Evil genius marketing, working as it always does. The kids don’t know any better, so they are being exploited and conditioned to think the horrible new normal is just the way things have to be. And most parents are too tired and busy to find better alternatives.
It’s simple, the games that appeal the most to kids require some form of subscription. If those games didn’t, then they wouldn’t want ones with subscriptions.
Did it never occur to you that this might not be just coincidence?
It did. I think you are misunderstanding what I am saying, or adding more to it than there is.
Children do not desire subscriptions as a superior model to owning games. The model of access is not something they are comparing and contrasting. They are simply going for the games they prefer, which get locked behind subscriptions. I never implied that games popular with kids aren’t intentionally put behind subscriptions, I was arguing that the subscription model isn’t actually preferred by kids.
Apologies, I obviously misunderstood your first comment.
It’s cool, happens
How you worded this makes it seem like “if those games didn’t” refers to requiring subscriptions.
I would suggest editing it to “If those games didn’t appeal to kids” or similar; if what you meant was that kids just plays what appeals to them, and those games “just happens” to be subscription games.
I was talking just today with some coworkers about how having subscriptions instead of owning is what is normal to kids now - not just games, but things like Netflix and Spotify. So this doesn’t surprise me, but does depress me. Technofeudalism is the new normal.
In my teen years I spent a large fraction of my disposable income on music. A Spotify subscription is a vastly better value than buying whatever I could scrounge from a used CD store. Back then it was common for me to read about some semi-obscure recording and just have to wonder what it sounded like, because I had no hope of finding it in a store, and a special order was way out of my budget, especially for something I had no idea if I’d even like. Now I can listen to damn near anything that’s ever been published for less than I spent as a teenager. I find new music by listening to personalized recommendations instead of local radio stations. It’s just better in every way (except probably for the artists, but music has always been a cutthroat business so who knows).
A lot of subscription services suck and are just a way to milk customers, but streaming audio and video are not in that category.
I keep hoping–perhaps naively so–for a major backlash against this. Sometimes consumers have power, and sometimes they don’t. But maybe we’ll all get fed up with this bullshit and start just dropping any and all unnecessary subscriptions from our lives. The big problem is when a brand becomes synonymous with a product (like fucking Adobe and ProTools, for two examples).
Here are some relatively cheap games to give kids that aren’t fortnite or roblox and dont run on some subscription/internal monetary currency:
- Risk of Rain 2
- Minecraft (Java)
- Tunic
- Stardew Valley
- A Hat in Time
- Baba is You
- Fate (Wildtangent)
- Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga (Not the Skywalker Saga)
- Chip’s Challenge 1 and 2
- Shovel Night (Treasure Trove)
But I want FortNite V-Buck’s! I only have the default skins and people are making fun of me at school!
Exactly! This is more about the social aspect of these games. Kids are playing Fortnite/Roblox/Minecraft because that’s where their friends are hanging out after school.
Here are some good Free Software games that cost nothing at all:
- Hedgewars
- Mindustry
- Shattered Pixel Dungeon
- Minetest (with MineClone2 mod)
- 0 A.D.
- SuperTuxKart
- Freeciv
- FlightGear
- Battle for Wesnoth
What about Veloren?!
I wish more people helped fund the development of open source games, if wesnoth had a real budget then it could be huge
- Death’s Door
- Celeste
- Party Animals (you can buy a bunch of skins, but you don’t need to)
- The Outer Wilds
I would like to add Outer Wilds to this. No combat, virtually no violence, and adult themes are aimed at mild existentialism. Great exploration game with fun physics and puzzles.
For older kids I’d suggest: Satisfactory. Essentially first person Factorio with mild combat vs fauna.
Astroneer: exploration and advancement.Outer Wilds is kinda spooky though. I guess it depends on how old the kid is.
The DLC, definitely. The thorny planet is in the OG game a little bit. For the DLC I turned off scares because I don’t really play horror games and it was still very fun.
Why not skywalker saga, out of interest? Recently 100%ed it and thought it was a fun game.
It’s relatively more expensive, and requires a bit more modern hardware to run it.
Most every game on this list can run on some 2011 bestbuy/walmart unbranded pc.
That’s fair, I see what you mean. It is pretty hardware intensive relatively
I don’t like how much Minecraft has me by the balls. With all my hatred for Microsoft, I can’t let that game go.
On that note, install MineClone first, see if your kid likes it. Can’t hurt to try.
(Edit: MineClone2, the mod for Minetest, as seen in the reply below)
MineClone
The top DDG search result for that (on crazygames . com) looks like a rip-off or something. I’m going to assume the thing you mean to recommend is MineClone2, a mod for MineTest, which is the most prominent Free Software Minecraft-style game.
I indeed mean MineClone2, the mod for Minetest.
I should’ve specified, there’s no shortage of Minecraft clones to be confused by.
Shovel knight rules
I never played the DLCs or the Shovel Knight adjacent games they made (think there was a puzzler?) but I loved the original when it came out. Might be time to dive back in to that world.
I only played the original. I had a super shitty laptop that I loved back in the day when I was working the ambulance. Would play it between calls. As well as a special LoL account that would occasionally go afk dying matches. (Sorry guys. Not my fault. Kind of my fault. I’m sorry.
Missing Risk of Rain Returns smh
Minecraft was probably among the best 25$ I’ve ever spent. So many fun hours just messing around with friends.
geometry dash
don’t let play if anger issue
Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga (Not the Skywalker Saga)
Clone Wars is also really good, plus it has a lot better split screen which is great for 2p coop playing with your kid/nephew/niece or just being able to have 2 children play together instead of fighting over who gets to play and who has to wait for their turn that never comes
That’s what a lack of street drugs does to the youth, the OG subcription services.
That is super dystopian.
I wouldn’t say its that bad. Various forms of collectibles/cards have been around for a long time. Asking for gametime for a game like WoW isn’t exactly a new phenomenon.
I think it’s just that there are a few specific examples that stand out. Some aspects of Roblox can be pretty concerning. But if a kid just wants some money for a skin for Fornite, or to buy a specific world setup for Minecraft, I don’t necessarily see that as some scary new thing.
While I hate slippery slopes, this is an historic trend. They squeeze in little ones that don’t seem so bad. I accept no games with these predatory or greedy models and I’d argue that kids shouldn’t be subjected to them.
“ESA survey showed” – not exactly an unbiased report
Hot take: this is better than them getting a bunch of plastic crap that will end up in a landfill in 6 months.
Yeah, but that is kinda like saying US healthcare is better than it was 50 years ago. You’re correct, but why make the comparison?
It would be best if game developers didn’t encourage kids to subscribe to their games. Just buy them like we did when I was growing up.
This presumes that disposable plastic crap is the only gift alternative. I still have most of the books I got for christmas as a kid
For sure there are alternatives, but I doubt there’s a lot of overlap between kids who want books and kids who want some e-currency. Probably not much overlap with gift givers either.
Yeah, but wouldn’t it be harder to get addicted to plastic toys?
I can understand the sentiments of the thread to offer alternatives
Just remember whats going to happen based on your own christmas as a kid, when you got “The next best thing”
Given there’s a lot of good picks, it’s still a tale as old as time.
My parents refused to enable me to get into the glorified gambling of trading card games and frankly I was better off for this. I’ve seen people waking up realizing they had spent hundreds to thousands on cardboard designed to be replaced and deeply regretting it. That is while having cardboard to regret buying. Imagine what happens to these kids if the game they spent all their gift cards on closes down and takes it all down the drain.
Meanwhile there were gifts like games and D&D books that let me have fun for a long time as complete packages without needing additional expenditures to enjoy.
There are things kids can like and dislike, and we should keep that in mind. But as adults we should also take some responsibility for cutting through the bulshit of manipulative marketing. They aim these things at children because children only see their immediate excitement and wonder, but not the sleazy business behind it.
Meanwhile there were gifts like games and D&D books that let me have fun for a long time as complete packages without needing additional expenditures to enjoy.
I see that kid-you never got into the world of gaming accessories.
When I bought dice sets there was never the risk of missing out on the Ultra Rare d4 and being unable to use Magic Missile because of that. I might not have always gotten everything I wanted, but I got what I needed and I didn’t need to pay a subscrption to continue playing.
Just dropping a gift recommendation for younger kids with a Nintendo Switch. Kirby and the Forgotten Land. A few years old at this point, but my two younger kids still play the heck out of it. It’s wholesome, and doesn’t have any in game purchases or online subscription.
gestures at the outside I am not surprised. Outside is a McDonald/Starbucks laden hellscape. There are a dwindling number of places for kids to get enrichment outside their own homes. People in general spend increasingly long times in front of screens for various activities. Gaming is an activity that they can do alone or with their friends that doesn’t require them to pay for things to enjoy them. Some of them don’t even recognize that there is a real world cost for things like vbucks and so on.
Toy stores are few and far between. We don’t watch media that has significant commercials anymore. What did we expect?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_place
The death of the third place has been happening in a thousand ways for a while now. Fewer and fewer places you can just be without paying to do so. Even now we see one of the last ones, libraries, targeted more and more by certain groups.
Everyone’s wondering where we went wrong as a society but honestly a year of game pass during a time of my life where I didn’t get new games very often sounds way better than getting like three games for Christmas.
I want game subscriptions to be deeply discounted for cyber Monday.
I hope if I ever have a hell spawn or adopt, that I can teach them the ways of not getting addicted to those types of games.
We refuse to let our 7-year-old play Roblox, but she’s definitely complained that she has classmates that do. It’s an endless battle for sure.
As a 27 year old who used to love Roblox you probably made the right decision. It’s no longer a good platform.
No they don’t
F*** big gaming and their microtransaction/subscription/pay to win bull****! Indie and retro games are way better than overpriced AAA titles at his point anyway.
I understand the sentiment but big free games with storefronts aren’t pay to win anymore.
Fortnite, roblox, apex, cod and rocket league are some examples.
True but whole payment model sucks in general.
Why are you censoring words on the internet. This isn’t tictok. You can fucking swear.
baise*
Gamepass is an absurd value. I’ve saved literally over $3,000. There is very very little reason to purchase games.
