The gaming world we live in is full of many dangers, both known and unknown. Or, at least, unknown until it happens to you. One of the biggest controversies that continues to hit the gaming industry as a whole is that of microtransactions. These may have started out as harmless ways for game developers to make some extra cash for their released titles, but they soon became a whole ecosystem that has been overloaded at times with things to buy so that devs and publishers can maximize profits. Even games like Roblox embrace this, as the title is technically free-to-play, but there are TONS of things to buy in it.
To be fair and clear here, this is NOT illegal. Despite some questions being raised in United States courts due to some Electronic Arts nonsense years back, microtransactions are legal, and Roblox is within its rights to have them in the game. However, as Stuff.com revealed, if you’re not careful and you’re not monitoring underage players closely enough, these microtransactions can add up really quickly.
In this tale of a mother and son, the mother was doing some shopping when her credit card was declined. She soon called her bank and they revealed that she had been charged because of microtransaction purchases that her 11-year-old son had made within Roblox. That wouldn’t be bad on its own…had it not been for the fact that the purchases amounted to $6700!
Naturally, the mother talked to her son about this, and he revealed that he actually hadn’t made any purchases knowingly. He was just “collecting rewards” that the game offered, and yet, he was apparently buying things instead.
“When we talked to him about it, really surprised because he said there hadn’t been any in-app purchases.”
The kid himself even admitted that $6000 is way too much for a kid like himself to spend.
Now, the good news here is that the mother was able to get about $3500 of the cash back, but she’s struggled to get the rest. She also feels that the game should have much better controls in place to ensure that minors can’t accidentally buy things.
“We have to work sometimes so you give the kid the screen and, you know, you’re busy, you’re rushing and … I naively assumed that every purchase he made, he would come running to me with the laptop.”
While the game does have parental controls in place to “ensure spending limits,” it does need to be noted that this story isn’t a one-off, and many kids have circumvented the controls at times and made huge purchases on their parents cards.
