I would say 'no' on principle. No child of mine will EVER receive virtual currency as a present for Christmas. I would sooner buy them £120 worth of games than even £5 in Robux.

And my kid wants a fingerboard. What's next, pogs?

Its partially lack of marketing. You have to have the time to be at least somewhat keyed into the gaming community to even know what exists and is good. For example I don't have a lot of time to play, so I am ideally looking for something like 15-30 minute increments. All the mass produced things marketed on tv or whatever are that type of game. God forbid I find a game and then realize it has some punishing save system.

..and the world was a better place for it.

Well, some people just treat it like playing sports. Wanna go play ball? Wanna play CSGO? Hey, this ball/shirt/skin looks fancier! It's foreign, but understandable to me. It also seems to be as many people as it was back shooters became a big thing. Out of the few people I know who video game, one only does FPS, one sticks to a few different games (Ultrakill, TF2, Peak to name a few), one either plays co-op with his gf or does Single player, and one mostly plays single player like me. Chatting up random people about games, that ratio seems similiar.

Most people don't treat sports like that, though. Even those who do, know to shut up about their stats when talking about their sport with someone who isn't that into it. You don't say "oh, I went golfing with some friends last week" and immediately hear "I can score an 85" because that'd be obnoxious. I know there's always been people like that but it honestly feels like "competitive" play has become the norm and it didn't use to be like that.

Fun fact: On December 31st, 1999 at 11:59 myself and my cousin were sitting in my bedroom playing the first Medal of Honor.

Hey, I got left out of things kids my age were talking about the old-fashioned way, by being a gigantic fucking dork, and it was *free,* goddammit!

I see it as as much of a problem as cheap toys from Toys r' us. The kids love them for about 30 minutes, then they break and that's it (the toys that is). But does it really matter? Just because something is digital, does it really make it worth less to the children?

It's less about the value to children and more about exploiting that to extract money without any regard to the children's wellbeing. Crappy toys would be purged in a more ethical state of the world instead of being allowed to thrive and take over.

That's just every single thing ever sold and marketed to children. No company has ever given half a shit about children's wellbeing. With that said, what part about them buying a skin to show off to their friends hurts their wellbeing?

Sold my (child's) soul to the company store....

I get the old man sentiment. But I remember being excited for a gift card to the arcade. Is it very different? Is it bad?

There's two editions of Minecraft, Java edition and Bedrock edition. Java is the original version that just gets updated with the new features, but is only available on PC. Bedrock edition is available everywhere but has microtransactions and bonus Microsoft garbage

It's also no different than a RuneScape membership in the 2000s, or hell, Roblox Builder Club almost 20 years ago. Both of those brought me an immense amount of joy and connection to others that I would never otherwise had gotten to experience living in an isolating rural area.

Over half of us kids are really fucking dumb, so this tracks.

imo a subscription service is far more ethical than the current model. Its a very straightforward transaction. Now I have to convert real money to a fake currency (in set amounts of their choosing), purchase a pack of some kind, and gamble my way to a new pointless cosmetic item.

I mean I can understand it. What do kids have these days? Arcades died, malls died, "why won't kids play outside?" *the outside old people built* I mean.

No different than buying a game if they get the same amount of playtime.

The part where they buy a skin to show off.