Imagine you go shopping and instead of clothes, toys, or other products you just see boxes. You can’t purchase items on their own, that’s not how this works. Instead, you have to buy a box and hope that what you want is in it. I don’t think that store would be popular for very long, maybe for a while but once the novelty wore off the place would likely go out of business. People want to know that when they pay for something, they are getting what they want or need. In-game “loot boxes,” work basically like the fictional store I described above. You pay a dollar amount small enough to feel meaningless and unlock access to the box. When it opens on your screen you see what you were able to purchase and you can only hope it’s something you wanted or needed for your character.
Epic games no longer has these types of loot boxes in Fortnite but they did and that’s what this law suit is all about. The boxes advertised the best items that you could get but the family of the young player who this lawsuit is centered around say the chances of actually obtaining those items were very low. This is being interpreted as “predatory,” especially since many of the loot boxes are cute little llama pinatas. Freemium games have been around for a long time but Fortnite is the first game of its kind to have such a large and young player count. Children as young as six or seven are playing Fortnite and purchasing these items to make their characters and weapons look more interesting.
What Parents Should Know
If you are inclined to allow your child to play games like Fortnite you need to be aware of a few things. First of all, free is never truly free. There is a reason they don’t charge for the game, it is easier to get a ton of players and have a bunch of them pay for arbitrary avatar and weapon skins than to convince people your game is worth sixty dollars. Many of the top earners in every app store are Free to Play games. These games are popular because they are free to play and the cost of in app purchases seem very low. The trick is how easily you can rack up the amount you spend on the game just to keep yourself playing. Whether it is a game where you’re building a farm and want your crops to grow faster or one in which you are fighting and want better weapons, many of these games let you pay to progress further into the game.
The question, I guess, isn’t whether or not this practice is legal. (Spoiler alert: it is completely legal.) The question is that should it be legal to create in-app purchases that appeal to especially young gamers? These games made for kids that ask you to pay to continue or educational apps that make you pay to unlock more characters have found a way to get past the parent gatekeeper by making the app free. Then the child just has to click “purchase” when the ad pops up in the app and the purchase is made. There are ways for parents to set up controls to keep that from happening but many aren’t aware of how or just don’t think to set it until their credit card has already been used for hundreds or even thousands of dollars.
The creators of Fortnite may never be held accountable for the way they market products in their games. Whether or not they should be held accountable is up to the courts to decide. As far as parents go, you do have a responsibility to protect your kids in the digital world they live in. Talk to your children about in-app purchases. Help them understand that the money has to come from somewhere. If you are ok with them spending some money in-game then use gift cards instead of credit cards so that when they run out of money, they’re out. Set up controls so they have to ask you to approve in-app purchases. Whatever method you choose, you can keep your kids from being preyed upon by the advertising in these games. You just have to do the research and take the steps.
