.
Matthew Weissinger
I know that it works. I was not sure of the participation rate that you referenced.
Simon Hart
What about the other suggestions, particularly in terms of mental health impacts among young people? Is there not a moral obligation to simply satisfy yourself as to the extent of the evidence behind that?
Matthew Weissinger
Again, that is why I refer back to our company philosophy of maintaining a healthy community that is built for the long term.
Simon Hart
But how are you doing that? That is my point. I am simply asking what steps you are taking to measure that.
Matthew Weissinger
By making a game that is easily consumable in chunks—small bites—that you can play in your own free time and that does not force you into any significant short-term investment that might be detrimental to the player. We are a free game so, if anything, we are kind of upheld to a higher standard when it comes to the relationship that we have with our players. They have paid nothing to enter the game and we basically have to build the trust of the player in order to have them continue to play our game and not go elsewhere.
Simon Hart
Other witnesses we have spoken to have talked about inserting measures into their games that require you to log off and take a rest period, to avoid prolonged periods of screen time. Why don’t you do that?
Matthew Weissinger
I believe our preference is to provide the tools for players. Parents can monitor play time through things like our weekly play usage report and then take advantage of some of these parental controls around screen time, access and purchasing access, in order to make decisions based on how they would like either their child or somebody else who they share an account with to play the game.
Canon Pence
And it is a different situation from a classic MMORPG style, where inherent in the design is some sort of multi-hour campaign mode. The nature of the Battle Royale game is, automatically, one to 20 minutes, so it automatically forces the player out of the action; that is a natural part of it.
Simon Hart
One last question, in two parts. First, do you believe that there is a legitimate concern that your game, in certain circumstances, is addictive to both young players and older players? Or do you refute the claims that I have read to you just now?
Canon Pence
I know that it is highly compelling and engaging and people get really excited about it.
Simon Hart
They get very concerned about it.
Canon Pence
Like most things in the world, there is a way to have an unhealthy level of engagement, like even exercise. I am sure that there are people who have an unhealthy level of engagement there. I wouldn’t presume to say that a person who feels like someone they care about spends too much time in Fortnite is wrong; I would have to see that on a case-by-case basis. But no, I wouldn’t say they are wrong about what they state.
Simon Hart
Therefore, are you satisfied that Fortnite does not have any mental health consequences for any of your players, in any age category?
Canon Pence
As a company, we really care about our player base, so we care about our relationship with them and we care about our reputation as a company. That is not a thing that we just do in isolation; we listen to our audience and we listen to the public, and we think about it and try and iterate and innovate, and continue to develop our games and process. It’s a thing that we’re happy and willing to have ongoing dialogue about. We don’t have a static position on that, exactly. I do think it’s unfair to ask a game company that has a very limited relationship—a pretty clearly defined limited relationship—with an end user to comment on the mental health of an individual player. That ought to be the domain of a medical professional.
Simon Hart
But if you were launching a physical product—a toy for a child—you would be required, by law, to ensure that there were no physical or emotional consequences. You would be required by law. That would be your responsibility, not some medic down the line. So what’s different about your product?
Canon Pence
I don’t oversee the development of physical toys, so I wouldn’t be able to know the extent to which we would have an obligation to the emotional health of the buyers of those toys.
Chair
Mr Pence, do you accept the World Health Organisation’s definition of gaming disorder?
Canon Pence
I understand that that has happened. I am not an expert on that process. We participate in industry organisations which have taken issue with the manner and process that that has gone through. I also understand that there is plenty of debate over whether that process was proper. I wish I knew a lot more about it.
Chair
So you think they are wrong. You think that the World Health Organisation has a flawed process and has come out with a flawed result.
Canon Pence
I am not in a position to speak with much knowledge on that.
Chair
I find it incredible that as the general counsel of your company, you are not in a position to speak about it. I find that extraordinary.
Canon Pence
Okay, but we rely on our trade organisations to do that.
Chair
But you shouldn’t—you should have responsibility for your own company and your own customers. That is not what the trade body is there for. They may lobby for you, but you are the one who has responsibility. These are your users and this is your company.
Canon Pence
I think that is a little unfair.
Chair
Well, I don’t. The World Health Organisation defined a gaming disorder as “impaired control over gaming…and continuation or escalation of gaming despite the occurrence of negative consequences.” It is an addiction, in the sense that it is something that people feel compelled to do even though it is hurting them. That is the definition. I am not aware of the World Health Organisation defining excessive reading or excessive exercise as a form of addiction in the same way. It seems to me that you can disregard what the World Health Organisation has said—that seems to be your position. Going back to what other Members were asking about duty of care, would it not be responsible of a company to consider the guidance given by the World Health Organisation, and therefore consider whether it has a duty of care to its users and whether some of them may fall into this definition of being victims of a gaming disorder? Do you think that would be the action of a responsible company?
Canon Pence
To clarify my earlier comment, my understanding of the World Health Organisation findings and process is that its audience is the global medical industry, rather than individual companies. In a broader sense, I think good companies will care about their customers. In the abstract sense, if we are talking about a non-legal sense, yes, I think we should care.
Chair
How does your company care about the potential for your users to be suffering from a gaming disorder?
Canon Pence
In the ways that Matt and I talked about earlier, from a design philosophy approach—
Chair
Sorry—your design philosophy is about improving the play of the game. I have not heard anyone say anything other than that the design process is about making the game more enjoyable for users and designing a game that they want to play. That is a perfectly legitimate thing for a games company to want to do. I have not heard anyone so far say anything about that context of looking at the gameplay in terms of duty of care.
Canon Pence
My answer to that is that we as a company always try to resist the temptation to maximise short-term benefit. In my view, that is where the cases in which players are most likely to develop—
Chair
We are drifting back to the gameplay experience. You are talking about designing the game in a way that encourages people to play it and doesn’t put people off playing. What I am talking about is a duty of care—which, as you said earlier, a responsible company would exercise—to identify players who may potentially suffer from a gaming disorder, because they are playing the game excessively in a way that is not part of their enjoyment but has become a compulsion that they cannot control. I have not heard anything to suggest that your company believes that that is something that you have a responsibility to monitor.
Canon Pence
I think I understand better what you mean now. “I think this person is probably playing too much”—is that what you mean?
Chair
Yes.
Canon Pence
That is a difficult one, because I don’t know how to define “too much”, for reasons that we talked about earlier. How much is too much for following football matches?
Chair
Yes, but following football matches or reading books is not a disorder under the World Health Organisation—gaming is.
Canon Pence
I do not think it is fair to say that gaming is a disorder under the World Health Organisation.
Chair
That is what it says. It has classified it as such.
Canon Pence
It is not my understanding that it has classified gaming as a disorder.
Chair
Ukie, the trade body, which has representatives sitting behind you, has said that the industry should pause to reflect and consider what the World Health Organisation has said. It sounds as though you have paused, considered, reflected and disregarded what it has said. The answer to the question is very simple: you don’t do it. Despite the fact that the company obviously generates weekly player usage reports so that it can send them to parents who request them—so the company obviously gathers data about gameplay and players—you don’t believe you have any obligation at all to identify what might be excessive amounts of gameplay that might fall under the categorisation that the World Health Organisation has given to gaming disorder. Ultimately, there is no intervention that the company would make against somebody who appears to be playing for increasingly excessive periods. It is just not data that you gather and use in that way—well, you gather it, you just don’t use it in that way.
Canon Pence
Our current approach is to resist designing a game that encourages people to play it or engage in it in an unhealthy way, to provide tools and reporting for parents to—
Chair
Yes, but what if they are doing it anyway? That is the point, isn’t it? If the drinks industry said, “We don’t encourage people to become alcoholics,” nevertheless, some people do, and there is a whole raft of duty of care practices that the drinks companies have adopted to try to protect vulnerable consumers, even though most consumers consume responsibly. I don’t see any evidence of your doing something similar.
Canon Pence
That is fair. We do not currently have a mechanism in place that automatically sets limits on that. That is fair.
Chair
I did not mention setting limits. Clearly, from what you have said in answer to other questions, the company gathers data about usage, so it would be quite easy to identify people who were playing over a set amount of time. It is interesting to us, because there are a lot of reports. My colleague Simon Hart read things out from a quick Google search. We have quoted newspaper articles, I have quoted what Prince Harry thought and what the WHO thinks, and your response to all of it is that, basically, all these people are wrong and you are right, there is not a problem and you are so confident that there is not a problem that you do not even monitor it.
Canon Pence
I believe I said I would not presume to say that any of those people are wrong.
Chair
The record will show that what you said about what Prince Harry said at the beginning was pretty close to saying you thought he was wrong.
Canon Pence
That is fair. I was referring to Mr Hart’s reference to self-reported family problems or concerns. I would not presume to say that those were wrong.
Chair
If I were a parent who was concerned about my child’s use of Fortnite, listening to your testimony would not give me any encouragement at all that this was an issue you cared about.
Canon Pence
I think we do care about it, and I would actively encourage those concerned parents to use the tools and measures that we have in place.
Chair
So it is the parents’ responsibility, not yours? You do not have responsibility—it is up to the parents to set the controls?
Canon Pence
I do not think it is our primary responsibility to determine how much individual players should play Fortnite.
Chair
I go back to the questions about the online harms and the concept of duty of care; this is one area where we may all end up disagreeing, in that we think that major platforms making large amounts of money from millions of people should have some sort of duty of care for the way people use their product.
Brendan O'Hara
You may not have a legal duty of care, but I think you would agree that a company such as yourselves should have a code of ethics. We have heard a lot of evidence in this Committee from Dr David Zendle, among others, that loot boxes are closely linked to problem gambling, particularly among adolescents. Can I ask both companies: do you consider loot boxes to be an ethical feature of your games?
Kerry Hopkins
First, we do not call them loot boxes.
Brendan O'Hara
Whatever term you wish to apply to them, do you consider them ethical?
Kerry Hopkins
That is what we look at as surprise mechanics. It is important to look at this. If you go to—I don’t know what your version of Target is—a store that sells a lot of toys and you do a search for surprise toys, you will find that this is something people enjoy. They enjoy surprises. It is something that has been part of toys for years, whether it is Kinder eggs or Hatchimals or LOL Surprise!. We think the way we have implemented those kinds of mechanics—and FIFA, of course, is our big one, our FIFA Ultimate Team and our packs—is quite ethical and quite fun; it is enjoyable to people. We agree with the UK Gambling Commission, the Australian gambling commission and many other gambling commissions that they are not gambling, and we also disagree that there is evidence that shows it leads to gambling. Instead, we think it is like many other products that people enjoy in a very healthy way. They like the element of surprise.
Brendan O'Hara
Just to be absolutely clear, you have no ethical qualms whatsoever about your loot boxes or surprise mechanics.
Kerry Hopkins
I think you are re-characterising my language. What I said is that I think the way we have implemented our FIFA Ultimate Team packs is ethical.
Brendan O'Hara
Other than FIFA, are you equally comfortable and relaxed about the other games that you provide?
Kerry Hopkins
For all of the games we have on the market that have a randomised content mechanic—a surprise mechanic, a loot box—I have no qualms that they are implemented in an unethical way.
Brendan O'Hara
Lut let me follow up on that. The Netherlands and Belgium have classified these surprise mechanics as gambling, haven’t they?
Kerry Hopkins
Belgium and the Netherlands have taken a different view from every other gambling commission in the world.
Brendan O'Hara
Why would two of our European neighbours take that view?
Kerry Hopkins
They have different gambling laws. I am not sure how familiar you are with their views, but their views as to why these mechanics violate their laws are different. They are not the same view; they both have a very different interpretation, and they have a different law. They decided—the regulator, not the courts, decided—that under their local law, these mechanics violate the law under certain circumstances.
Brendan O'Hara
Was it violating the law because a player was able to cash out in-game items for real-world value? Is that right?
Kerry Hopkins
Would you like me to get into the interpretation? The Belgians, no, that was not their view. Their view was that any loot box mechanic, any randomised content mechanic, if you paid for it, automatically violated the law. It did not matter if there was external game sale. The Dutch take a very different view: they say both paid and unpaid loot box mechanics violate the law, but only if they can be traded. There, what you are seeing is regulators making an interpretation under the local law that is quite different from what every other regulator in the European federation of gambling regulators has decided.
Chair
Just for the record on this, you said they had different interpretations. Both regulators have interpreted loot boxes as being games of chance in the context of FIFA 18.
Kerry Hopkins
They did, but for different reasons under different laws.