Manipulative techniques to get children to spend a ton of money on a bunch of nothing behind the parent's backs that requires at least some level of tech-knowledge by the parents to prevent effectively are unethical though and should be legislated. These games use several layers of manipulation:
- Repeat microtransactions to mask the amount of money spent (in ways that even many adults fall prey to it)
- Putting a layer of fantasy currency in between to mask the worth of any individual in-game purchase
- Selling the product within a game context, which makes it harder to grasp that real world money is being exchanged...
- ... and also lacks a clear cut between gameplay and financial decision, so puts people in mindsets more easily exploited
- Putting emotional pressure on the player to make them pay for microtransactions (by it being tied to a game contextualisation)
- in some instances, making use of group dynamics (e.g. some children are being bullied for not owning non-standard clothing in Fortnite)
All this under the disguise of, in many cases, games with low age ratings and without huge warnings for the parents. This is a situation that disproportionally hits lower educated people (because of tech being less important in their lives) and single parents (because supervision becomes harder in this case). It is a huge problem for society and especially for the field of video games. Such practices need to be illegal or strictly regarded as adult-only content.
They are adult only in that no kid has access to a card with such funds without being given it by an adult.
-Repeat purchases aren't morally wrong. The onus is on the buyer to be responsible for themselves. As pointed out above, any customer is either an adult, or has been given access to funds by an adult who should be supervising any purchases.
-False currency is dumb as hell, but $20 of vbucks, psn wallet, MS points or any other equivalent still costs $20. The price is ALWAYS displayed in real money. Again, onus is on the buyer.
-I've yet to come across a game where I was unsure if something was going to charge me or not. Perhaps you can provide some examples here, because in my experience, games generally bring you to the platform storefront after pressing any in-game option to purchase anything.
-The clear cut is that one costs real money, and the other doesn't. As above, I've yet to come across a game that hasn't been explicitly clear about when something's going to charge real money.
-If emotional pressure to spend is wrong then you best start lobbying against charities like Trocaire for their TV ad campaigns. They're definitely the reason everyone is poor...
-That last point isn't gaming specific at all. Kids that don't get to buy into trends have always had some trouble fitting in. However unless you're not allowed to sell anything to kids ever, this will always be an issue.
Some of your points could maybe have an effect on kids in extreme examples, but only if the protective measures available aren't used by adults.
-Get the damn kid their own debit account, and deposit their allowance into it. It gives them freedom to buy what they want with no financial risks to the parent. It also teaches them that cards aren't just unlimited money and how much easier it can be to spend when you've got a card, which is a very valuable lesson many adults could have done with when they were younger
-Use password protection for purchases. Pretty sure steam, PSN, nintendo online and XBL all have options for this, as well as most other clients.
-Don't save your card to your childs device if they aren't old enough/responsible enough to be trusted not to use it. Saving 30 seconds of finding a card and inputting a number here and there isn't worth putting every penny you own at risk.
-Combine these ideas and set your child up with password authentication on their own card for purchases until they learn the difference between in-game and real money purchases.
Setting your kid up with their own debit card would take a couple hours. The other suggestions take mere minutes. There is no excuse.
How do you define what should be adult only? What about genuine expansions? Normal online game purchases? How do you decide what's actual DLC vs MTX? Why can't parents be expected to parent?
You mention single/low income parents and the disparity there, but it's not like any of this is overcomplex. It's not like tech and the internet hasn't been standard day to day business for most of the world for a decade and a half at this point, and it's not like these people lack the ability to spend 5 minutes on google learning how to be safe with their card.
A lot of people being stupid doesn't make them right. It just means there's a lot of stupid people. Anyone can learn how to be safe/responsible with payment cards in 20 minutes or so on google, once, ever. These people don't need excuses, they need to be told that if they don't look after their own kid and their own finances, it's them that's up shit creek and nobody else, and maybe then they'll put in the few minutes and learn