I think most games get shut down when they still have players. Plus they could release server code so people could host their own games, like in the olde days of the 1990s. They don't because they're primarily concerned with profit. That aside, "it brings joy" is not sufficient on its own as a justification. Heroin brings joy, but you likely wouldn't say that's a fine gift for a child. Why is that? Probably because we recognize the potential harms and unhealthy habits. Maybe you accept the risks and harms of digital slop are acceptable. I don't think I'd want to encourage that in children.

who, kids? it's all relative. anything before the living memory of teens is retro. that's why it takes 20 years for stuff go to become cool again.

Terrifying how when they grow up they will influence the gaming landscape to become even more hellish. Ill go back to my games before 2008 now bye.

And here my kid wants a tamagotchi for christmas. whatyearisit.jpg

because that's what the majority of people play. the majority of people buy 1-2 games a year and play them all year. COD, sports games, the big popular shooters. they are casual fans. they don't give a shit about stuff like Expedition 33 and would be totally uninterested in a game like that as boring and stupid. all my friends/family who play games think I'm a gay weirdo for liking non sports, non military, non driving games.

there was no fortnite in 1999 tho 🥺

The current landscape of gaming is so foreign to me. Gaming for me has always been an experience to get lost in a fantasy world — something akin to reading. Nowadays everyone seems obsessed with the online and competitive sides of it. It feels like you can't have a conversation about videogames without someone bringing up Fortnite and the new skins they unlocked by treating it as a job.

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.

there was no fortnite in 1999 tho 🥺

This. When all of your kids friends are playing the same game and it's all they talk about, forbidding it will just lead to them being left out. It fucking sucks

If that ain't proof microtransactions are a bane on society, then we're already too corrupt to care.

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.

My brother got minecraft to play with my niece and there are two versions now, from what I can tell one that’s like what I was playing a decade ago but updated, and one that has microtransactions. The old one lets you download skins and mods for free. It seemed like a no brainer but he went with the microtransaction one, and now my niece keeps asking for cosmetics. There must be a reason to yoke yourself to the pay-for-skins version, but I’m really not sure.

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?

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.