To be honest, in today's world of mobile Skinner boxes and predatory microtransactions, I see liking Nintendo IP as one of the best things that could happen to

To be honest, in today's world of mobile Skinner boxes and predatory microtransactions, I see liking Nintendo IP as one of the best things that could happen to my kid. They have a rather honest business model: they sell you a console, fun games (IMO most Zelda and Mario games are actually very good) and that's it. There are some microtransaction games as well (the mobile Mario Kart, which they actually seem to have made that way only reluctantly because hordes of uses complained that the mobile Mario platformer had a one-time fee for the whole game) but they're not the worst offenders in this respect and they're far from being a core part of the franchises, at least for now. (*) I have myself been a fan of Marios and Zeldas since I was a kid and I don't see them as having had a negative influence on my life. Which cannot be said about much of the microtransaction-ridden spreadsheets that pass as games these days, especially on mobile. Or even more legitimate games like MMORPGS (WoW, etc.) which have more reasonable business models but still seem to be designed to cause insane levels of addiction. (*) I cannot say the same of Disney. At least a few years ago, the only Star Wars game available on mobile was an insanely predatory gacha that extracted literally thousands of dollars from people to buy a single character that would be obsolete in a few months. I spent a few years addicted to it (not buying anything, but still wasting precious time in a repetitive and unfun grindfest), as at that point I didn't know how that kind of designer drug worked, I just downloaded it because it was Star Wars and got sucked in. It's been my first and last game of that genre, and I do hope that my kid keeps well away from those.