Hidden Costs in Gaming: A Guide for Parents and Guardians

Although most of our children genuinely like playing games, it is always advisable to keep an eye on them just in case. This blog should help you with what you need to know about safeguarding your family's spending against unforeseen expenses in the gaming world. What are the hidden costs?

In-game purchases are a growing method of generating revenue for the gaming industry today. You may have spent over £40 on the most recent version of Just Dance, but a monthly membership is required to access the 'BEST' dances. Of course, it is only a few pounds, but when you start adding up the costs for each game your kids want to play that is "only a few pounds" it can amount to quite a bit of money each month.

Games are no longer just a one-time buy anymore, as anyone with gamers in the family will have observed. The days of purchasing a video game from a store, rushing home to play it, and then getting a free restart after finishing it are long gone. Loot box regulation talks were reaching a head recently, lawmakers were putting out legislation, requesting studies, and calling for regulatory agencies to investigate the practice. However, just as arguments were about to get heated, the government shut down, forcing the agency in charge of the probe to postpone the investigation while its staff was furloughed. The government has now been reopened, but regulation discussions have stopped. So what is actually being done to counter these hidden fees and unauthorised spending?

Concerns about hidden fees have been raised because, in a small number of highly publicised cases, kids have run up expensive debts without their parents' knowledge. It is possible to spend a lot of money very rapidly when a credit card is linked to a gaming console or smartphone, there are no passwords set up, and you may make repeated purchases.

The government is now debating legislation regarding loot boxes and how to categorise them. Many nations, including Belgium and Germany, have already taken steps to categorise them as gambling or tighten the laws surrounding them. It is time for the game companies to own up and acknowledge that their design tempts children into a world of gambling, and that is something none of us want! There's increased stories surface about how gambling addictions fuelled by these games are draining parents' bank accounts of money, like the teen who spent £3,000 on FIFA.