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Evil genius marketing, working as it always does. The kids don't know any better, so they are being exploited and conditioned to think the horrible new normal is just the way things have to be. And most parents are too tired and busy to find better alternatives.
It's simple, the games that appeal the most to kids require some form of subscription. If those games didn't, then they wouldn't want ones with subscriptions.
The games that appeal most to kids play upon their dopamine response and generate addictive patterns.
Correct, and if they didn't have subscriptions, subscriptions wouldn't be popular.
Putting it like that makes it sound that this is incidental, but the conditioning techniques baked into the design of these games are included for the sake of selling battle passes and virtual items. If they didn't have subscriptions and virtual currency, they would have been built entirely differently.
And target that critical mass where you don't want to be the only kid that doesn't have access to the game every other kid is playing.
Not having cable TV growing up definitely caused me to be the odd man out on pop culture references. A lot.
Did it never occur to you that this might not be just coincidence?
It did. I think you are misunderstanding what I am saying, or adding more to it than there is.
Children do not desire subscriptions as a superior model to owning games. The model of access is not something they are comparing and contrasting. They are simply going for the games they prefer, which get locked behind subscriptions. I never implied that games popular with kids aren't intentionally put behind subscriptions, I was arguing that the subscription model isn't actually preferred by kids.
Apologies, I obviously misunderstood your first comment.
It's cool, happens
Here are some relatively cheap games to give kids that aren't fortnite or roblox and dont run on some subscription/internal monetary currency:
But I want FortNite V-Buck's! I only have the default skins and people are making fun of me at school!
Exactly! This is more about the social aspect of these games. Kids are playing Fortnite/Roblox/Minecraft because that's where their friends are hanging out after school.
Here are some good Free Software games that cost nothing at all:
Why not skywalker saga, out of interest? Recently 100%ed it and thought it was a fun game.
It's relatively more expensive, and requires a bit more modern hardware to run it.
Most every game on this list can run on some 2011 bestbuy/walmart unbranded pc.
I don't like how much Minecraft has me by the balls. With all my hatred for Microsoft, I can't let that game go.
On that note, install MineClone first, see if your kid likes it. Can't hurt to try.
(Edit: MineClone2, the mod for Minetest, as seen in the reply below)
MineClone
The top DDG search result for that (on crazygames . com) looks like a rip-off or something. I'm going to assume the thing you mean to recommend is MineClone2, a mod for MineTest, which is the most prominent Free Software Minecraft-style game.
Too bad. They’re getting copies of Burger King’s Sneak King and they’re going to like it.
"ESA survey showed" -- not exactly an unbiased report
That is super dystopian.
I wouldn't say its that bad. Various forms of collectibles/cards have been around for a long time. Asking for gametime for a game like WoW isn't exactly a new phenomenon.
I think it's just that there are a few specific examples that stand out. Some aspects of Roblox can be pretty concerning.
But if a kid just wants some money for a skin for Fornite, or to buy a specific world setup for Minecraft, I don't necessarily see that as some scary new thing.
While I hate slippery slopes, this is an historic trend. They squeeze in little ones that don’t seem so bad. I accept no games with these predatory or greedy models and I’d argue that kids shouldn’t be subjected to them.
That's what a lack of street drugs does to the youth, the OG subcription services.
Hot take: this is better than them getting a bunch of plastic crap that will end up in a landfill in 6 months.
Yeah, but that is kinda like saying US healthcare is better than it was 50 years ago. You're correct, but why make the comparison?
It would be best if game developers didn't encourage kids to subscribe to their games. Just buy them like we did when I was growing up.
This presumes that disposable plastic crap is the only gift alternative. I still have most of the books I got for christmas as a kid
Games are digital now, folks.
Where did we go wrong?
Most games are free to play and heavily encourage subscriptions. So capitalism?
Unchecked "free market" capitalism, if I had to guess.
Companies should never have been able to run outside of a very tight yoke. Yeah sure, capitalism. But not unchecked and especially not unchecked-across-borders so they can start escaping shit by moving legal entities around. Oh and speaking of that, maybe "corporations as entities" is another really really big one we fucked up, allowing the people who make the truly shitty decisions to shirk responsibility for them.
In case you are wondering this because it seems children actually prefer subscriptions to owning games, they don't. Out of what is offered to them, the most desired choices happen to be subscription models of some form. If those games were something you just bought then the desire would be for games that were purchased in full.
We've been hooking kids on gambling since (at least) baseball cards, which -surprise!- were heavily lobbied to convince law makers to let it fly.
Consumers were doomed the instant we failed to torch and pitchfork that shit.
This type of games are free to play. So a bunch of kids who are friends can start playing at any time even without money. If some of them like the game, they'll stay as a group for the social aspect.
I don't see any wrong in it. Its just different of what I did 30 years ago.
Just dropping a gift recommendation for younger kids with a Nintendo Switch. Kirby and the Forgotten Land. A few years old at this point, but my two younger kids still play the heck out of it. It’s wholesome, and doesn’t have any in game purchases or online subscription.
Everyone's wondering where we went wrong as a society but honestly a year of game pass during a time of my life where I didn't get new games very often sounds way better than getting like three games for Christmas.
gestures at the outside I am not surprised. Outside is a McDonald/Starbucks laden hellscape. There are a dwindling number of places for kids to get enrichment outside their own homes. People in general spend increasingly long times in front of screens for various activities. Gaming is an activity that they can do alone or with their friends that doesn't require them to pay for things to enjoy them. Some of them don't even recognize that there is a real world cost for things like vbucks and so on.
Toy stores are few and far between. We don't watch media that has significant commercials anymore. What did we expect?
Better idea: Get them a ton of classics from the Steam sale, put them on a fresh acct, and then give them hundreds of hours of good shit for like $50. You could get 5 copies of Undertale for the equivalent price of 1 Fortnite skin.
I share my steam linrary with my two kids. Gave them 200+ games. They still play Fortnite and Roblox because that is what their friends play. When I was young the biggest games were single player and you shared stories with your friends. Now you play with them online.
It really is crazy how much the cultural landscape of games has evolved over the past decade or so. I'll just be here playing classic singleplayer games until I'm old and gray like a boomer lol.
Ha! I guess I already qualify as a boomer. I'm 43 and been a gamer since the commodore days. I play everything that comes my way if time permits, from indies like islanders for a relaxing me time, to mega AAA F2P monsters like Fortnite to have a laugh with my sons.
Strictly speaking, I'm not opposed to monetization in f2p games but the pricing is egregious.
When the le seraffim bundle for overwatch 2 dropped they also put their in game currency on sale so you could get enough currency to get the bundle for $50 instead of $70 and people were calling it a great value.
Even at $50, that's enough for 4 months of humble choice which would net you 32 games and 6-8 of them would be AAA games.
As long as FFXIV exists, I can understand the desire for a game subscription over literally every other paid game.
This is why we can't have nice things.