The booming arena of online gaming may just be a bit of fun, but it can be fiendishly addictive.
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eParenting and Parenting in the 21st Century
eParenting used to mean keeping your kids safe on the Internet, however now it has a wider scope including parenting with the use of technology, and distance parenting. Curated by Peter Mellow |
Scooped by Peter Mellow |
The booming arena of online gaming may just be a bit of fun, but it can be fiendishly addictive.
Scooped by Peter Mellow |
Apple has been criticised by the European Commission for not offering any "concrete and immediate" plans to stop users being misled by "free" apps.
Many popular apps are free to download, but are designed to tempt users to pay for in-game enhancements - often allowing for quicker progression.
The Commission is now forcing Apple and Google, the biggest vendors of apps, to make the "true cost" of games clear.
Scooped by Peter Mellow |
A six-year-old racked up a credit card bill of more than $1,200 in just two days, playing games on his parents' tablet. - New Zealand Herald
Scooped by Peter Mellow |
THE European Commission has invited Apple and Google to participate in a discussion of so-called “free-to-play” apps and the hidden costs they push on consumers.
"Games should not be use “direct exhortations” that get children to make purchases." - love this quote!
Rescooped by Peter Mellow from iPad game apps for children |
This screen shot highlights the financial dangers and risks of in-app purchases. While the game is 'Free' to download, the in-app purchases presented can soon add up to a very expensive experience!
This 'Freemium' business model make it attractive to get the app for free, but many children get frustrated about the slow progress they make in the game, or the limited features available unless they pay for upgrades and packs/bundles of extras to help them progress.
The same model is on many Zynga games in Facebook. You get limited features and opportunities unless you pay extra with real money.
Some things to consider doing to manage it better is to turn the 'In-App Purchases' off in your 'General' settings on your iOS (Mac iPad, iPod, iPhone) device. Plus enable 'Restrictions' so you can filter for age appropriate content and set it up to that every purchase requires a password immediatly.
While this can be frustrating at times, it will ensure that having put the password in once, that children using the device for the next 15 minutes can't just hit the 'buy' button in every game to rack up more costs on your account.
There are many sad stories about how this has allowed children to run up very large bills for their parents/caregivers and it can take a lot of sorting out to try and get out of these purchases. - Peter Mellow