Only tangentially related but FOMO features in games are red flags for me now, it's just not what I want my gaming time to be centered around. And it took me forever to really grasp the payment systems around live games and get to this point (and understand where my limit is), so I can imagine it's pretty hard for parent's who aren't into gaming to understand how these systems work.
"Absent meaningful government intervention, you should assume a lot of these games will be as exploitative as possible until someone legally tells them to stop."
My job is teaching videogames, so many people were shocked to find out that my own kids had much stronger limitations than their friends on which games they could play. My biggest concern with them is having them be old enough and to have had the opportunity to discuss the tactics that games try to employ to make them want to purchase skins and other in-game items. Having heard my rants about tv/radio gambling ads (relatively new to Canada and an absolute scourge), they are quite opposed to the tactics used on vulnerable people in that space, but I fear despite my best efforts, the in-game items may have too big a pull on them!
I remember hearing at least a couple years ago that kids were using "default" as an insult, referring to other kids that played Fortnite that only had the default skins instead of paid ones. A quick bing search shows an article written in 2019 about it.
This hit for me just the other day - my kid (8) is a big gamer but we *never* buy vbucks or roblux or anything. We buy games (rarely) and mostly use Game Pass.
But recently my brother and his kid (also 8) were in town and all the talk was about Fortnite - and how you absolutely have to buy a skin, you can't just use the default one. Very strange to me.
Only tangentially related but FOMO features in games are red flags for me now, it's just not what I want my gaming time to be centered around. And it took me forever to really grasp the payment systems around live games and get to this point (and understand where my limit is), so I can imagine it's pretty hard for parent's who aren't into gaming to understand how these systems work.
Cannot emphasize this point enough!
"Absent meaningful government intervention, you should assume a lot of these games will be as exploitative as possible until someone legally tells them to stop."
My job is teaching videogames, so many people were shocked to find out that my own kids had much stronger limitations than their friends on which games they could play. My biggest concern with them is having them be old enough and to have had the opportunity to discuss the tactics that games try to employ to make them want to purchase skins and other in-game items. Having heard my rants about tv/radio gambling ads (relatively new to Canada and an absolute scourge), they are quite opposed to the tactics used on vulnerable people in that space, but I fear despite my best efforts, the in-game items may have too big a pull on them!
Kudos to the gaming industry for following in the footsteps of social platforms.
I remember hearing at least a couple years ago that kids were using "default" as an insult, referring to other kids that played Fortnite that only had the default skins instead of paid ones. A quick bing search shows an article written in 2019 about it.
This hit for me just the other day - my kid (8) is a big gamer but we *never* buy vbucks or roblux or anything. We buy games (rarely) and mostly use Game Pass.
But recently my brother and his kid (also 8) were in town and all the talk was about Fortnite - and how you absolutely have to buy a skin, you can't just use the default one. Very strange to me.