Is this gambling for children?

Sanga

plumpmouse wrote: »

The payment comes from a credit card presumably his Mum's. I get an email if my son ever spends anything so I fail to see how parents can't know.

My son wants more but never pushes it and understands why it is a waste. It teaches him to value cash and hopefully helps to set his character for life. Unfortunately life these days is consumer driven and it is important for children to learn these lessons. Life is full of addictive things and learning when and how to say no is important.

How many other kids out there who want more get more? This is on a massive scale and could become the start for children to become gamblers. I'm looking at it now and it is just in your face expensive in form players advertised all over and even the advertising boards in the game show these packs.

FBaby

No but neither my son or any of his friends buy a pack, it's made clear that it won't happen

Same here, DS is quite addicted to the game, but he knew from the start that there would no bying packs and things. I believe there is a setting that means they can't do so. He keeps his birthday and Christmas money all year long and he has never asked to buy a pack. None of his friends do.

How many other kids out there who want more get more?

Surely that's a parenting issue, nothing to do with the game. My boy can want anything more, that won't mean he will get it and he knows it!

barbiedoll

OP, I absolutely agree with your post, I was shocked at how much money kids are encouraged to spend on this game, it would be cheaper to take them to a match!

My son is almost 17, he has his own bank account, his pocket money is paid into it and he is responsible for paying for his console subscriptions and for any games that he wants. My husband gets email alerts when my son buys anything on the Playstation store and he was horrified when a few months ago, he found that our son was spending £5-6, almost every day on Fifa "points". A whole month's pocket money was gone in just over a week.

We had a word with our son and told him that, although the money is his to spend as he wishes, spending this sort of money on a game is reckless and a bit stupid. It also meant that he couldn't buy anything else that he wanted for a month. He told us that one of his mates had "accidentally" spent over £80 on his mum's credit card on these points! (The kid got no punishment, he apologised and that was the end of it apparently!! :eek:)

Parents do need to be very aware of these games and of the tactics used by the gaming companies to detract money from their players. Before my son had his own account, we insisted that all of our card details were removed immediately after a purchase. And if our son spends all of his money on points, he won't be getting any more cash! We insist that he checks his account balance every few days, especially after all of the hacking instances over Christmas. And we try to encourage him to do something other than gaming, which is not easy, I have to admit.

northerntwo1

barbiedoll wrote: »

OP, I absolutely agree with your post, I was shocked at how much money kids are encouraged to spend on this game, it would be cheaper to take them to a match!

My son is almost 17, he has his own bank account, his pocket money is paid into it and he is responsible for paying for his console subscriptions and for any games that he wants. My husband gets email alerts when my son buys anything on the Playstation store and he was horrified when a few months ago, he found that our son was spending £5-6, almost every day on Fifa "points". A whole month's pocket money was gone in just over a week.

We had a word with our son and told him that, although the money is his to spend as he wishes, spending this sort of money on a game is reckless and a bit stupid. It also meant that he couldn't buy anything else that he wanted for a month. He told us that one of his mates had "accidentally" spent over £80 on his mum's credit card on these points! (The kid got no punishment, he apologised and that was the end of it apparently!! :eek:)

Parents do need to be very aware of these games and of the tactics used by the gaming companies to detract money from their players. Before my son had his own account, we insisted that all of our card details were removed immediately after a purchase. And if our son spends all of his money on points, he won't be getting any more cash! We insist that he checks his account balance every few days, especially after all of the hacking instances over Christmas. And we try to encourage him to do something other than gaming, which is not easy, I have to admit.

But isn't it most games. Most apps have in app purchases, infinity etc means buying extra characters. To me it's just something to be aware of. There are more sweets in shops but I need to trust my children won't spend £30 on sugary sweets and eat them in 20 minutes. You trust them to shop with money and this is no different.

Or if you don't trust you remove child or option. I block in app on apple products as I think it's far too easy on them.

DKLS

Its not gambling as such the correct term is gamification.

lesalanos

Using real money is not the only way to get more coins. Use it as a way of showing of showing your nephew how the world of business works. Buy players for a lower price and sell them higher. Yes it can be time consuming relisting and looking for bargains all of the time but its easily possible to get a great time doing tjis.

ineed

That's the way of gaming nowadays I'm afraid, used to be you'd buy a game and that was that no extra costs. Now from mobile to PC gaming there's always extras; almost all apps in the apple (and I assume android) store have in game purchase options, quite often you can spend £60 max a time on those and many people have been caught out as they aren't aware how easy it is to spend real money. Console and PC gaming has paid online subscriptions and DLC often from day one and the DLC adds much to the original storylines.

I'm a gamer myself as is my OH and many of my friends, it's a fantastic hobby but it's also an expensive one. For younger people I'd recommend watching the spending, you can take steps such as removing card information from systems and putting blocks on. It's all to easy to spend more than is wise.

meritaten

northerntwo1 wrote: »

No but neither my son or any of his friends buy a pack, it's made clear that it won't happen. My boy is 9 and he isn't wanting to buy a pack, he knows it's pot luck if he gets a legend and doesn't spoil the game by not purchasing any. There's no card attached so no way to buy anyway.

They earn coins by playing which is why they play. They just enjoy playing the game and the packs don't interest them.

It's like many apps who ask for in game purchases etc. it's normal now, you just need to teach children that they aren't going to get them and enjoy the game not cheat to buy lives, bombs, players, packs or anything else in game purchases give.

It's just the way games are moving forward and there are worse examples than Fifa - it may not be ideal but as parents you need to deal with it (as I said it's everywhere) and make it clear in app or in game purchases are banned. Play the games on merit not buying your way to the top.

Why should it be 'Normal' on kids games? these purchases can only be made by credit/debit card and how many 3+ kids have those? I think only 18+ plus games should be allowed to have these additional purchases. Time for 'Regulation' on these games I think.

pollyanna24

No idea about these football games, but I am finding similar on apps that I e bought for my girls on my iPhone where to get a 'special dress' or 'pet' you have to keep adding money to the game so they can dress up their characters.

I know this is diff, but kinda the same. I just say no 95% of the time or I'd end up with no money!

Tropez

I appreciate, Sanga, that you are not the parent here so this isn't particularly aimed at you.

There are ways to prevent in-game purchases on the Xbox One and Xbox 360 consoles.

The problem we have is that parents don't enable these settings, possibly because they're not aware of them because they haven't done sufficient research.

Game developers look for ways to better monetise their games. Purchasing in-game items is hardly a new thing. The MMO market, aside from World of Warcraft (which even then has limited real-money cosmetic purchases), has been monetising services for a while, coining the pejorative term "pay to win" whereby in order to make a profit, items to provide a better experience in game are monetised or made ludicrously difficult to achieve in-game. Take a look at games like Star Trek Online where a new ship can actually run you a couple hundred quid.

It may have been Star Trek Online, but possibly another MMO, that implemented a levelling system whereby if you tried to level without playing it you were looking at running out of questing content six levels short and would have to "grind" (a term for killing something over and over and over again) for approximately 100 hours to reach the final level (and all the cool stuff in MMO games is only available at the final level)... or you could buy a particular power-up from the shop for £20 that made everything much quicker.

A lot of games have such items. Mass Effect 3's piddle-poor online mode features the ability to spend "BioWare Points" purchased with real-money on packs of random gear. The Blizzard game Hearthstone features a very similar setup. Diablo 3 at one point had a "real money" auction house, and the PC online gaming retailer Steam has a real-money community market for things like trading cards (although these generally cost a few pence).

I play video games. I have an Xbox 360 console and a very powerful high-end gaming PC for the purpose. My wife plays some video games too. The gaming industry is not just targeted at children, in part because it was my generation who grew up during the rapid boom period of the gaming industry and we're the ones with the money now. That's partly why games matured from the Sonic the Hedgehog and Bubsy the Bobcat days.

I won't deny that gaming developers do really dickish things (Day One DLC, £10 "expansion packs" that are little more than a few maps and a couple of weapons, releasing unfinished games to meet release dates, lack of thorough beta-testing etc.) and to a point these types of transactions could be considered as such but the truth is that the parent should be aware of the content of these games, the capability of the devices and what functions are available to them to prevent a child doing something in a game that they would not want them doing.

It isn't right that a naive kid could spend a bunch of money on mummy and daddy's credit card but the fault does not exclusively lie with the gaming industry. The parents who have not properly researched and taken action to prevent this are just as liable.

But just to add, there are ways of making coins in FIFA that do not require real-money purchases. Buying and selling on the transfer market is how you're supposed to do it. There's plenty of legitimate guides online that guide you through the process.