U.S. Congressman Wants to Prevent Kids from Buying Smurfberries

[Kingsnake661]

here's a stupid question, why the sweet unholy fuck did anyone allow an 8-year-old to play with an I-pad at all? maybe kids aren't prone to breaking shit like they used to(they are though if the little bastards i see running full pelt through my store are any indication)but still those things cost a good bit to just had to little timmy and say go play

I see this ALOT. And it makes no since to me. I was 4 years old when i was tought to use my first videogame system. At the time it was a few houndred dollers at the time, IIRC (eairly 80's, an Atiri). I also knew how to use my dads stereo. (at least a grand back in the day, one of them old stack systems.) I never broke either, my dads Stereo lasted for YEARS after that, i think some of the old junk is still in his shed to this day, prolly doesen't work anymore, but it did, well into my 20's.

By the time I was 8, i could use nearly anything electrionic in the house. (TV's, VCR's, videogames, ect.) By my teenage years i was the techonwize of the house. *Shurg* I've let my friends 4 year old see my Ipad, supervised of course, but, kids aren't as dump or distructive as people seem to think if you take the time to TEACH them. Of course, some kids are harder headed then others, but, in general, I think an 8 year can be trusted to not brake an Ipad if you've taken the time to teach them how to use it.

And before anyone says it, yeah, if you take the time to teach them, they'd know better then to spend the money in game too, that is, if the parent even knew you COULD spend money in a smerfs game. That's, IMO, what feels so underhanded about this. It's a smerfs game for 4 year olds. The idea you could blow a 100 bucks of RL money in it.. is hard tobelvie. I didn't belive it at first, i had to read the games website like twice just to make sure i was reading it right...

 

[tkioz]

While I may be accused of heresy for this, I have no problem with regulating these types of things, or at least requiring a plain text explanation saying "hey stupid this costs real money".

Most games I've played that have paid features, such as MMOs, like Star Trek: Online or D&D:O are very plain that you are paying with real money, so regulating it would have a very limited impact on games like that.

Personally I don't like made up currencies like Microsoft points for XBL, I got given a gift voucher for my birthday, added it to my account and let it sit there for a few months, there wasn't anything I really wanted at the time, I think I had around 3000 points at the time, that's what $60-70? stored on my account, now to buy things with most places, like Steam for example, I have to manually enter my payment details, with stored currency some asshat friend of my roommate can buy $50 worth of songs for a rented copy of Rock Band while I'm out of town for the weekend. Yeah I know it's my responsibility in the end, but still annoying, and the reason why I dislike digital currency.

 

[TheRealCJ]

8 year olds should NOT be put in a situation like this unattended. RAISE YOUR OWN DAMN CHILDREN!

Yes, because when you were eight, what you wanted more than anything in the world was to have mummy and daddy scrutinizing your every action when you played videogames.

Get real, you can't watch your kids' 24/7 AND get through life. Most of these games are to stop kids from playing "climb the shelves" or "run the old lady down with a trolley" while you're shopping. A real bad parent would even bother trying to keep them quiet and entertained.

Children need a certain degree if autonomy to learn and grow. Companies like this are taking advantage of the fact to use a loophole to trick kids into buying HUGELY overpriced content. You know, the kind of exploitation behavior that a governing body might rightly be expected to investigate and put a stop to.

 

[TheRealCJ]

No. Absolutely not.

Parents, RAISE YOUR CHILDREN YOURSELF! Learn about PC's, yourself! Just because you're ignorant, lazy, busy, stupid, complacent, and/or simply aloof of what your children do from day to day, is NOT a reason for the government to step in and do it for you. Hold parents responsible, make them deal with these companies, do not hold their hands and do it for them.

You do realize this is a smurf game targeted at kids beneath the age of 10?

The parents should not have to montitor their kids when they are playing such games. They should be able to take it for granted that their kids won't find them self's in harms way while playing a fucking smurfs game.

You do realize I don't care, right? Kids don't buy themselves electronics, kids don't pay their own bills, kids don't own their own homes, kids don't buy their own food etc... etc... etc.. Parents are responsible for their children, not the Government, and not the rest of society. I feel real bad that someone got charged $1400 for smurfberries, but, them's the breaks when you enter in your card information without learning what it is you're buying into first, now isn't it? And by the way, the child wasn't in harms way, they were simply spending cash without realizing it. Usually, the parents are around to help the child understand the more complex aspects of day to day life. In this case, the parent screwed up, and learned the hard way.

Just because parents don't take the time and effort to research what their children do, doesn't mean it's a reason to increase government's roll in peoples lives.

You probably had something of a valid point in there, but all I heard was "GUMMINT GON' TAKE MAH SMURFBERRIES"

please, if you're going to rage against the machine, do it where your arguments are valid.

 

[jxfuller1]

1) Making a game specifically targeted for kids and having micro-transactions for items that costs up to $99, it's obvious the developers of this game saw the potential to get money from unsuspecting adults via their kids using the iphone. (seriously, micro transactions that high are unheard of in any game, it's obvious they are preying on children to buy them.)

2) While you need to input a password to purchase something on the iphone, if you purchase anything else within a 15 minute window, you don't have to enter the password. (which you can turn off, but is not that easy to find out.)

3) Parents are also partly at fault for allowing their kids to know their password, unless of course their kids purchased the stuff in the game during the 15 minute window which the parent didn't know about that window of time.

I put this more at fault of the game developer specifically targeting kids for money and also Apples lax way to make purchases with only a minor fault for the parent.

 

[Gralian]

No. Absolutely not.

Parents, RAISE YOUR CHILDREN YOURSELF! Learn about PC's, yourself! Just because you're ignorant, lazy, busy, stupid, complacent, and/or simply aloof of what your children do from day to day, is NOT a reason for the government to step in and do it for you. Hold parents responsible, make them deal with these companies, do not hold their hands and do it for them.

You do realize this is a smurf game targeted at kids beneath the age of 10?

The parents should not have to montitor their kids when they are playing such games. They should be able to take it for granted that their kids won't find them self's in harms way while playing a fucking smurfs game.

This, a thousand times.

I'm glad a US congressman is looking into this. I'm so sick of these F2P exploitation games being so prevalent in the gaming culture. Now i won't get on my soapbox about F2P games in relation to the average gamer, because we can all make our own choices, but what makes me sick to my core is when it's marketed at children, who really won't know that nothing is ever really "free" to play and shouldn't be expected to understand the ramificaitons of spamming the "buy smurfberries" button when it has a nice green big bright dollar sign that makes them think it's in-game cartoon money and not, you know, ACTUAL DOLLARS. Ugh. These fucking companies know it's children who are going to buy this crap, because it's marketed to children. No way a parent with any sense is going to be just dandy with paying 99 bucks for a virtual item, no matter how well off they might be. It's predatorial marketing at children who don't or won't be able to fully understand how F2P games actually work and i hope the whole thing gets regulated. It's about damn time.