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100% agree. My youngest son got hooked into a game called Mech Arena. By the time I realized he had spent 200 dollars (my fault 100%). Games like this should be

100% agree. My youngest son got hooked into a game called Mech Arena. By the time I realized he had spent 200 dollars (my fault 100%). Games like this should be forbidden or made forbidden for people under 18 years old.

leetcrew 3y ago
I'm not a parent myself so maybe I'm talking out of my ass here. but how is this even possible? my parents never gave me direct access to a credit card as a child. eventually I got a debit card to spend my own allowance chore money, but if I blew it all in something dumb that was my own problem. no pizza/movies with friends until I built it back up
- kindatrue 3y ago
  If you're not careful about in app payment settings, your kid can rack big bills with just a few taps. I know parents in Silicon Valley who have had this happen.
- bamfly 3y ago
  Set up store on device before kids, or when they're very young and not gaming. Do not set require-password because putting it in with a controller for every single should-be-locked-to-kids action is very slow and annoying. Forget to change that when the kids start messing with the device.
- RajT88 3y ago
  I'm trying to find something which explains it clearly (so I could be wrong), but I don't think you can give a person the ability to hail Uber rides without also giving them the ability to do microtransactions in a mobile game. The former is highly useful for parents and from what I can tell very common, not just for independence, but also safety reasons.
  - asah 3y ago
    ? just enter your credit card info into Uber separately from other apps? also, there's credit cards that require approval for each transaction: https://www.google.com/search?q=parental+control+credit+cards https://www.google.com/search?q=parental+control+credit+card...
  - scarface_74 3y ago
    Yes, you can. Uber doesn’t go through in app purchases (Apple gets a 30% cut). You have to set up a separate account with payment information. On iOS devices, you can use Apple Pay for Uber (standard credit card charges). But I doubt many parents are putting a credit card on their child’s phone where they can just tap to pay at any store.
- hiatus 3y ago
  When you were a kid your N64 wasn't hooked up to the internet with an app-store to which a credit card was already provided to pay for your monthly multiplayer-access subscription.
  - johnnyanmac 3y ago
    no but my cable was. My parents sure made sure I couldn't enter a password and buy those totally educational biology documentary channels I was curious about. Even then, any and all payment options on my phone are bound to a password, I make sure I have to enter that password or fingerprint every single time.I do find it a bit strange that others, especially with young kids, wouldn't have similar securities. I'd probably be even more secure if I did.
- indymike 3y ago
  For a long time, there were not parental controls on purchases, and some platforms would force you to lie about age, and give access to the family card to allow children to play games (that were clearly not adult content). Some may still have that antipattern. Parent friendliness by app store: Amazon(best), Apple(meh), Google(beware yer wallet)
- PaulHoule 3y ago
  My sister-in-law who is an elementary school teacher and a good parent in many respects would let her preverbal toddlers play with her phone which is problematic in many respects.
- lozenge 3y ago
  The kid's phone was set up against the parent's account and the stored payment methods were applied. Or the kid was borrowing the parent's phone. Kids apps pull/pulled all sorts of tricks to prevent people from understanding the modal purchase confirmation dialog (eg https://www.mactrast.com/2019/04/apple-adds-an-extra-confirmation-prompt-to-in-app-subscription-purchases/ https://www.mactrast.com/2019/04/apple-adds-an-extra-confirm... )
- err4nt 3y ago
  I would have to beg my dad to use his credit card to make an online purchase, even if I had the cash equivalent in my hand to give to him right then! If I new kids would be using any device I would make sure it had no payment information accessible. Which may mean the inconvenience of adding and removing payment information before and after making purchases. I can't imagine letting a child have access to a device which can spend your money, it's essentially like letting them hold your wallet, and we probably wouldn't trust them to do that if they were in an arcade, or theatre, or shopping mall, etc.
  - OkayPhysicist 3y ago
    I remember buying my Runescape memberships and eventually Minecraft that way. Not having the freedom to spend my own money on the things that I actually wanted was weird.
- watwut 3y ago
  Sometimes it is simply parents game console or parents stream account. For years. Then, one they they borrow it to kiddo and just don't realize the risk, because they have been buying last time months ago.
bamfly 3y ago
Lost about $100 a while back because my 8-year-old didn't realize he was spending real money in some F2P game on an at-the-time unlocked PS5 (though I didn't realize it was so unlocked that you didn't need a password to make purchases—I do most on my phone, for all consoles, because it's much smoother than wrestling with on-console game stores). Shame on me for not locking it sooner. Shame on every goddamn company that knows for a fact this is happening—probably a lot—and prefers to keep robbing people rather than do something about it (say, something ethical—like shut down their company). $100 doesn't mean much to me (like, I'm not well-off enough that I don't think a thing of spending $100, but unexpectedly losing that much every now and then has basically zero effect on my life) fortunately, but that could really screw over a lot of people, in a ruin-their-whole-month kind of way ("why do they even have a playstation to begin with if $100 can really mess them up?!" PS4s are pretty cheap, used, or may have been handed-down for free or very cheap from a better-off relative or friend, and have basically the same store and most of the same games—besides, a planned expense is very different from an unplanned one)
- ryaneager 3y ago
  Shame on the company? Sir this is America where Capitalism is king. Profits come before all else. Doesn’t matter if you deceive children or exploit your workers those profits must rise!
  - asah 3y ago
    Cheap education!
- tacocataco 3y ago
  > "why do they even have a playstation to begin with if $100 can really mess them up?!" People want something to take their mind off of things. I am glad to hear your life is good and something you want to experience. Not everyone has that privilege.
  - nomat 3y ago
    Hey not sure why you felt it was important to reply to this line out of that entire paragraph when the next line is more than clear. just kind of seems like concern trolling.
indymike 3y ago
My (at the time) 9 year old daughter once bought $7,200 worth of dragon in game content on her Kindle Fire (before amazon had parental controls to stop this). The good new is that Amazon INSTANTLY refunded all of it as soon as I explained 9 year old daughter to their support team. I'm sure there's a game publisher that is still disappointed that their whale was more of a guppy.
lmm 3y ago
> My youngest son got hooked into a game called Mech Arena. By the time I realized he had spent 200 dollars (my fault 100%). Games like this should be forbidden or made forbidden for people under 18 years old. I actually think the opposite. Spending $200 as a kid and having nothing to show for it is a lesson you won't forget in a hurry, but not life altering. We should let kids experience the risks and consequences of gambling while they still have a safety net, rather than setting them loose at 18 when it's for real.
- JuanPosadas 3y ago
  I don't think you really learn anything when it's your parent's $200 and maybe you're not even old enough to understand you spent money at all.

leetcrew 3y ago

I'm not a parent myself so maybe I'm talking out of my ass here. but how is this even possible? my parents never gave me direct access to a credit card as a child. eventually I got a debit card to spend my own allowance chore money, but if I blew it all in something dumb that was my own problem. no pizza/movies with friends until I built it back up

kindatrue 3y ago
If you're not careful about in app payment settings, your kid can rack big bills with just a few taps. I know parents in Silicon Valley who have had this happen.
bamfly 3y ago
Set up store on device before kids, or when they're very young and not gaming. Do not set require-password because putting it in with a controller for every single should-be-locked-to-kids action is very slow and annoying. Forget to change that when the kids start messing with the device.
RajT88 3y ago
I'm trying to find something which explains it clearly (so I could be wrong), but I don't think you can give a person the ability to hail Uber rides without also giving them the ability to do microtransactions in a mobile game. The former is highly useful for parents and from what I can tell very common, not just for independence, but also safety reasons.
- asah 3y ago
  ? just enter your credit card info into Uber separately from other apps? also, there's credit cards that require approval for each transaction: https://www.google.com/search?q=parental+control+credit+cards https://www.google.com/search?q=parental+control+credit+card...
- scarface_74 3y ago
  Yes, you can. Uber doesn’t go through in app purchases (Apple gets a 30% cut). You have to set up a separate account with payment information. On iOS devices, you can use Apple Pay for Uber (standard credit card charges). But I doubt many parents are putting a credit card on their child’s phone where they can just tap to pay at any store.
hiatus 3y ago
When you were a kid your N64 wasn't hooked up to the internet with an app-store to which a credit card was already provided to pay for your monthly multiplayer-access subscription.
- johnnyanmac 3y ago
  no but my cable was. My parents sure made sure I couldn't enter a password and buy those totally educational biology documentary channels I was curious about. Even then, any and all payment options on my phone are bound to a password, I make sure I have to enter that password or fingerprint every single time.I do find it a bit strange that others, especially with young kids, wouldn't have similar securities. I'd probably be even more secure if I did.
indymike 3y ago
For a long time, there were not parental controls on purchases, and some platforms would force you to lie about age, and give access to the family card to allow children to play games (that were clearly not adult content). Some may still have that antipattern. Parent friendliness by app store: Amazon(best), Apple(meh), Google(beware yer wallet)
PaulHoule 3y ago
My sister-in-law who is an elementary school teacher and a good parent in many respects would let her preverbal toddlers play with her phone which is problematic in many respects.
lozenge 3y ago
The kid's phone was set up against the parent's account and the stored payment methods were applied. Or the kid was borrowing the parent's phone. Kids apps pull/pulled all sorts of tricks to prevent people from understanding the modal purchase confirmation dialog (eg https://www.mactrast.com/2019/04/apple-adds-an-extra-confirmation-prompt-to-in-app-subscription-purchases/ https://www.mactrast.com/2019/04/apple-adds-an-extra-confirm... )
err4nt 3y ago
I would have to beg my dad to use his credit card to make an online purchase, even if I had the cash equivalent in my hand to give to him right then! If I new kids would be using any device I would make sure it had no payment information accessible. Which may mean the inconvenience of adding and removing payment information before and after making purchases. I can't imagine letting a child have access to a device which can spend your money, it's essentially like letting them hold your wallet, and we probably wouldn't trust them to do that if they were in an arcade, or theatre, or shopping mall, etc.
- OkayPhysicist 3y ago
  I remember buying my Runescape memberships and eventually Minecraft that way. Not having the freedom to spend my own money on the things that I actually wanted was weird.
watwut 3y ago
Sometimes it is simply parents game console or parents stream account. For years. Then, one they they borrow it to kiddo and just don't realize the risk, because they have been buying last time months ago.

bamfly 3y ago

Lost about $100 a while back because my 8-year-old didn't realize he was spending real money in some F2P game on an at-the-time unlocked PS5 (though I didn't realize it was so unlocked that you didn't need a password to make purchases—I do most on my phone, for all consoles, because it's much smoother than wrestling with on-console game stores). Shame on me for not locking it sooner. Shame on every goddamn company that knows for a fact this is happening—probably a lot—and prefers to keep robbing people rather than do something about it (say, something ethical—like shut down their company). $100 doesn't mean much to me (like, I'm not well-off enough that I don't think a thing of spending $100, but unexpectedly losing that much every now and then has basically zero effect on my life) fortunately, but that could really screw over a lot of people, in a ruin-their-whole-month kind of way ("why do they even have a playstation to begin with if $100 can really mess them up?!" PS4s are pretty cheap, used, or may have been handed-down for free or very cheap from a better-off relative or friend, and have basically the same store and most of the same games—besides, a planned expense is very different from an unplanned one)

ryaneager 3y ago
Shame on the company? Sir this is America where Capitalism is king. Profits come before all else. Doesn’t matter if you deceive children or exploit your workers those profits must rise!
- asah 3y ago
  Cheap education!
tacocataco 3y ago
> "why do they even have a playstation to begin with if $100 can really mess them up?!" People want something to take their mind off of things. I am glad to hear your life is good and something you want to experience. Not everyone has that privilege.
- nomat 3y ago
  Hey not sure why you felt it was important to reply to this line out of that entire paragraph when the next line is more than clear. just kind of seems like concern trolling.

indymike 3y ago

My (at the time) 9 year old daughter once bought $7,200 worth of dragon in game content on her Kindle Fire (before amazon had parental controls to stop this). The good new is that Amazon INSTANTLY refunded all of it as soon as I explained 9 year old daughter to their support team. I'm sure there's a game publisher that is still disappointed that their whale was more of a guppy.

lmm 3y ago

> My youngest son got hooked into a game called Mech Arena. By the time I realized he had spent 200 dollars (my fault 100%). Games like this should be forbidden or made forbidden for people under 18 years old. I actually think the opposite. Spending $200 as a kid and having nothing to show for it is a lesson you won't forget in a hurry, but not life altering. We should let kids experience the risks and consequences of gambling while they still have a safety net, rather than setting them loose at 18 when it's for real.

JuanPosadas 3y ago
I don't think you really learn anything when it's your parent's $200 and maybe you're not even old enough to understand you spent money at all.