Haven’t executives themselves done enough damage by demanding excessive crunch, releasing remakes/remasters that censor or remove content present in the original game, putting in half-assed inclusivity measures that anger many and please no one (Pro-Tip: Body Type only works as a replacement for Gender select if you have options outside of Buff Dude or Curvy Chick. Aint nobody but a damn right wing troll who identifies as “Not Funny” is going to put she/her pronouns on the buff dude), forcing voice actors out of the industry in favor of random celebrities, and demanding every game have a FOMO-Fueled Battle Pass?
I really don’t need some out-of-touch pro-censorship blowhard telling me that my boomer shooters can only feature the thrills of “Shooting Non-Intimidating Robots with Nerf Guns”
the regulation in this case is more about exploitation of children in online spaces, not so much about violence in videogames. That question was settled in the 90s.
Tell that to the IOC who refused to feature any shooters at the Esports Olympics because they’re “too violent” - they even forced Fortnite to make a target shooting mode for its entry!
well that’s the Olympics. They are the dictators of their event, for better or for worse. Rules in the Olympics are important, but they are not legislation or regulation.
I had never heard of it, but I went to find out who won the SC2 gold medal and found out instead that they only included video game versions of established olympic sports, i.e. the fortnite was target shooting mode because target shooting is a sport that's in the olympics.
Yes, it’s very very silly and is basically the complete opposite of what it should be. It should be the Olympics for Esports, not a bunch of mobile games tangentially related to existing olympic sports.
As currently proposed, KOSA’s pitch on harm reduction policies come in a few forms:
Establishing a “duty of care” requirement that would potentially hold social networking companies liable if they fail to filter out abusive or exploitative content for minors
Ban targeted advertising towards minors
Stronger default privacy protections for minors
Beyond that, the bill is still in progress. It passed the Senate, but not the House, and it might be dead in the water, so there are no specific implementation details just yet. The point of the article is that legislators are aware of online “platform” games like Roblox, and they are aware that they are exploiting kids. So even if this specific bill doesn’t pass, regulation is coming one way or another. It’s just a question of whether the industry will self-regulate before the government actually passes something.
Well, if the parents are both working 40+ hours and spending 10+ hours in transit every week, there will be no free time. It’s kind of unfair to solely blame parenthood for that though imho. Another important point to remember is that kids grow fast.
oh man you have to pomodoro it? I do not have kids, but I feel like this would sort of kill the fun for me a bit. It would make play feel like work. I get that maybe that’s just what you gotta do, but I do not envy gaming parents.
It’s probably a cross between not as bad as you think and exactly as bad as it sounds— a bit more about managing expectations and hoping that you can pause during cut scenes
The next bad thing is now I’m apparently also old so I can start falling asleep at 11ish :-/
Things were much better back in the good old days when the social pressure to buy lego bricks and action figures was reinforced only by a constant barrage of TV advertising.
I decided to never make an in game purchase for one of the games I play the most. Only once did some random call me a "poor", which made me laugh. One the stupider things I've heard someone say in that game.
I don’t care about skins like, at all. And intentionally leave my characters with whatever the defaults are just to show other people how much I don’t care.
But definitely in my younger years wanted whatever was the hot thing at the time. I remember at one point it was yo-yos. And the “TalkBack” from Home Alone. And Furby. And Tomagotchi.
Not really any different from my experience around clothing and “ringtones” for your phone. And not different from my parents around clothing which was ridiculously important, much less room for any personal expression than there is today, back then it was with the times / fashion or outdated, no styles or choice existed unless you count sub-cultures which without exception were social outcasts.
I think it’s slightly different for a few reasons:
It’s almost completely unregulated. Gatcha games, slot machines, loot boxes, and the like are all literal gambling, yet have mostly skirted gambling laws and other regulations.
The in-game UX is unregulated and is designed to encourage spending and obfuscate costs. Games themselves are designed around maximum addiction. Then they include time-limited items/deals to encourage FOMO. Hell, the only reason Diablo 4 is a live service game is so people who buy skins have a (forced) audience to show off to.
What happens on screens in virtual spaces may not be monitored by parents (or schools) at all, as closely, or as easily. Parents may not even know their child is buying in-game items and skins, or not understand how it’s different from buying games/DLC.
The ads themselves are also mostly unregulated. Children’s TV ads are tightly regulated in a lot of the world, but digital ads have carte blanche to advertise to children directly.
Social media acts as a magnifier, with high-status steamers and other content creators rocking high-priced skins acting as game-specific niche “celebrities”/influencers, and are also completely unregulated.
I worry for my kids that they will face a lot of pressures that just didn’t exist for me in the 80s and 90s.
As a parent to a kid smack dab in the middle of this right now I gotta say that while I welcome regulation on 1, 2 and 4 generally, not just for kids, I really and firmly believe parents who allow their kids to buy whatever they want in game (i.e. gift in game currency and leaves it at that) are horrendously lazy. And I have an analogy for that as well.
Back in my day what happened when kids got unsupervised cash was at best candy instead of lunch in school and at worst alcohol or cigarettes. Back in my parents time it was basically, due to before mentioned conformity, only cigarettes as the only possible outcome.
As such I really feel loot boxes is decidedly better than cigarettes and alcohol while being tied with candy for lunch.
3 is just a parental issue. It’s the same as not knowing where your kid is and who he’s playing/interacting with.
5 is a big societal issue right now. Social media is really fucking with not just kids but virtually all of us. Me being here is largely a way to combat my own unhealthy relationship to social media. We’re extremely social creatures at our core and social media manipulates us in ways we have little chance of resisting with mindful consumption. It’s cigarettes as they were back in the early 1900s.
I think most interesting thing about this discussion thread is that some of the trends back then are talked about like it was in the past. But, stuff like clothing, using allowance for candy or at worst cigarettes, etc is still something that all kids are still undergoing. It’s just the same stuff older people went through, but with social media and increased digital engagement and public exposure on top of that. So doesn’t seem like much has changed, but that now there is even more stuff than before to also juggle.
I’d argue that so far the load as it is, is from my outside perspective about the same as what I had. It’s just split over more stuff and what pressure you face is much more related to the crowd you interact with. My son, like me, is more of a nerd while having a theater side that I don’t. The pressure he faces is keeping up with YouTube trends, Roblox games and Minecraft mods that the creators that are popular play. While some of his friends flaunt in-game items and follow creators that do content that I personally don’t find child appropriate I have had no issues so far talking about that with him and setting limits on what he’s allowed to interact with and have managed to instill understanding about the ultimate pointlessness about avatar items. And given the vast sea of content there is there has been no issues finding appropriate content and he’s confident enough to bring what he found/enjoyed to the group and not just mindlessly follow.
It helps that he really hates loot boxes IRL, like say kindereggs and gumball machines. He finds no enjoyment in the surprise part, only disappointment when it’s not the one he wanted.
That said I understand that while I put in work as a parent the exact same amount of work might be woefully inadequate with another kid, due to no fault at all on the parenting. Hell I have three kids and they all have had vastly different challenges. Stuff that was easy with one took extreme effort with another. So I don’t really fault parents for the small stuff, if a kid watches one YouTuber that really isn’t age appropriate, OK. If they watch only stuff that is not at all for kids then I have an issue with that and have raised such concerns with them.
I think the one huge difference is that things are much more public and permanent than in the past. And sometimes people don’t realize the consequences of what they share until it is far too late. Long time ago stupid things stayed in people’s memories and now it can be digitized for record keeping. And social media makes it seem like somethings follow you home when in the past problems might just be at school, but now the issues and attention can continue online.
For sure, as I outlined social media is a completely different beast and one I do not permit my son to interact with and will hold out for as long as is reasonable.
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