It was, and still is, a recurring discussion in our household, in-game purchases. As my brother and I are both people with gaming as our main hobby, the phenomenon of in-game purchases is one that occurs quite frequently. One thing that we can both be sure of, is that whenever we make such a purchase, we can always count on our mom and dad to have two very different reactions.
The most simple exchange of words would look like this:
Me: Mom! Dad! I’m buying a League of Legends skin for 10 euros! That’s okay, right?
Mom: Yea sure sweety, it’s your own money.
Dad: I can’t believe that you would spend so much money on online things!
Why is my dad so opposed to online purchases?
Parents Greatest Fears
The greatest fear of any parent seems to be their young child spending thousands of euros without their knowing. For example, let’s take a look at a family living in London. Their eleven-year-old son had, without his mother’s knowledge, looked over her shoulder while she was typing her bank account password. Just like that, he proceeded to spend a total of 1,200 dollars on in-game ‘power bundles’. Luckily, the bank decided to refund the full amount, but this is usually not done as ‘bought is bought’. Young children, who do not yet know the true value of money, seem to be easy prey for accidents like this.
What is my Dad’s Fear?
But I am not a small child. At this point, I’m a 19-year-old adult who definitely knows how much money I should, and should not, spend. That’s why I personally have a hard time letting such comments from my dad slide. I personally believe that there is nothing wrong with in-game purchases, as it’s just me buying stuff for the things I love doing. I usually try to explain this to my dad as well.
Then a discussion like this follows:
Me: Dad it’s just me buying an item for my hobby, nothing weird right? If I liked soccer, and I would purchase a nice soccer ball, would you still find it strange?
Dad: That’s not a comparison that you can make! A ball is real and your skins aren’t!
Me: My skin is real as well, just not physically in my hands, but in-game.
Dad: Well…I wouldn’t risk it, as soon as the game doesn’t exist anymore in the future, all of your money will be gone!
This last remark perfectly shows my dad’s greatest fear. It’s not me spending thousands of euros on a game, it’s just simply the disappearance of the game itself.
Generation Gap
This is where I personally think that the generation gap (and a lack of understanding) kicks in. For my dad it’s really simple; The physical world is real and the online world is not real. For me and my brother, it is extremely different. The online world is mainly an extension of the real world, just less tangible. And even though it is not tangible, it is something we grew up with, it has always been there. For my dad, it’s different, the online world has not always been there. It came up really fast and it seems like he thinks that there is still the risk that it goes down again at the same speed. In my dad’s eyes, that what is not physically in your hands, is easy to disappear.
I’ve had this discussion with my dad many times already.
At this point, I’ve given up trying to convince him that League of Legends will not just be taken offline.
Sources
Brey, Philip. The Physical and Social Reality of Virtual Worlds. The Oxford Handbook of Virtuality. 2014.
Firstly, I should say that the level to which this article is relatable is quite scary so that greatly added to the interest I had for this piece! Applying my own experience of this topic, I’m partially confused by the nature of older people’s aversion to engage technologically and digitally; especially considering how (virtually) everyone has a credit or debit card. Specifically, in regard to in-game purchases, I can almost understand your Dad’s difficulty to link the monetary cost of those purchases with the non-tangible value of enhanced in-game play.
Although I am not really a gamer myself, I have many friends who have had the exact same argument with their parents (over and over again too). I think that it could be a really important relationship builder for kids and parents to be on the same page when it comes to a hobby that is being taken seriously – like gaming for you and your brother. I think there is usually quite a gap in understanding when it comes to technology in general and kids/young adults, but the tangibility of technology seems to be the biggest contradiction. I hope that your dad sees that video games are more than just a random online pastime for you soon! haha
This is incredibly relatable, I had the same thing with my mum. She doesn’t understand how it works and the fear of things disappearing online is very real for her. I remember when I was 1 I bought the sims 4 and it was an online copy without a disk, which made her scared because what if it suddenly disappeared. I had to explain to her that thanks to Origin I would never lose access to my sims 4 unless I forgot my passwords.
I think parents just aren’t used to the fact that online gaming assets can be accessed online through any computer.
However, I must point out the GTA reboot which was launched and then completely disappeared off the steam store for a bit, so perhaps their fears aren’t completely unfunded.