To be fair, I would say that this is an accurate assessment on the state of the general public.
Office of Fair Trading launches children's apps investigation
- Thread starter GAC
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To be fair, I would say that this is an accurate assessment on the state of the general public.
oh noes. i have poor grammar quick make a personal attack pointing it out to humiliate me over it!!!
not having great grammar and allowing your kids to run around with your credit cards and then cry when you lose money are slightly different. but if you need to make yourself feel better about my grammar abilities carry on.
OTOH how about corporations take some responsibility and make sure that none of their apps, especially ones targeted at children, can be misused in this way. I heard on the radio this morning that one children's app can end up costing you £70 - how do they justify that when a brand new console game only costs £40.
I don't want to see our society take on the attributes of the old wild west with snake-oil salesmen free to take advantage of vulnerable sections of society without repercussion from the law.
I didn't mention grammar.
Also, where's the personal attack?
I was highlighting how you were whinging about people and calling them stupid based on them not understanding something as basic and simple as how apps and paid content work, yet yourself getting something as basic as a few apostrophes and not putting spaces before question/exclamation marks (arguably easier than understanding apps and paid content) wrong is not?
Surely instead of the butthurt that I am apparently trying to make myself feel better about something as basic as apostrophes and question/exclamation marks, I'm highlighting that fact that it's not as simple as you have put it yourself, and maybe it'd be a good idea if you considered such things before getting overly excited and calling people stupid for not understanding something that you understand.
If you feel like I have called you stupid, that's purely based on my example following the exact same logic as your example in the OP, which is really your issue.
Additionally, if you feel like I am calling you stupid and trying to make myself feel better by following your logic, are you calling them stupid to make yourself feel better about something?
Are we going to find out that your bank account was rinsed by a young relative playing on your iPhone and Apple are refusing to refund?
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In the real world, it should be a balance of both.
Soldato
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Thank you! I've been wondering where the turn off in game purchases option is for weeks!
Eh ignoring the parenting issue as its a lot more complicated than people are making out 
It saddens me to see the state of a lot of these apps - they invariably are poorly coded, steal assets from other established products, often link themselves to popular brands, tv shows, movies, etc. without permission/license to do so and charge the earth for minor perks, etc.
Reported a couple of apps for (completely blatantly and obviously) ripping off media owned by a company I used to work for (some created by myself) and nothing happened despite several attemps, was only when the company threatened to take them to court they finally pulled the apps and banned those developers.
It saddens me to see the state of a lot of these apps - they invariably are poorly coded, steal assets from other established products, often link themselves to popular brands, tv shows, movies, etc. without permission/license to do so and charge the earth for minor perks, etc.
Reported a couple of apps for (completely blatantly and obviously) ripping off media owned by a company I used to work for (some created by myself) and nothing happened despite several attemps, was only when the company threatened to take them to court they finally pulled the apps and banned those developers.
Shh! Don't let the OP know, or he'll get redfaced and he'll tell you to stop being stupid in caps!
as i said, allowing kids to run around with your credit cards (which it basicaly is) and then moaning about it when they spend money and my lack of correct use of question marks etc are slightly different.
if you can buy a ipad load it up and slap in a credit card and save the number it shouldn't take a huge leap of your imagination to work out money can be spent at any time.
as for my grammar ( which i assumed question marks etc came under) i do have issues which i guess could best be described as dyslexia but as iv never been officially diagnosed with it (the joys of a state education in the 80's) i do the best i can.
as for comparing it to people leaving credit card numbers live on an account, and then leaving the kids to run up bills and try to hide that in a excuse of "the app's sneaky and doesn't make it plain enough that its going to charge me" is rather poor.
im sure all of us on here have used something with micro transactions at some point and at some point in there it will say its charging you real money. not points or something else.
as for me trying to make myself feel better, not at all im just sick of people having to point the finger elsewhere when it was down to their own actions that they messed up.
but who knows maybe im really angry at the world and the lack of micro transaction games. there needs to be moooooooooooore!!!!!
If you are incapable of taking the necessary steps to protect yourself when letting a child use your ipad then you shouldn't let them near it. If you can't bothered to find out then its your own fault.
As with everything else, people just do whatever the hell they like and then whinge when it gets them in trouble. We live in an age where you can find out literally anything in 2 minutes on the internet so what the hell is their excuse.
My parents bought me a penknife when I was about 9. They didn't just give it to me then bugger off and hope I didn't do something stupid. Same when we got our first computer and the internet. They monitored us to make sure we weren't doing anything stupid.
Unsurprisingly though, when the idiots start whinging, other idiots pipe up too. Get some common sense or accept the consequences.
As with everything else, people just do whatever the hell they like and then whinge when it gets them in trouble. We live in an age where you can find out literally anything in 2 minutes on the internet so what the hell is their excuse.
My parents bought me a penknife when I was about 9. They didn't just give it to me then bugger off and hope I didn't do something stupid. Same when we got our first computer and the internet. They monitored us to make sure we weren't doing anything stupid.
Unsurprisingly though, when the idiots start whinging, other idiots pipe up too. Get some common sense or accept the consequences.
I beg to differ that in all cases it is a myth.
A certain percentage of the population are going to be technologically naive - this is known - the question is do we want to allow people to exploit these individuals.
Some people are stupid, some people have learning difficulties, some are old, some are gullible, some simply know nothing about technology - should it be fine to allow businesses to exploit these groups of the population in the name of some "omg, you are treating people like drones" silly rhetoric?.
I'm sure an amicable balance can be found, one which protects people from accidental purchasing & still allows the pay to play model to continue.
Personally I despise casual gaming & the ridiculous charges to play a game which in reality should cost no more than £2 for the entire thing - it pretty much embodies everything which is wrong with modern capitalism.
My first experience of this was the Simpsons game from EA.
You click on a button to "Get more donuts", choose an option, the first is a shop of 2400 donuts, with no mention of this costing real money, so I clicked it. The next screen is click to accept a debit card payment of £95!
Granted if you know what you are doing that is not a huge issue, but I think these options need to be marked as paid content a lot sooner than a checkout screen with a single 'Accept' button on it. These apps seem to be designed to get people to purchase things by mistake or for children to do it without realising what they're doing.
You click on a button to "Get more donuts", choose an option, the first is a shop of 2400 donuts, with no mention of this costing real money, so I clicked it. The next screen is click to accept a debit card payment of £95!
Granted if you know what you are doing that is not a huge issue, but I think these options need to be marked as paid content a lot sooner than a checkout screen with a single 'Accept' button on it. These apps seem to be designed to get people to purchase things by mistake or for children to do it without realising what they're doing.
Right right, and yet you ignored the actual point.
You know, the notion of how it's very easy to label people stupid based on them not understanding something, as the OP did.
I was highlighting this and suggesting that if the OP followed his own logic, he's calling himself stupid.
You know, how it's bad logic.
Oh lawd, I don't even know why I'm bothering spelling it out for you, you'll probably derp and read the post you think I make rather than what I actually type.
Indeed, the last point being key - it's the deliberate misleading nature of it.
£95 for in-game donuts..., what a crock of ****.
Soldato
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I hate pay to win games in general so I am all for tighter measures on them. 
They really aren't. You said yourself that it tells you "this costs £95". Where is the confusion. This is how everything in the world works. You look at something you want, you then check the price. How are they deceiving you?
In app purchases are so popular because most people are too cheap to pay for apps. Thats why the freemium model came about. You don't have to pay for IAP's and you don't have to play the game. There is no way that you can "trick" people into spending money in apps.
I don't want to find that my next iOS device does absolutely nothing useful before I have to undo all the "parental" settings that have been turned on by default because of thick parents.
They're different, sure, but it's the same principle, in that you are equating a lack of understand with stupidity.
Sure, I agree with that, but again a lack of understanding doesn't mean they're stupid, I would certainly call it ignorant though.
Punctuation
But my comments weren't really about that, it was just an example of flippant judgements based on something like a lack of understanding of something some people consider basic.
Though, a lot of people do seem to claim to be dyslexic and the majority of them haven't actually been tested.
I actually am myself, though my issue isn't with spelling, it's with numbers and handwriting/copying text down, so it's not even a case of that. Not to say I'm saying you're not, just that it's a bit more than just off spelling/punctuation or whatever.
Well this is actually the issue. In some circumstances, it isn't actually as boldly shown that it's real money, and would very much come under the heading of sneaky, I would even say that developers do it on purpose knowing full well how easy it is for kids to get hold of it and buy all sorts very quickly.
Well again, I wasn't genuinely suggesting that you were, I was again pointing out flippant judgements based on poor logic, in that you claimed I was trying to make myself feel better criticising you in the same way you were criticising others.
I do agree, it's a ridiculous situation, it's just not really a good thing to go around calling people stupid because they don't get something the way you do, when it's really based on ignorance.
Except at no point does it say the item costs money, or tell you the price, until you have to confirm payment . That is the only place a price was mentioned or listed. Also at no point did it suggest the game contained paid for content. I don't find that comparable to an online shop where you would see the price of an item listed before you choose to add it to your basket and then click to go to checkout.
I can't think of any usability problems with listing the price against an in-game item? So why wouldn't they display it?