I'm with you guys. I'm one of the types who likes to flow against the meta while still kicking ass (sometimes). I am not a fortnite player but nothing is more satisfying then getting into some good PvP action and schooling one of these noobies who thinks they are good because they bought stuff.
I'm sure there is all kinds of cyber bullying, fortnite bullying and stuff. I must have been lucky but as a youth I had a couple real friends. We played halo all the day, i wasnt the best. I usually sucked compared to some buddies. But we still teamed up and had fun playing together.
It might not be easy for a current 8/10 year old boy to do this, but there are a zillion fortnite players. Maybe he can just find some other people to play with. Or if you are 8 years old, maybe you shouldnt be playing online shooting games.
I wasnt able to do the online shootie stuff (halo era) until I could afford my own shit and bought an xbox with my own money. Yeah all of my friends parents bought shit for them and they had xbox live, all of it. Paid runescape account. We were 10/11/12. Sure i was a little bit out of it, no body wanted to come to my house cause I didnt have the online games yet.
I just had a daughter recently and want to get her playing games. Like other parents in this thread, i am not feeding them money to buy in game shit. I'm not going to give her an iphone/ipad at age 4 and be surprised when she spends $1,000+ on in game shit. I've heard this exact story from multiple co-workers. I usually just laugh it off but part of me is like, the fuck is yoru problem giving your kid an ipad and giving them free reign? This co-worker is a c suite guy making a shit ton of money. Likely doesnt have enough time to actually _be_ with his kids so you just get an ipad.
At some point in my life I realized that some games were worth spending money on, especially given the amount of time spent in them. I can understand your point of view, and I totally agree in the context of children/teens but I try not to play games that heavily incentivize spending, so when I put 100+ hours into a game, I don't consider buying some microtransactions "losing".
I totally agree. You wouldn't want to know how much money I spent on Europa Universalis and Crusader Kings. But I know what I'm buying and why, and it's a conscious decision, not succumbing to pressure or temptation.
I think it's healthy to recognise when a system, game or otherwise, tries to manipulate you into spending money, and I try to teach my son to recognise that. It's fine to spend money, but spend it on something that's worth it, something you want, not something you're pressured into.
F2P games unfortunately fall into the dichotomy where the target market is usually the people with the least amount of money to spend, but also with the least amount of willpower/experience to resist spending it. I'm glad that when I was growing up the closest thing I had to the microtransaction hell that is F2P were MMOs that I couldn't run, and all my games came on CDs.
I've definitely found those games where I've sunk amazing amounts of time into them (Stormworks Search and Rescue is a current one, Path of Exile in the past) and have debated buying a few extra copies just to try and encourage the devs...
