'Fortnite' May be a Virtual Game, But It's Having Real-life, Dangerous Effects (bostonglobe.com) 377
An anonymous reader shares a report: "They are not sleeping. They are not going to school. They are dropping out of social activities. A lot of kids have stopped playing sports so they can do this." Michael Rich, a pediatrician and director of the Clinic for Interactive Media and Internet Disorders at Boston Children's Hospital, was talking about the impact "Fortnite: Battle Royale" -- a cartoonish multiplayer shooter game -- is having on kids, mainly boys, some still in grade school. "We have one kid who destroyed the family car because he thought his parents had locked his device inside," Rich said. "He took a hammer to the windshield."
A year and a half since the game's release, Rich's account is just one of many that describe an obsession so intense that kids are seeing doctors and therapists to break the game's grip, in some cases losing so much weight -- because they refuse to stop playing to eat -- that doctors initially think they're wasting away from a physical disease. The stress on families has become so severe that parents are going to couples' counselors, fighting over who's to blame for allowing "Fortnite" into the house in the first place and how to rein in a situation that's grown out of control. Further reading: 'Fortnite' Creator Sees Epic Games Becoming as Big as Facebook, Google.
A year and a half since the game's release, Rich's account is just one of many that describe an obsession so intense that kids are seeing doctors and therapists to break the game's grip, in some cases losing so much weight -- because they refuse to stop playing to eat -- that doctors initially think they're wasting away from a physical disease. The stress on families has become so severe that parents are going to couples' counselors, fighting over who's to blame for allowing "Fortnite" into the house in the first place and how to rein in a situation that's grown out of control. Further reading: 'Fortnite' Creator Sees Epic Games Becoming as Big as Facebook, Google.
These are children of people who know better (Score:2, Insightful)
Their parents were raised in the era of video games! They know exactly what it's like!
Re: These are children of people who know better (Score:5, Insightful)
It could be worse, they could be playing D&D and listening heavy metal.
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"big band", not "big bang".
Sheesh.
Yeah, experts know better (Score:3, Interesting)
Their parents not only get to play video games, but they drink a sixpack every night, take various legal opioids, possibly semi-legal pot, and an occasional treat of coke or meth, go to church on Sunday, have one-night-stands to prove to themselves that they're desirable, collect porn by the Terabyte that they'll never have time to watch, blow paychecks at casinos, overeat, check slashdot/reddit/facebook 20 times per day each, and occasionally start a fire or steal something for a little excitement on the s
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Their parents were raised in the era of video games! They know exactly what it's like!
April fool!
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We tried nothing and we're all out of ideas!
Get this off my Slashdot! (Score:5, Insightful)
A "vidogames are bad" story presented uncritically on Slashdot? My how we've fallen from a nerd-centric site. Jack Thompson would be proud of what Slashdot has become.
Err, high-UID Slashdotters do know who Jack Thompson is, right? Get off my lawn!
Re:Get this off my Slashdot! (Score:5, Insightful)
This isn't a video games are bad story. This is a story about a game company that hired psychologists to make their game as addictive as a slot machine and the ignorant cunts that don't see that as a problem because it's a video game.
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I tried it a short while after it launched. I disliked it. A lot.
Well, I guess I exceeded the target age range.
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I guess that's my problem, too.
I looked at it for a while, and my reaction was: "Cripes. This is a horrible mash-up of every genre of video game all at the same time." It is an RPG, an FPS, a D+D, and a construction/builder like MineCraft with some grinding crap like WoW or EverCrack. It's just too ridiculously busy, shiny shit flying everywhere and everyone has super-human jump and shoot ability. It's all just too much in one place at one time to make any kind of rational decisions, you have to throw
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Battle Royale is recent right? Well, something I read says so anyway. It also claimed that its popularity picked up after that. The game you played back then could be a lot different now.
I've considered checking it out, but I kinda hate grind-fests. I have a grind that pays, so what sense does it make to pay to do that (or grind for free)? I bet even a kid could find a better use for their time.
Re:Get this off my Slashdot! (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a story about a game company that hired psychologists to make their game as addictive as a slot machine
Many companies have been doing this for a long time.
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I know of at least 2 people who failed out of school by playing text based MUD games 60+ hours a week for multiple semesters.
Re: Get this off my Slashdot! (Score:2)
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Before the cascade begins of ever-shorter UIDs, we all pretty much joined in the same year.
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>Before the cascade begins of ever-shorter UIDs, we all pretty much joined in the same year.
We have a new game now, of ever increasing UIDs.
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OK, then, old sport.
Re:Get this off my Slashdot! (Score:5, Funny)
Low ID users need to fuck off and die. You're just a bunch of old IT closet-cleaning losers. A bunch of 50 year old nerds who are unemployed and unmarried.
At 50, you become a Wizard.
Re:Get this off my Slashdot! (Score:5, Funny)
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At 50, you become a Wizard.
I'm so close. I've already picked out my wand.
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Low ID users need to fuck off and die. You're just a bunch of old IT closet-cleaning losers. A bunch of 50 year old nerds who are unemployed and unmarried.
At 50, you become a Wizard.
I put on my robe and wizard hat
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Parents can't do no wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
It's always fault of something.
Re:Parents can't do no wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, but...
circumstances aren't all the same, and sometimes it *is* the fault of externalities. One needs to consider that it's been specifically designed to be as addictive as possible...and it's a refinement of prior attempts at such addictive design which have produced such things as Slashdot and FaceBook. Also that most kids really don't want to study anyway, so even a moderate distraction is normally sufficient.
FWIW, I've never even looked at Fortnite. I've presumed that it would have an EULA that I wouldn't agree to. So this is just based around observable trends. But I agree that parents *will* always find something external to blame their kids behavior on. That's what got Socrates killed. (If we can believe Plato, who was not an unbiased observer.) But that doesn't mean that such things don't happen, and externalities are not always neutral.
The real, possibly insoluble, problem is that all their friends are involved in the game. This is the Facebook problem all over again, but possibly in an even more malignant form. Network effects are difficult to deal with.
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Socrates was sentenced to death because he was a humongous asshole to everyone in Athens and they finally got fed up with him.
Socrates would literally challenge people in the streets to debates and then destroy them with logic, which might be ok for the random Joe Athens fella but not to the high ranking military and political figures he liked to pick on. Eventually enough people with power got sick of being made to look foolish and had him put on trial, which he took as a total farce and continued to make
Totally not the parents . . . (Score:5, Insightful)
"We have one kid who destroyed the family car because he thought his parents had locked his device inside," Rich said. "He took a hammer to the windshield."
Who finds out about that and then thinks its a video game issue.
Seems to me the parents suck ass.
Although, video games to have an impact on people, and to thing there is no effect, especially to a developing mind, would be foolish.
But this? this is bad parenting. Should have had his system removed from him a lot sooner.
Give him so old laptop that can't run it.
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Clearly a dumb kid. He should've known to break the rear window and reach in to open the front door, not go through the windshield.
Duh.
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> And any competent kid will be able to set the parental controls on the TV, router, etc. to be able to hold HBO for ransom until the device is returned.
This assumes (a) that the TV/Router/whatever in question isn't already properly secured, and (b) that the parents are too lazy to just call the cable provider (or whoever) to get it reset (if they can't just reset it themselves)
If my kid tried this, they would lose whatever device they're addicted to *permanently*.
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Bad Parenting,
that's just it. the lack of being able to do a proper punishment. disconnect them from the net for the weekend. or just take away the phone.
change the password.
BUT NOOOOOO... it's some designer's fault or some game's fault ...
Beat the kid with a belt, and make him/her chop wood for a week. that should solve it.
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Trouble is...in many places in the US, you do that now (something that used to be the norm not that long ago) and you'll soon have child protective services removing your children and find the police charging you with abuse/assautl/battery and you'll be in jail....all just because you didn't "spare the rod"....
Of course there is a difference between 'beating' and corporal punishment, but in much of society today, they've
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I'm gonna go out on a limb and assume you don't have any kids...
The more you punish kids, the worse they get. Do you like authoritarian micromanagement? no? so why would your kids? You have to be much craftier to be a parent now a days than back in whatever stone age you got your parenting knowledge from.
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Seems to me the parents suck ass.
Although, video games to have an impact on people
Well, obviously, it had impact on the parents.
They need their games taken away.
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"We have one kid who destroyed the family car because he thought his parents had locked his device inside," Rich said. "He took a hammer to the windshield."
Who finds out about that and then thinks its a video game issue.
Seems to me the parents suck ass.
Although, video games to have an impact on people, and to thing there is no effect, especially to a developing mind, would be foolish.
But this? this is bad parenting. Should have had his system removed from him a lot sooner.
Give him so old laptop that can't run it.
"Assume it's the parents" is no better than just assuming it's the video game.
I can assure you that once the kid is too big for you to pick up and put where you want, there are some pretty severe limits to what you can do. Sure, you can react, withhold privileges. But that works better on some kids than others.
My off the cuff guess on this one (without reading the fine article) would be mental illness, next would be general thuggery. Neither of which can be just blamed on the parents without more informa
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I blame lawyers looking for something to sue over, or to get paid to shut their mouths, as with Beavis and Butt-head
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Except for the followup to that where the kid himself doesn't really understand how it became that important to him and now sees other kids he finds to be disturbingly immersed in it. The parents must have done something right.
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Because of bad parenting.
Destroyed the car? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Destroyed the car? (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe its a Kia.
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Or a Ford Mustang.
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Maybe its a Kia.
The kid was lucky it wasn't a Ford Pinto [youtube.com].
Unintended consequences (Score:2)
...in some cases losing so much weight -- because they refuse to stop playing to eat -- that doctors initially think they're wasting away from a physical disease.
I'm guessing this could have the opposite effect on deterrence one might think, kinda like the "if you have an erection lasting longer than 4 hours..."
Where are the parents? (Score:5, Interesting)
My parents would steal the cables for my consoles, take away my Gameboy, and not allow any internet based on my systems MAC address.
I was allowed books, radio, and outside.
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I was frequently thrown out of the house when I was a kid, and expected to entertain myself in the woods. Never had a problem with it. Wish they'd throw me out of the office sometimes.
Re:Where are the parents? (Score:5, Interesting)
My kid loves to play fortnighte but we keep him busy with other activities, too. Sure, some days he may play fortnighte for a couple of hours straight, but even on those days, he'll self-adjust, and go outside after feeling bored. If all the kids are doing is playing video games, why WOULDN'T they flip out when it suddenly has to stop? It's become their norm. This is how Nature works.
If you're a parent of a kid that's into fortnighte don't be alarmed by news like this, just make sure that your kid(s) have other required activity too. It's just a game folks.
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Good advice, and be sure you parents go outside with the kids at least half the time. They learn from their role models.
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Thank god this wasn't around when I was a kid (Score:2)
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It was, it was called TV (yes I am make the assumption that you are not that old). The difference is your parents probably taught you how to prioritize your activities.
hmm (Score:3)
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"My kid is totally not addicted to video games. Look, he plays LOTS of them!"
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Re:hmm (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, that's a classic parental moral panic.
Comic books, TV, video games, arcades, pinball, myspace, facebook, instagram, snapchat, etc.... everything under the sun has been some sort of unique threat that only this generation has to face. It comes around every 8-10 years as a new crop of parents comes along. There's always someone around trying to make a buck off of it, and usually they end up pushing for the government to "do something".
There's nothing unique or new about Fortnite. It is just a well-excecuted plan to use the freeware model to get people to buy in to the universe and pay money for add ons. The game is perfectly designed and targetted for elementary and middle school kids. Easy access to gameplay, short games that reset quickly, social play in small groups of 2 or 4, ever changing game landscape and in-game fashion. It is just really, really well-done.
The game is dead simple - basically familiar to anyone playing first person shooters since the days of Doom and Quake - or even more specifically since Unreal Tournament. The graphics are kept cartoonish and non-threatening so moms don't get upset when their 8 year old tries the game out.... it really is well thought-out.
But there's nothing here to fear. It is just a game that kids play together. If you think your kids are putting too much time and energy into it, then send them off to do something else. It isn't like they are sneaking around behind the school gym to do drugs. It's just a game.
Do what my parents did. (Score:5, Insightful)
“Enough games, [go outside and play / do your homework / do these chores / let’s do something else ...]”
I was a kid once, they had video games then too, and they were very compelling and if I had my way I would be playing them all the time. When my parents told me to stop I was mad at them. Because I was so close to winning and or I was having a good run.
But turning off the video games isn’t abuse. And you shouldn’t be allowing your kid to play games at the cost of their health and education.
Not in my household (Score:2)
I've heard from colleagues how they struggle with getting their kids off Fortnite to engage in normal social activities, corroborating the article.
I'm torn, because it looks like good fun. And I believe I have a good enough relationship with my children that I could get them to stop without the level of tantrums the article presents. But, it might be one of those "thin end of the wedge" things, so we think it's safest all round to avoid it completely.
Are they missing out on a social aspect where everyone
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The only correct option here is "all of the above".
Fortnite is definitely more appealing to the addictive personality than the stuff that was around when I was a kid (Doom 1, I'm old). It's the whole "forage, build, fight " that allows pretty useless players to spend some considerable time in the game rather than get nailed in the first 10 seconds.
Parenting (1) - there are a LOT of parents out there who don't pay any attention to their children. Quiet child = good child = child playing Fortnite with he
Kids these days (Score:5, Funny)
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Young whipper-snapper - get off my lawn!
In my kids' day, they had EQ. And DAoC, of course....
Re:Kids these days (Score:5, Insightful)
I my day we had M.U.L.E. And we LIKED IT.
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This cycle probably
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Bah, everCrack. The best was Ultima Online
Which you can still play for free with player-run shards!
Super fun.
Here we go again (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh no it's the video game! Video games are bad m'kay!
I mean, it couldn't possibly be that we have an entire generation of parents that can't be bothered to actually do what they're supposed to and be.. you know... parents? Parents have gotten into the habit of treating electronic devices as babysitters. I was in a restaurant the other day and was stuck beside a family with a toddler. The toddler wouldn't stop making a scene until they dropped a tablet in front of them and played some annoying youtube video. I ended up having to move to a different table cause it was so breathtakingly annoying.
It's called disciplining your child. They won't stop play to come eat, you make them stop, by whatever reasonable means necessary. Your children are not your friends. They're your effing children. YOU are responsible for teaching them what it means to be a healthy well-functioning adult. If you can't handle that, then don't have children.
There is literally *always* something for a child to obsess about. Fortnite is nothing special.
But naturally people won't take responsibility for their actions, so "blame everything but me" circlejerk resumes anew.
So it's good then (Score:2)
describe an obsession so intense that kids are seeing doctors and therapists to break the game's grip, in some cases losing so much weight -- because they refuse to stop playing to eat
I thought America was facing a childhood obesity crisis, it appears you inadvertently found the solution!!
So why are we not making more kids play Forrtnite? Set a sunlamp next to them and a regulated amount of food within reach to maintain a specific level of body weight, and you'll not have to do anything else with them unt
Blame 'social media' as much as addictive games (Score:3, Insightful)
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The kids playing this seem really young (Score:2)
Deluded Slashdoters (Score:5, Insightful)
Ever Crack. Duh. (Score:2)
Video games are addictive. Addictions, if poorly regulated, lead to a host of social issues. This has been the case since pong and tetris and before. Quarter eaters.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Blo8XPaLv-8
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Personally, I don't play it because I waited too long and the core mechanics have a distant skill cap (building m
Ready Player One (Score:4, Insightful)
in the film "Ready Player One", the end scenes, the new owners of the VR Game decide to shut the entire game down, one day a week.
except, the new owners portray *ethical* responsibility that, unfortunately, would be financially irresponsible as far as the enactment of the Articles of Incorporation of a profit-maximising Corporation. bottom line: if Epic Games actually tried to do something as socially responsible as shut Fornite off for one day a week, their shareholders could legitimately sue them for adversely affecting profits, and the Directors would be prosecuted and struck off as a result.
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Definitely a civil lawsuit, and a stupid one at that. Maximizing short-term profits at the expense of long term continued existence is a "breach of fiduciary duty" as well, but no shareholder wants to see it that way.
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- the original Sabbath?
- the second-revision Sabbath a day later?
- the third (or is that fifth) revision Sabbath two days earlier?
- one of the other four days?
It was seen as major steps in the "blue laws" at the time when NY went from "every business has to close on Sunday" to "every business has to close one day per week", and then to "every *worker* has to have at least one day off per week".
Minor correction (Score:2)
It was two days a week, Tuesday and Thursdays.
Given how I've seen my nephew act when his parents tell him to get off his computer and actually go play with his friends in real life I have to agree that shutting down the Internet even one day a week would be a good thing. Hell's given how much time I spend playing Final Fantasy XIV I think a weekly shutdown would be good thing.
The games/social media/etc.do such a good a job triggering the release of Dopamine in your brain that anyone saying it isn't addicti
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Errr no. I don't know how many times this bullshit statement has to get torn down from Slashdot, but no there is absolutely zero legal requirement for a corporation to maximise profits. There is an element of not lying to shareholders, so saying something and doing something else opens you to legal liability, but not maximising profits is not one of those things.
The only thing that is remotely correct in your post is that shareholders could legitimately sue. But then that has nothing to do with profit. I co
It's not the game, it's the parents. (Score:2)
It's called discipline. More parents should look into it.
Comment removed (Score:3)
Put this kids in the middle of the forest (Score:2, Insightful)
For-profit fortnight 12-step recovery centers? (Score:2)
Did anyone check the date? (Score:2)
If they really like Fortnite ... (Score:2)
This is old news (Score:2)
In the 1930's B.F. Skinner found that a variable schedule of reinforcement could cause rats to push a lever unto death. In the 1950's an implanted electrode was even more impressively compelling. In the 1970's John B. Calhoun noted modern human behaviors among his rats of NIMH. I recently camped outside a casino in their parking lot and imagined their never-to-be-seen truth-in-advertising sign to read, "WELCOME TO OUR SKINNER BOX RATS OF NIMH!"
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/compass-pleasure_n_890342 [huffpost.com]
http [soltechdesigns.com]
South Park: Adults are addicted to RDR2 (Score:2)
It's educational (Score:2)
Well, at least he had an educational opportunity and may have learned something. He hopefully learned that windshields are made of laminated safety glass [wikipedia.org] and are much more difficult to break through with a hammer than the side windows which typically shatter easily because they are made of tempered glass. This will be an important skill to speed his progression through the criminal ranks.
Any qualitative difference here? (Score:2)
I've played Fortnite a few times... I follow the industry, so I know how big it's gotten.
What I don't quite get is whether there's some qualitative difference here between it and -- to pick two random examples -- Evercrack or WoW at their respective peaks. It seems like people are putting in some slight Second Life elements into it, with live concerts and so forth, but isn't that really it? What am I missing?
Or is this next generation now officially Too Young To Remember either of those two games at their p
Well (Score:2)
Parents need to step up and teach their kids some self control or the transition to adult-hood is going to be a rather rough one.
( Already have too many entitled parents producing entitled kiddos who go full stupid if things play out differently than expectations. )
Personally, I would rate-limit or QOS that traffic back to the stone age depending upon how obsessed the kiddo is and how it is impacting them in other areas of their life. ( Grades, etc. ) ( The experience will be awesome at 300 baud :D )
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When I was a kid a local arcade sold 'get six free tokens/visit' cards for $10. Thinking kids would get six tokens than spend more money.
My friend went right by the arcade on his way to school. We threw in and bought him about 10 cards. Soon he had ALL the arcades tokens, they had to buy more.
Those same tokens worked at another arcade that had better games too. It was sweet.
Re:Retards - the kids AND the parents. (Score:5, Insightful)
I will say as a parent that it's very difficult to allow Fortnite as a "sometimes" thing.
The kids themselves have zero self control, there is no self-management of game play. You're literally yelling at them to quit.
You can prevent them from playing at all, but you wind up with the ironic situation where the kids who they used to do stuff with in meat space aren't available because they're playing Fortnite.
The best we've been able to manage (short of a total, permanent ban) is making play contingent on grades and barring it on school nights. You get all As and Bs in school, you can play on weekends or when there's no school. My kid lost it for a month when his grades slipped, and there was constant angling for exceptions or complaining about how unfair it was.
The other strategy we haven't tried is trying to organize a multi-family Fortnite "holiday" where no kid can play. There's multiple challenges here, from the fact that 8th grade boys have a very amorphous and weak social circle in real life to other parents refusing to go along with it for various reasons -- "my kid doesn't have a problem", parents you don't know, and some percentage of parents who see Fortnite as the greatest babysitter ever.
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A couple years ago, my older child started sipping into addiction but with another game title: Ark: Survival Evolved. Once I realized it, I cut his play time to 2 hours Saturday and 2 hours Sunday, either between 10 AM and noon or between 2 PM and 4 PM. Mon-Fri were off limits as far as games were involved.
It was quite a battle at first, when this rule came into place, but with patience and resolve it got sorted out.
Re:Retards - the kids AND the parents. (Score:5, Insightful)
My parents attempted similar approach when I was teenager and was playing too much games. This decision nearly ruined my life, as when I went to university and there was no longer oversight I went off the deep end. Nearly failed out and it took me extra year to finish my degree.
Now I am in my mid 30s, have family, kids, and a well-paying job. I still play computer games, sometimes with my spouse, sometimes with kids. With everything else I do manage at least 5 hours of gaming a week, often more. I still pull all-nighters and book vacation from work when exiting new game releases.
The issue with your approach is that for your kids games are better than almost anything else available. All you are doing is withholding something very desirable. Instead you should try unrestricted game play one summer, once they waste entire summer playing games, with cutting into sleep and hygiene, there will be internal realization that some balance is needed. From there, it will be possible to find balance without constant external oversight.
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We get a ton of pressure to buy Fortnite skins or other in-game items. So far the compromise is he can buy one item per month, and it has to be bought with his own PS currency cards that he buys with his own cash. One of the limiting factors is he has to get his own ass over to the Walgreens to buy the card.
He started in over wanting some other high-dollar item, headphones I think, and was angling for a parent subsidy. I took out a sheet of paper and did the math on what he spent on Fortnite add-ons and