US kids want games subscriptions and virtual currency more than games this Christmas
A report by the Entertainment Software Association has found that 72% of children in the US want games-related products…
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US kids are indoctrinated into a capitalist system and don’t know of any better. Fixed it for ya.
Buy games not live service scams. Subscriptions, micro transactions, loot boxes and season passes should be illegal.
The more you buy of those the less and less incentive for the big corporations to ever put out a regular game.
Games are a product not a service. Fuck your rent seeking behaviour.
I 100% agree, and I ban all of that crap from my house. We play plenty of games, but none of them have live service mechanics. The closest is I let my kids watch me play Risk, which has a BS store, but it stays out of the way.
My wife plays a live service game, but I'm working on convincing her to spend her money and time better. It's not a great example to set for our kids, but I'm putting my foot down that they don't touch any of that nonsense.
What's wrong with live service games? It just seems like a stupid category to just eliminate on principle with how many good games there are
Are you serious? They're predatory and don't respect the player's time. They're always trying to sell you something (currency, cosmetics, map packs, etc), and they build a sense of FOMO if you don't play every day (daily quests, updates, etc).
There are tons of great games out there that don't have that crap, and I'm happy to buy them for my kids. They have a variety of switch and PC games that aren't live service the they love.
I've never felt like Tf2 and league don't respect my time. Just because some games are shit, doesn't mean they all are
Agreed, I think those are reasonable. However, I don't want my kids playing TF2 because there's a ton of cheaters and I hear it can be a bit toxic (I haven't played recently at all), and probably not League because of the MTX to buy heroes (though that's far better than most other live service games). They can play those games when they get a bit older (again, my kids are <10).
But most other F2P games are unacceptable IMO, especially when there are much better paid games without all that nonsense.
Yeah, I totally get not wanting kids to play online games.
The main reason I wanted to bring these things up is because it seems you have more of a problem with live service games done poorly rather than with the principle of them on their own.
Just because there are a few decent live service games doesn't change the fact that the model is predatory, just like a few good mobile games existing doesn't change the fact that mobile gaming is a cesspool of predatory games.
I will always prefer games without MTX to games with them. For every good F2P game (i.e. games that respect the player's time, aren't pay-to-win, etc), I can point to several popular, predatory games. The ratio for popular paid games is much better.
So a handful of decent games doesn't mean the model isn't terrible, it just means there are some exceptions. And I'm absolutely willing to make exceptions to my rules.
Subscriptions, microtransactions, etc do seem like training behavior to mold the ideal consumer by gradually removing the initial price shopping and value assessment shopper might have.
I'm amazed by some the monthly bills people run up.
