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Comment by system2 | Hacker News Reader

I wish every damn micro transaction app gets removed one day. Of course no one will do it but I simply hate everything about these apps forcing parents to pay small fees for stupid pixels because their kids begs them to do it.

Sorry, nothing else new to add to the topic, just venting and have absolutely no sympathy to apps tricking kids to spend money on tiny cellphone games.

My niece begged her mother to buy a roblox dress for $60, it is in a game, not a real dress. Another neighbor's kid spent over $600 for a game called soccer stars. The game is literally gambling. When I hear gaming apps with micro transactions removed I celebrate, no matter what the reason is.

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Parent here. I play Fortnite with my two kids almost every night. Compared to the more ubiquitous pay-to-win style games that dominate the mobile market in particular I think Fortnite's model is pretty reasonable. Nothing you buy in the game will change your performance in any way or help you win. The game is free on every platform and there are people who play a lot without ever spending. As for what you can buy, its all just bling - stuff to make you look cool. If you pay $10 upfront and then play 3-4 hours a week you can earn enough V-Bucks playing to buy the battlepass every season and one or two small extras without ever putting another dollar into it. I'm sure some kids go crazy with it but its certainly not necessary.

FWIW, Epic removing the gambling aspect to loot boxes a lot on Fortnite: https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/47039090

I am alright with cosmetic microtransactions, but I think "loot boxes" should be relegated to rewards for play. Microtransactions should be to buy specific items... but leave loot boxes as a way to get random ones for free through normal play.

"The loot llamas are available to buy in the Save The World game mode. The more popular Battle Royale mode does not have loot boxes for sale."

So those are irrelevant anyway?

Be clear to the kids that they don't have permissions to spend money in apps, then systematically request for refund and charge back if the app doesn't refund you.

Apps have no basis to deceive children into spending money. Most of their practices are outright illegal depending on the jurisdiction (latin Europe), shouldn't have mercy on them.

There are bad developers will not pay your money back and keep their 5 bucks and only refund after a long, long process. They feed on this behavior, for each customer do not challenge those purchases they make free money.

When all the payments are forced to go through a trusted processor with correct parental controls for all apps in the platform, you guarantee that your kid will not make any uninformed purchases.

The thing about fraud is, if you do not stop it completely, it grows exponentially.

> I wish every damn micro transaction app gets removed one day.

What’s the alternative? I’m in love with the micro transactions model because the alternative is experience destroyed by ads or high upfront fees.

On the games I play I rarely buy anything, don’t see ads but their business is healthy and the games are fantastic and regularly updated with new content.

I casually play Asphalt 9, SimCity BuildIt and PUBG, probably have hundreds if not thousands of hours on each and spent probably less than $20 till now. If that’s not a great deal, I don’t know what is.

I also bought games like Monument Valley or Limbo and similar. While the experience is also top notch, the upfront payment feels steep and the developers don’t update the games so the play time is considerably less.

> I rarely buy anything, don’t see ads but their business is healthy

Where do you think the money comes from, then? Ultimately, your `fantastic' experience comes at the cost of innumerable singular sites of suffering from the children and addicts _who do_ buy them.

Good for them. There are controls for kids and if some people subsidize the rest, I don’t have a problem with that.

Some people taking the tab for the rest isn’t new. Some people have more money than sense, that’s alright.

These games are high quality entertainment, if some people want to spend money on them, that’s not a bad thing.

There are teams of people whose entire job is to make the IAP as addictive as possible. It's not fair to say that someone should just "be less addicted" to buying them.

Regulating the kids by banning them completely is like a nuclear bomb in a mineshaft.

It should he easier to stop children spending money on them but equally I don't mind adults spending their money on new things. A new Fortnite skin or dance etc. does have a cost to produce (I am not in favour of PTW-style microtransactions though)

I can say quite confidently that micro transactions ruined sim city build it. They slathered the game with a massive amount of grind, it really only has a minor thematic similarity to the rest of the franchise.

I played the game for a year straight, just once spent something like $5 because I wanted an item that was about to expire an I was out of resources. Never felt like I had to pay to “win”. I never played the rest of the franchise though, enjoyed this one until I felt like I am spending too much time on a game and quit.

the alternative is experience destroyed by ads or high upfront fees

My experience is exactly the opposite. IAPs encourage developers to make the default experience sufficiently broken (e.g. requiring absurd amounts of grinding) so that you'll pay to fix it.

I know the argument but it’s not my experience with these games. Especially with PUBG, the purchases are only cosmetic if you don’t count the private playing mode that I’m not into anyway.

Because these games are multiplayer, you peer with people that are also not high spenders(mostly).

In Asphalt 9, for example It’s not realistic fir me to unlock some cars by free playing but I would not say that the experience is broken, Years later I still enjoy a few races every day because they introduce new items and gaming modes almost monthly.

Ads are worse. Micro-transactions are the only viable funding model that preserves some amount of user privacy.

They could just charge a single upfront amount of money.

Sure but will that fly on today's app store?

Anecdotally, I think a single purchase can also eliminate a feedback mechanism from the players to the designers, in some scenarios.

The DLC model seems to work. Similar to micro transactions, but none of the pay to win, gambling, and grind bypassing nonsense.

Seems to work OK for Minecraft. There is DLC for mods and texture packs and other clearly auxiliary stuff, but you get the whole game when you buy it.

Oh yeah, wow, it seems to work for the literal biggest game ever, I'm sure it'll work for everyone then.

It got to be the literal biggest game even on top of that princing model.

Or you could actually sell the game for a one time fee.

At least a Roblox dress likely doesn't use something near slave labor for what is ultimately disposable fashion like traditional throw away clothing production.

I see this as a huge failure in parenting - how come kids can actually spend those money? Why in the heck would you put in your credit card on a kids phone?

Heck, I never put in mine, I am perfectly fine with free apps that cover vast array of my usage. I don't game on the phone though. If my kids won't either, I can call it a small victory in parenting. If they will, either they earn the money themselves, receive gift (not from me that's for sure), or they will have to suffer subpar free-to-play variant of the game. Still a win.

I know, peer pressure and all that, but what happened to proper parenting and guiding children a bit through life?

Agreed, but it sounds pretty petty to say you surely won't gift your kids money for apps. Why not let them do what they want with your gift? Probably would end up a good lesson when they realize how much of a waste the apps are when you have limited resources.

The developers use every psychological tool known to human kind to make these kids beg for those. The way they are brain washed is ridiculous, you would understand if you watch these kids play and how addicted they get and only way to help their "life" which is the game at that point is buying. The kid will beg, scream, throw tantrums to get that thing they want. I've seen it, you can see it on youtube, there are thousands of videos showing how kids are brainwashed.

Again, I don't have a kid nor spend a single dollar on these apps. As a developer of other kinds of software I can see the dark patterns and psychological games in these apps and it is pure evil.

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