Office of Fair Trading launches children's apps investigation

GAC

GAC

GAC

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honestly, how stupid do you have to be before you cant get your money back ?!

The OFT has launched an investigation into whether children are being unfairly pressured or encouraged to pay for additional content in 'free' web and app-based games, including upgraded membership or virtual currency such as coins, gems or fruit. Typically, players can access only portions of these games for free, with new levels or features, such as faster game play, costing money.

As part of the investigation, the OFT has written to companies offering free web or app-based games, seeking information on in-game marketing to children. The OFT is also asking for parents and consumer groups to contact it with information about potentially misleading or commercially aggressive practices they are aware of in relation to these games.
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pro tip parents, dont let your kids game on your accounts that have a credit card attached. set one up for them which has no means of paying on it, and is buttoned down so tight all they can do is game.

this is akin to leaving your kids in a sweet shop with your wallet and then asking for money back after they have spent it all on sweets.

STOP BEING STUPID!!!:mad:
 
So...they are looking into any 'potentially misleading or commercially aggressive practices' and whether there is any 'unfair pressure or encouragement to pay for additional content'

What's the problem with that....it's what the OFT is supposed to do?
 
the problem is, parents are crying because they left their kids playing games with a credit card attached to the account they where on. is it so hard to setup an account just for the kids so they cant spend money ?
 
Not hard but inconvenient. There are thousands of 'free' kid's apps and many of them are little more than scams. Especially so are the poorer quality ones aimed at users of four years and under. I welcome an investigation - however, I have taught my daughter that we never buy content on these apps, and I have disabled in-app purchases. Two precautions i believe parents should take in sich circumstances. We only slipped up once when I popped out of the room briefly and the app store had 'remembered' my password for a few minutes (as it does).
 
Maybe they should start investigating the stupid parents who give free regain to their kids when playing all these games. They should learn how to disable access to paid content.
 
Oh, and in before the 'lol kids shouldn't have tablets anyway, they should be out in the fresh air on penny farthings made of coal' brigade.
 
Cosimo said:
Maybe they should start investigating the stupid parents who give free regain to their kids when playing all these games. They should learn how to disable access to paid content.
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That's the whole point though isn't it, part of the reason regulations are there is to stop the stupid getting ripped off by the unscrupulous.
 
Freakbro said:
So...they are looking into any 'potentially misleading or commercially aggressive practices' and whether there is any 'unfair pressure or encouragement to pay for additional content'

What's the problem with that....it's what the OFT is supposed to do?
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Exactly, some of these apps are scams in all but name.

Edrof said:
I welcome an investigation - however, I have taught my daughter that we never buy content on these apps, and I have disabled in-app purchases. Two precautions i believe parents should take in sich circumstances. We only slipped up once when I popped out of the room briefly and the app store had 'remembered' my password for a few minutes (as it does).
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Responsible parenting? Well I never, you Sir are a rose amongst thorns. All this is normally blamed at Apple (or Android or whatever) as it is never the prents fault.

Cosimo said:
Maybe they should start investigating the stupid parents who give free regain to their kids when playing all these games. They should learn how to disable access to paid content.
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+1
 
Can you set limits on in app purchases?

The in-app purchases for The Simpons game go up to £99 the last time I looked :eek:
 
GAC said:
honestly, how stupid do you have to be before you cant get your money back ?!



pro tip parents, dont let your kids game on your accounts that have a credit card attached. set one up for them which has no means of paying on it, and is buttoned down so tight all they can do is game.

this is akin to leaving your kids in a sweet shop with your wallet and then asking for money back after they have spent it all on sweets.

STOP BEING STUPID!!!:mad:
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Ah so while greed is perfectly fine and commendable, being a naive child or a parent who isn't tech savvy about today's freemium apps is the real problem here.
 
GAC said:
the problem is, parents are crying because they left their kids playing games with a credit card attached to the account they where on. is it so hard to setup an account just for the kids so they cant spend money ?
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+ 1


parents crying on the news cos little timmy ran up £1k, well im sorry but with ios you have to enter the password to make a purchase, oh right yeah you gave him the password, slow clap
 
anything to put off all this stupid freemium games we now see, I would rather pay more to have the full game than get it for free with 99% missing or a delay in the next time you can play it.
 
Xordium said:
:rolleyes: Should take your own advice there.

Because of course it's that simple and it is purely the parents fault. Parents who most of the time don't understand and companies willing to make it oh so easy for problems to occur.
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excuse me ?

and is it that hard to setup a separate account for the kids to game on with no means of paying attached to it ?
 
I find it deeply disturbing that developers would put a £69.99 IAP in a game marketed towards children. I wonder what the legitimate vs. accidental purchases are at that level.
 
I saw this on the news this morning and it makes me realize how lazy some parents have got now that they are quite happy for their kids to waste hours on a I Pad playing games. Instead of going outside learning and having fun! My parents always used to moan at me for playing too long on the megadrive. Now it is the other way around.

The parents deserve what they get if they are stupid enough to basically give their card details to their kids on a plate.
 
GAC said:
excuse me ?

and is it that hard to setup a separate account for the kids to game on with no means of paying attached to it ?
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Yes, it is for some people who are not tech savvy. The powers that be have to cater for all walks of life and most people strangely enough do not know such things so when deliberately manipulative strategies are employed it is right they challenge them. Doesn't absolve parenting skills and for people to learn how to use things safely. I take it you're the perfect parent and bring your kids up yourself and get everything spot and are always around to supervise them etc?
 
HAz said:
anything to put off all this stupid freemium games we now see, I would rather pay more to have the full game than get it for free with 99% missing or a delay in the next time you can play it.
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totally agree with this. Wasn't it recently the case with EA's new car racing game found that it would cost over 3000 quid to buy the full game! :eek:

My son has an ipod but in app purchases are disabled and I have it restricted so that all installs need the password therefore I can see all games that go on the machine.

However even at 7 there is some peer pressure from school to download the latest freemium game some are quite good and give a lot of free content and some are basically just scams.
 
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I suppose what you have to ask yourself is whether there is EVER moral place for kids games where extra content required to maintain play is unlockable or obtainable in game at premium costs. As adults we put up with DLC, but in all fairness, 99.9% of it is usually **** that should be free, but is flogged to you out of pure greed and duchebaggery of the publisher. But where we, adults, make educated decisions whether or not to partake in this exercise, buy "extra" content and feed "the trolls" who limited and disadvantaged your game just to screw you out of extra few quid, in my humble opinion, in terms of games for kids, extra content, DLCs and tokens are simply not acceptable. Not ever. Decision making mechanism is just not there, it's absent from that market. There is nothing to humanly exploit. You are effectively taking piggy banks from kids. Literally.
 
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