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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'

#241

Post by _hardwaregeek »

justinhj wrote: post #233
hardwaregeek wrote: post #167

I strongly believe that video games today are comparable to alcohol in the 60's. Y'know, how people in the 60's would say "Oh Johnny just likes his liquor" when Johnny's drinking at 9AM, drunk at 10 and hungover by 2. Right now we have people who are facing serious problems with video games, and yet we brush them off casually and callously. I can't count the number of stories on reddit about playing video games all d…

It's not fair to lump all video games into one category and then malign them. Video games consist of a wide variety of forms and business models. Even the ones that people will think are exploitative, other people enjoy playing them and it forms part of their social life, a way to unwind and relax in short bursts.

Agreed that video games are not all bad. I purposefully chose alcohol as a comparison because it's neither wholly good nor wholly bad. Plenty of people enjoy drinking alcohol and have it as a part of their social life, a way to unwind and relax. However at the same time we should acknowledge that video games, like alcohol, can have a dark, addictive side. In the case of video games this is especially insidious due to the way certain games are engineered to be addictive. Basically I'm not saying video games, in all their creativity, brilliance and technical accomplishments, are necessarily bad for society.

Re: 'My son spent £3,160 in one game'

#242

Post by BLKNSLVR »

filoleg wrote: post #27
ajross wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "I cannot put even a minimal effort in keeping an eye on my children, so I will blame someone else for it and make it their responsibility." For centuries, it's been trivially possible for parents to manage their children's access to funds. Nineteenth century homesteaders could send their kids off to market with appropriate funds to buy what they needed. Now all of a sudden this doesn't work and kids by default hav…

Is toggling a single simple menu setting before handing off your portable computer you use for managing your life to your child considered a legitimate burden? >Why can't app vendors (and in particular their middlemen who manage the purchases) make even a minimal effort at not having this system be broken by default? Apple put an effort into making it all locked behind a simple menu setting, which to me looks about a…

locked behind a simple menu setting

It's not simple, on iPad anyway. There are various layers of menus and options and some aren't as 'blanket' on/off as they appear

looks about as functional and non-broken as it can get

iPads, at least, can't even accurately track usage time in their own device. We've got time limits set on overall device usage time and specific app times, and it's woefully inaccurate, and that function is part of the same 'device control' app / settings area that looks after lock-down settings for in-app payments and new app installations etc.

That's why I've removed any credit card details from the Apple account.

Re: 'My son spent £3,160 in one game'

#243

Post by BLKNSLVR »

foldingmoney wrote: post #218
fkdo wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes but it seems like many video game designs are engineering towards exploiting addictive behavior. This is predatory business behavior.

All business behaviour is (potentially) predatory. It's the job of regulators to set the rules, and for businesses to play within those rules as optimally as they can. It's definitely not the job of companies to _not_ give their customers what they want. If something permissible could increase their user engagement but they opt not to do it for ethical reasons, they just lose share to the less ethical companies.

And if clickbaity headlined articles don't get written and people don't complain about it (assuming their experience is entirely individual and of their own making) then no regulation occurs because there's no community outcry saying that it's necessary.

Re: 'My son spent £3,160 in one game'

#244

Post by uponcoffee »

BLKNSLVR wrote: post #239
filoleg wrote: post #2

Another one of those oversensationalized outrage articles that can be boiled down to "I cannot put even a minimal effort in keeping an eye on my children, so I will blame someone else for it and make it their responsibility." There is literally a setting on iOS for that specific specific scenario, which allows to prevent in-app purchases[0]. And it is very easy and intuitive to set up too, so it isn't like it is hidd…

I've been in IT Admin for years, and one of my kids managed to subscribe to two things in one day, one that cost $10 per month and one that was $78 per year, despite having exactly these kinds of controls already set on the device. Thankfully I receive a notification email for activity on the account, so I was able to go through the non-obvious method of unsubscribing before the "three-day free trial" expired when th…

Android is worse still, there is still no good way to implement parental controls that cant be circumvented by a few minutes on google.

Re: 'My son spent £3,160 in one game'

#245

Post by xfitm3 »

opportune wrote: post #220
syndacks wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Because most people don't get addicted to video games, just like most people don't get addicted to alcohol So, uhh, what _do_ they get addicted to?

Most people aren't addicted to anything. Most people who try alcohol and video games don't get addicted to them

Most people are addicted to emotions.

Re: 'My son spent £3,160 in one game'

#246

Post by chongli »

hardwaregeek wrote: post #167

I strongly believe that video games today are comparable to alcohol in the 60's. Y'know, how people in the 60's would say "Oh Johnny just likes his liquor" when Johnny's drinking at 9AM, drunk at 10 and hungover by 2. Right now we have people who are facing serious problems with video games, and yet we brush them off casually and callously. I can't count the number of stories on reddit about playing video games all d…

You're damn right! I dropped out of high school at 16, did very little besides playing video games throughout my 20s, and only in my 30s did I complete my high school diploma and enroll in university.

Here I am at age 35, in the midst of a mathematics degree, grinding my way through assignments that take days and days. I don't have time to play video games anymore, though I do spend a lot of time watching others on Twitch tv.

Re: 'My son spent £3,160 in one game'

#247

Post by baobabKoodaa »

anonymous5133 wrote: post #219

Not sure how many people know this but you can use a service like privacy.com to get burner credit card numbers. For example, you can create a burner credit card number that only works one time or has a specific spend limit (like $20 per transaction or $20 total in transactions per month). Credit cards/debit cards are inherently insecure because the credit card number can be reused by anyone who has the code. It is a…

Well, that's a thinly veiled advertisement, but hey, at least it's tangentially related to the topic.

Re: 'My son spent £3,160 in one game'

#248

Post by jtnjns »

ajross wrote: post #16
filoleg wrote: post #2

Another one of those oversensationalized outrage articles that can be boiled down to "I cannot put even a minimal effort in keeping an eye on my children, so I will blame someone else for it and make it their responsibility." There is literally a setting on iOS for that specific specific scenario, which allows to prevent in-app purchases[0]. And it is very easy and intuitive to set up too, so it isn't like it is hidd…

> "I cannot put even a minimal effort in keeping an eye on my children, so I will blame someone else for it and make it their responsibility." For centuries, it's been trivially possible for parents to manage their children's access to funds. Nineteenth century homesteaders could send their kids off to market with appropriate funds to buy what they needed. Now all of a sudden this doesn't work and kids by default hav…

Why can’t the parents set the account up with no credit card and top the account up with gift cards that you can buy online and in most supermarkets?

I set up my brothers’ account like this and he used it until he was around 14/15 and old enough to know the consequences of spending all your money. Then we linked it up to _his_ debit card. We allowed for something like £10 a month on the App Store, and about £100 a year on the Xbox store with the gift card method.

The limit of the budget taught him not to spend all his money at once or he would have none left. But a lot of parents seem to think these companies should do the parenting for them because they can’t be bothered.

Re: 'My son spent £3,160 in one game'

#249

Post by ahje »

sdwa wrote: post #159
subsaharancoder wrote: post #43

No child wakes up one morning and decides to do this, it's often a steady progression enabled by parents who have relegated their responsibilities to TV screens, video games and mobile phones. Casting blame on tech that they've let loose on their kids absolves the parents of any responsibility.

These games are literally designed to exploit vulnerable people, and they use every trick in the book to do it. Criticising parents for not being able to defend against the fruits of millions of hours of labour spent on marketing and r&d which exists solely to exploit is honestly shameful, as if parenting isn't difficult enough already. Do you really think gaming companies exploiting children by introducing them to g…

I agree with what you are saying, I really do, but it's still a really bad idea to give a child access to an store account connected to a credit or debit card.

This problem needs to be solved in both ends.

Re: 'My son spent £3,160 in one game'

#250

Post by dmix »

Lazare wrote: post #229

I think an obvious solution here is simply to strengthen consumer protection laws and shift the burden of preventing this from the consumer to the vendor. The common thread in all these stories was "a kid spends a bunch of money, parent asks for a refund, is told no". But consider if the law says that digital goods such as this must be refunded on demand unless you can prove the purchaser wasn't a child. (If you want…

What about phone companies with limited data plans?

A friend of mine had his kid use his iPhone's hotspot and got a $800 bill connecting it to his tablet to watch movies while on vacation. Is this the phone companies fault because the person let his kid know his iPhone password?

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