Games
How Games Get Kids to Spend Real Money
Most games your kid plays are free to download and make their money once you're in, with pretend currencies and timers built so a kid never quite figures out what anything costs in real dollars.
Why games use pretend money
Games almost never price things in dollars. They sell you Robux or V-Bucks or gems first, then price everything in those, and the bundles often don't divide evenly into what your kid actually wants. So there's usually some left over, and always a reason to buy one more pack. Fortnite will sell you the exact amount now, but 50 at a time for $0.99, which costs about twice as much, so most kids still end up buying a pack. Games set it up that way, and that leftover is where a lot of the extra money comes from.
Why the timer matters more than the price
Items show up in the game's store for a day or a weekend and then they're gone, so deciding turns into a deadline. Your kid isn't being greedy when they come to you in a panic. The game's store is set up to make them feel that way, and knowing that takes a lot of the fight out of it.
Where the accidental spending comes from
Almost every big surprise bill comes back to a saved card with no password on the console or the phone. Turn on a password for every purchase, on the device itself, not inside the game, and you've stopped almost all of it in about two minutes.
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