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'My son spent £3,160 in one game'

bbc.co.uk

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Re: 'My son spent £3,160 in one game'

#101

Post by VBprogrammer »

jbob2000 wrote: post #69
pkaye wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How to tell the difference between an adult and a kid online assuming the adult gave their credit card to the kid?

That’s something for these businesses to figure out. In the real world, we had the advantage of the card holder needing to be present. Maybe the model needs to change to force digital currency purchases to happen outside of the game? That way the purchase is divorced from the play and the parents can still retain control. Or maybe accounts need to be set up in “child mode” by default, which caps spending at $50/month…

I don't think that's too much to ask. If I spend more than an extra £10 my phone company will start sending me messages. Plenty of families would be financially crippled by an unexpected £3000 bill.

Re: 'My son spent £3,160 in one game'

#102

Post by oaw-bct-ar-bamf »

tick_tock_tick wrote: post #91
HenryBemis wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use a "7 accounts setup" for my finances. One of my accounts is labelled "Internet" and has no more than £50-£100 at any given moment. It is the card used for Paypal, Amazon, Spotify, etc. If that card gets compromised I won't lose more than that, and my bank will most likely return the funds (yes even if it's just a Debit Card). If the account runs low then Spotify won't get paid in time and I won't cry about it :…

Why would you ever use a debit card over a credit card?

Why would you ever use a credit card over a debit card???

With debit you spend the money you own.

With credit you take debt. On every single payment. You are taking debt. Only at the end of the month you pay your debt.

If you spent too much, (by accident) you now have to pay overdraft interest.

With debit you spend the actual money you own.

If a purchase (fraudulent or not) exceeds your current balance, the payment won’t process.

But that is a good thing.

You shouldn’t be buying things you don’t have the money for anyway...

Re: 'My son spent £3,160 in one game'

#104

Post by iMerNibor »

tick_tock_tick wrote: post #91
HenryBemis wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use a "7 accounts setup" for my finances. One of my accounts is labelled "Internet" and has no more than £50-£100 at any given moment. It is the card used for Paypal, Amazon, Spotify, etc. If that card gets compromised I won't lose more than that, and my bank will most likely return the funds (yes even if it's just a Debit Card). If the account runs low then Spotify won't get paid in time and I won't cry about it :…

Why would you ever use a debit card over a credit card?

As a european my question is exactly the opposite, why would you ever use a credit card if you can just pay directly with the money you have?

The concept just seems to bizzare as someone who has grown up with their country specific bank cards - getting a credit card or even a visa/mastercard debit card is something fairly unusual.

I do realize you american people have to build a credit score and there's cashback schemes. Very different cultures I guess

Re: 'My son spent £3,160 in one game'

#105

Post by nabergh »

maze-le wrote: post #79
throwaway13337 wrote: post #4

Mobile free to play games now make up the majority of money made in video games today. It's strange then that most of these games aren't that interesting. Who are the players of these that make up the new class of gamers? It would seem that the payers are the exploitable - those able to be swindled with casino mechanisms. As an ex- free-to-play game developer and one who believes regulation often does more harm to co…

I almost fell into such a trap before. I knew about the mechanics, but I was willing to give the developers the benefit of a doubt. And so I started playing, and after a while started to acquire shortcuts with money. Once, twice and at the verge of the third time, I realized what I was doing and stopped immediately. The money you use is never much, but that is just part of the design to make you throw out even more -…

> I would definitely be hooked on that particular game and still throwing money out for -- not much but a faster reward-cycle.

Do you think that's an inherently bad thing? Maybe it was for you at the time but I feel like the ability to reliably turn money into entertainment (in this case "a faster reward-cycle") is a great thing to have available to people who already have their basic needs met.

Re: 'My son spent £3,160 in one game'

#106

Post by kevin_b_er »

jsgo wrote: post #71

I stopped buying FIFA/Madden/etc. games. The team building mode seems like it'd be fun, but oh damn, you only have x games you can use that specific player so you have to buy contracts which costs points and good luck trying to stack your team with various players by making good trades vs the spend funds approach. Give me a game where I can play it and GM it in such a way that if I make Joe Blow look like a star, I c…

You are permanently limited on how many times you can make a team with a player unless you pay more??

As someone who's never touched the sports games who grew up on old non-internet consoles that you can't replay the same thing is utter madness. You can't use the same player over in another attempt??? Do you run out of players?

Re: 'My son spent £3,160 in one game'

#107

Post by blackhaz »

throwaway13337 wrote: post #4

Mobile free to play games now make up the majority of money made in video games today. It's strange then that most of these games aren't that interesting. Who are the players of these that make up the new class of gamers? It would seem that the payers are the exploitable - those able to be swindled with casino mechanisms. As an ex- free-to-play game developer and one who believes regulation often does more harm to co…

How about a state regulation prohibiting stores to sell anything with real money procurement and trading mechanisms inside as games? Anything that allows in-app purchases or trade should be re-classified, a "trading platform," perhaps or, indeed, a casino? But then it would be up to society whether to allow their kids to play in a casino, or draw in a trading platform - where brushes have to be purchased. Squeeze those app business men a little bit. If Candy Crush allows to purchase in-game items, it's a freaking trading platform.

Re: 'My son spent £3,160 in one game'

#108

Post by weaksauce »

djhworld wrote: post #74
schnevets wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was just having an internal debate about the merits of a spending cap. I'm not usually one for such blunt regulation, but there really is no way to justify spending +$100 on mobile games daily unless an individual is addicted, deceived, or in some other way psychologically manipulated. Although society would probably benefit from similar caps in casinos, and I doubt that regulation will ever arrive be legislated.

I remember hearing about one guy asking his bank to essentially block any gambling transaction as he was an addict https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-45652429 Obviously there are ways to cirumvent that but it seemed to help him. I suspect it's harder to block these in app purchases at the bank level though, unless everything goes through Apple/Google pay and you block at that level

you can block in-app purchases at the ios level using restrictions. i don't recall if the setting is a different password than the one to login to the ipad though. iirc it seems that you set it up when you enable restrictions.

Re: 'My son spent £3,160 in one game'

#109

Post by thom »

djhworld wrote: post #12

The amount of crap in the app stores that encourage this sort of behaviour is truly, truly shocking. The gaming community often lambast companies like EA etc for loot boxes ("surprise mechanics"), which is definitely a problem that needs to go away, but from this article I suspect there's a lot of examples of absolute bottom of the barrel shovelware on the app stores that's raking it in from accidental purchases from…

I have to explicitly approve every install and purchase on my kids' iPod Touches. I don't know if they would need a fingerprint on my phone to be able to spend money there, but I assume all the tools are in place to control this sort of behaviour. Apple really need to make it clearer and easier for people.

Re: 'My son spent £3,160 in one game'

#110

Post by user5994461 »

ryandrake wrote: post #98
cwkoss wrote: post #39

Every game should have to display a "Maximum cost of online play" on the cover with ESRB rating and on the app store listing. If not limited just show ($10,000+). Would give parents a rough idea of how exploitive a game's online currency system is.

Wouldn’t they all say “$10,000+” in that case? Are there really any games out there that stop you before you make a purchase saying “You already spent $100 this month. Please don’t give us any more of your money!”

I suppose there are games that only spam ads for monetization and don't ask for your credit cards?
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