I'd be more excited for this much needed competition if it weren't a company that survives by taking advantage of children's naivety of money and natural impulses to sell virtual outfits and animations at sickening prices. App store cuts are ridiculously high, but at least they're not taking candy directly from babies.
I'm not a fan of Fortnite but that is extremely disingenuous. In your interpretation, parents are completely absolved from responsibility and apparently children have free access to credit cards that can't legally even be issued to them.
Want to know the responsible answer to "mommy can I buy a Fortnite skin"? It's "no". Simple as that. Same as it was when the question was "dad can I buy this Harry Potter poster" or "mom can I get this GI Joe" or "grandma can I buy a stick to roll my hoop with" or anything marketed to kids over the past literally forever.
Don't want your kids spending money on video games? Don't give them your credit card number. Don't blame Epic for making a fun and free-to-play video game that kids enjoy. The people actually spending the money aren't kids being taken advantage of, they're actual consenting adults. Kids don't have credit cards so they cannot make digital purchases.
> Don't blame Epic for making a fun and free-to-play video game that kids enjoy.
You had me up until this point. No one can deny the extreme amounts of psychology (read: manipulation) used in children's marketing. (Or any marketing...)
Marketing can only go so far. There are plenty of things (video games included) marketed towards kids with big budgets that the children are completely ambivalent about. If they didn't enjoy Minecraft or Roblox or Fortnite or Pokemon or JUUL or McDonald's Happy Meals or light-up sneakers, they'd join the ranks of EZ Squirt ketchup, ET for Atari, New Coke, or the Virtual Boy.
I say no, every time. However, I don't want to be the all-controlling parent that dictates what can purchased with gift cards. I try to demonstrate what's being given up, what's gotten in return (nothing but a few bit flips in a database in this case) and break down why he wants whatever thing it is. After a few years of Roblox and now Fortnite, I can see the wheels starting to turn on their own and I think he's forgone quite a few purchases of his own will.
Fortnite skins have become somewhat of a social status amongst kids and their friends, especially since its a game where they play with their friends. Many times kids are asking parents to buy these add ons to keep up with their friends, and may feel excluded (or even bullied) if not staying with the latest trends (AKA latest Fortnite skins). Parents denying kids that can definitely impact the kids even outside of the game itself. To these kids it is much more than bit flips in a database even if that's actually what it is.
Grandparent advocated for education as it shields young consumers from sales trickery.
It's a good thing that such education "impacts the kids even outside of the game itself".
It's the equivalent of not having the latest sneakers (which was a thing in my age bracket).
Regarding the bullying: That's not related to brand choices but group dynamics. A skilled bully doesn't need you not to buy a skin for your child to bully her or him.
That's an interesting take, most people I know find that Fortnite is a much better alternative than let's say 90% of apps that are aimed at children that are literal gambling simulators. In Fortnite you get what you pay for, no BS. No pay-to-win power ups, just cosmetic items that are fairly high quality and often referencing the hottest memes at the moment. Even the seasonal battlepass can be quite fair with rewards.
If you want to see a game that actively preys on the young you should look into Fifa Ultimate team. It forces you to spend hundreds of dollars opening packs of cards like in hearthstone but in the end of the day all of it goes down the drain because it doesn't carry over to next year's game. This is so absurdly predatory and they keep making it a heavier focus for the game every year.
Companies have sought to take money from parents via their children for as long as childrens' products have existed. Epic isn't doing anything new here.
At least skins and other virtual assets aren't filling our landfills with plastic crap.
Just to add to that, as a fortnite player, I don't see any glaring psychological attempt to make purchases addicting. Buy shit and you unlock cool outfits, thats it.
It's even better than that. They key mentioning that the crap you buy gives you no competitive advantage, it's cosmetic only. In an age of loot-boxes and pay-to-win, this is super refreshing for a 100% free game.
Popular YouTuber has a skin that's no longer available. Epic brings it back for an arbitrary limited time. It cost more v-bucks than could realistically be earned in-game. Every kid wants it.
If they want it that bad, let them go mow lawns or shovel driveways or whatever. You know, like kids have often had to do when there was something they wanted, no matter how silly it seems to adults.
It's that they sell something that cost relatively noting to make or distribute, put an imaginary wall around it and charge insane access fees. The only value provided is entirely in the targeted mind, the minds of children; the uneducated; the impulsive.
Maybe it irks me so much because it represents the bottom of capitalism barrel and it's wildly successful.
I'm mad at Epic for making the trap, but I'm equally as aggravated at people for falling into the trap, even though it's clearly marked with giant neon lights.
I think if one of your classmates has a lot of different skins and plays the game for a long time most days you would likely be inclined to try and match what they have and do in the game if you want to continue to be part of this social circle. This is probably even more pronounced today than it was 5-10 years ago, because now there are youtubers and twitch streamers who can spend 4-12 hours every day playing the game and they have massive incomes to spend on virtual items.
The same thing happens with real clothes, and those get made often by child labor. If some of that status signaling can be diverted to digital goods instead of contributing to child labor and deforestation from cotton farming it seems like a net win.
Or at least let's not pretend that this 21st century version of status symbol nonsense is really any different than what kids have always been doing. Some kid has a SNES and you only have a NES... Who's got Air Jordans? Who's got the best lunch? The best toys. Whatever. It's all the same. It's always been the same.
Hell I remember 1990 my elementary school installed a pencil machine. And you got like two random pencils with whatever graphics on them for a quarter (or maybe two quarters) and people were dumping money into that thing like they were going to hit the jackpot and become pencil barons of the midwest.
It's always been the same song and dance, kids are morons, and they are subject to the whims of whatever fad.
Fortnite has actually helped my son understand the concept of saving money (V-Bucks, the in-app currency). He has started asking himself, "Do I really want this? Or should I save my V-Bucks for something I know I'll love."
Mine too, but he still says things like "I can't wait to get my own credit card so I can buy all the v-bucks I want". So there is still much to learn :)
I mean basically every company creating anything for children's entertainment is doing this. Unless it's an educational product, and even many of those are included, it's getting your kid interested in some useless thing (a game, a cartoon, a cereal, whatever) so that they will bug their parents to give them money for this thing.
Are you upset by the pricing? Would you be happier if the virtual outfits cost less? Are you upset that they're marketed to children at all? How is this different from My Little Pony making a child interested in their toys through their cartoon? Do you just hate capitalism as a concept (not sarcastic, that's generally my stance on things)?
I'm a gamer, and I'm not a fan of micro-transactions for components of a game you NEED in order to play (ie, extra lives in time based games, cards to play hearthstone/etc) but I really can't hate on a game maker saying "hey, if you want to play my game AND look like a panda, there's an extra charge for that". You're received the "complete" game for free and being charged for the game equivalent of a table with a better view at a restaurant. Food still tastes the same, game still plays the same.
I'd agree, except that Fortnite is hardly the originator of this sort of model. Blizzard has been doing similar things for years. And once upon a time Team Fortress 2 being dubbed a hat simulator comes to mind. And then there was Counter-Strike.
I don't buy into the "please, won't someone think of the children", type arguments like this is a new problem or that this game is specifically for kids. Or that Epic should change their business model when it turns out lots of children end up playing their wildly popular game.
Virtual clothes to look cool are not really any different from real life clothes. I mean, some dads refuse to let their daughters buy makeup, I guess that's kind of the same thing.
