5 ms·

I've got a kid and I've written a line in the sand: we'll pay for apps and games, but we won't pay for in-app purchases [+]. He's free to download games that ar

I've got a kid and I've written a line in the sand: we'll pay for apps and games, but we won't pay for in-app purchases [+]. He's free to download games that are filled with IAPs, but he'll have to play it the hard way. There's a lot of pressure from friends to join free-to-play games and it's just impossible to ban them entirely. [+] ... some exceptions made here for DLC and expansion material that is priced appropriately.

scoot 10y ago
I prefer a slightly more general line in the sand: we'll pay for what you need§, you pay for what you want. Needless to say our kids pine for neither paid games nor in-app purchases - they've chosen (mostly) better ways to invest their time and their hard-earned savings. §Birthdays, christmas and rewards aside.
- newswriter99 10y ago
  I've often wondered what it must be like for a 10-year-old these days. Especially lower income ones who go to schools where rich kids have smart phones and you're stuck with some low-level bar phone or, the more obvious situation: no phone at all. Must be hell.
  - wolfgke 10y ago
    > Especially lower income ones who go to schools where rich kids have smart phones and you're stuck with some low-level bar phone or, the more obvious situation: no phone at all. Do you really want to have something to do with such "rich kids"? Even as a pupil I didn't. I always had interests that few other children at school were interested in. So I really don't consider this as a problem. P.S. School was hell, but for completely different reasons.
  - scoot 10y ago
    My 13 year old doesn't have a phone and is none the worse (and arguably much better) for it. His grandfather bought him a top of the range iPhone 7 for hist last birthday, but by his own choice, he's going to sell it and reinvest the capital so that when he actually needs a phone, he can buy whatever's current (or as he suggested the same model or lower model which in either case will be cheaper by then, so he'll save some cash.)
  - psyc 10y ago
    When I was 10, it was the other kids wearing designer clothes, and excitedly discussing the intricacies of Nintendo games. Being excluded wasn't hell, but it wasn't great.
  - dragonwriter 10y ago
    Probably no different than anytime else. The rich kids (like rich adults) always have visible status markers that the less wealthy lack.
GrumpyYoungMan 10y ago
>...but he'll have to play it the hard way Ah, but the game developer still nails the player anyway. The "hard way" (playing for free only) in many of these predatory freemium games is often designed to require an enormous time commitment to keep up (e.g. events that require user intervention one or more times daily, time limited premium in-game items that have a high price in free currency, requiring lots of grinding, etc.) that the free user is trapped online constantly to provide a social enticement for more players to join the game.
- mmastrac 10y ago
  That's true. The consequence of this is that the kids will generally abandon the games after getting tired of this, switching to paid-for games with no IAPs. It's much easier (on me) to let the kids get bored of a game than telling them once a month they can't play a game because it's IAP-heavy.
  - harlanlewis 10y ago
    I don't have children, but as a kid I had a strict cap on “screen time”. In the IAP money-for-time bargain, this makes screen time even more rare and valuable a resource than it is for the rest of us. I know parents who see this as a reason to give a small, fixed IAP allowance. Essentially they trade a little bit of money to make it less of an ordeal to get their kids to limit screen time, which they consider well worth the investment. If you view IAP as simply the way of the world, and video games as a reasonable thing for kids to play, this bargain seems pretty reasonably pragmatic. Personally, I think this makes the most sense when that IAP goes toward something that makes the game itself richer, like Hearthstone decks instead of vanity hats, but that's a lesson for the children to learn. I think a lot of us on HN would prefer a world where games have only up-front costs, but that's basically a niche market now. I'm also sure there are stricter schools of thought on parenting that find the idea of bargaining any of this with children a bit ridiculous, but without having any to help shape myself it's pretty far out of my purview.
    - Mithaldu 10y ago

scoot 10y ago

I prefer a slightly more general line in the sand: we'll pay for what you need§, you pay for what you want. Needless to say our kids pine for neither paid games nor in-app purchases - they've chosen (mostly) better ways to invest their time and their hard-earned savings. §Birthdays, christmas and rewards aside.

newswriter99 10y ago
I've often wondered what it must be like for a 10-year-old these days. Especially lower income ones who go to schools where rich kids have smart phones and you're stuck with some low-level bar phone or, the more obvious situation: no phone at all. Must be hell.
- wolfgke 10y ago
  > Especially lower income ones who go to schools where rich kids have smart phones and you're stuck with some low-level bar phone or, the more obvious situation: no phone at all. Do you really want to have something to do with such "rich kids"? Even as a pupil I didn't. I always had interests that few other children at school were interested in. So I really don't consider this as a problem. P.S. School was hell, but for completely different reasons.
- scoot 10y ago
  My 13 year old doesn't have a phone and is none the worse (and arguably much better) for it. His grandfather bought him a top of the range iPhone 7 for hist last birthday, but by his own choice, he's going to sell it and reinvest the capital so that when he actually needs a phone, he can buy whatever's current (or as he suggested the same model or lower model which in either case will be cheaper by then, so he'll save some cash.)
- psyc 10y ago
  When I was 10, it was the other kids wearing designer clothes, and excitedly discussing the intricacies of Nintendo games. Being excluded wasn't hell, but it wasn't great.
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  Probably no different than anytime else. The rich kids (like rich adults) always have visible status markers that the less wealthy lack.

GrumpyYoungMan 10y ago

>...but he'll have to play it the hard way Ah, but the game developer still nails the player anyway. The "hard way" (playing for free only) in many of these predatory freemium games is often designed to require an enormous time commitment to keep up (e.g. events that require user intervention one or more times daily, time limited premium in-game items that have a high price in free currency, requiring lots of grinding, etc.) that the free user is trapped online constantly to provide a social enticement for more players to join the game.

mmastrac 10y ago
That's true. The consequence of this is that the kids will generally abandon the games after getting tired of this, switching to paid-for games with no IAPs. It's much easier (on me) to let the kids get bored of a game than telling them once a month they can't play a game because it's IAP-heavy.
- harlanlewis 10y ago
  I don't have children, but as a kid I had a strict cap on “screen time”. In the IAP money-for-time bargain, this makes screen time even more rare and valuable a resource than it is for the rest of us. I know parents who see this as a reason to give a small, fixed IAP allowance. Essentially they trade a little bit of money to make it less of an ordeal to get their kids to limit screen time, which they consider well worth the investment. If you view IAP as simply the way of the world, and video games as a reasonable thing for kids to play, this bargain seems pretty reasonably pragmatic. Personally, I think this makes the most sense when that IAP goes toward something that makes the game itself richer, like Hearthstone decks instead of vanity hats, but that's a lesson for the children to learn. I think a lot of us on HN would prefer a world where games have only up-front costs, but that's basically a niche market now. I'm also sure there are stricter schools of thought on parenting that find the idea of bargaining any of this with children a bit ridiculous, but without having any to help shape myself it's pretty far out of my purview.
  - Mithaldu 10y ago