My kids know damn well they can't always get what their hearts desire all the time and have to learn to spend responsibly. I tought them that at early age. They are now 14 and 18 and have more Savings then I did when I was 21 for fuck's sake. (0 not really being a good baseline but still)
My point is the fact that parents will have to say no while this could have been avoided. Kids these days already have a form of built-in entitlement and you have to be stern about it. Games agressively targeting kids is not helping this process now is it?
I told my son NO on numerous occasions (except when things were on steep sale and actually worth the price), but it was always concerning things that were advertised with shiny colors and big letters saying LIMITED OFFER or OFFER ENDS IN or NEW LIMITED TIME ONLY!!!!!!!!!
Maybe he is more sensitive to these sort of things but he never once came begging for regular ingame stuff which you can find in the ingame stores. He bought those from his allowance with my consent only and even then he only bought stuff he chose himself.
The issue is this: Kids won't be as likely to be influenced by ads if they weren't as intrusive as they are. Especially because companies damn well know how to pull this sleazy trick and knowingly create the above situation. Some parents cave, win for them.
Even if it's just say 3% (pulling this out of my ass, just for reference) of the total player account which buy these things based on this way of advertising, they made a profit. That's all that counts. That has to change.
Especially if you damn well know you're luring kids.
You have to agree that using this fear to make a quick buick out of kids is just a slimeball tactic.