GDPR and Games - kiling F2P?

Games
1

Well, this is interesting:

Though Uber Entertainment are based in the USA, they still need to comply with the GDPR when dealing with EU citizens. The problem, Uber explained to me, was down to SMNC using an old version of their Ubernet platform for its backend.

“The changes needed to allow us to meet the specifications of the GDPR would mean we either need to rewrite large parts of Ubernet or port the game to run on Playfab [a backend platform owned by Microsoft]. We’ve tried to keep the game going as long as we could as it was break even or close to break even on monthly server costs up until now, but both of these options are unfortunately out of range of the budget we have set aside for Super MNC.

I’m thinking (hoping?) that increased Privacy rules may curtail some of the worst abusers… thoughts?

2

I don’t know that you can draw meaningful conclusions from a game that’s been effectively dead for nearly two years:

http://steamcharts.com/app/104700#3m

If anything I’m surprised at how low their server costs must have been if a peak of two dozen players spent enough to break even every month.

The big abusers are raking in enough cash to comply or find ways to skirt the rules (a la Facebook’s relocation from Ireland to the US) and the games/companies that are circling the drain will likely go the way of SMNC.