Fortnite and junior playerbase problems

[BigTransformerTrev]

I never looked for news articles about Fortnite, this information came direct from the parents or relatives of Fortnite junior gamers.
Although they did state that it was more widespread then the isolated incidents they were recounting.

What they told me was that Fortnite Developers are intentionally targeting the junior players with their ingame store, which I am not entirely comfortable, going after the young and impressible instead of the more experienced adults players who could/might be more responsible with their money expense.

That's what caused me to be more concerned about Fortnite then any other micro-transaction supported game, the fact they were making money off junior players instead of adults.

And they can keep adding new emotes/costumes whenever they want, making it an never-ending chain of income/obsession.

Yeah but if they are young gamers then they can't buy anything in the game without their parents enabling them to do so. So the parents can simply say no. They do that from day one no problem. When my son wanted to buy a character in TF F2F I told him straight out that we never spend money on these games and he accepted it.

I should point out that Transformers Earth Wars isn't exactly free from this kind of thing either, it's just a lot more money is invested for spurious reasons, like a Top 5 leaderboard Alliance spending 100s of dollars per weekend, every weekend, just for their bragging rights.

Some reports have even reached me of the more obsessed players spending 10,000$ on the game and well, you can imagine how low a regard I have for their intelligence now.

While I did make some purchases in Transformers Earth Wars, I eventually realised the money would be better spent on real Transformer toys rather then a chance at a virtual one.

If you're not familiar with the game structure of Transformers Earth Wars, you need 3* quality minimum and 4* for high level activity, but they're hard to obtain due to intentionally engineered low unlock rates:
10% chance for 3*, 2% for 4*.

4* Are pretty easy to get. I've got literally dozens of 4*, I don't even bother upgrading my 3* anymore.

I spent $7.99 on the game once, about 18 months ago when my son was playing my game and accidentally used up over a years worth of coins I'd hoarded, so I spent a couple of bucks and replaced them. Thats it. Easy to get ahead in the game without spending any dosh.

But yeah, you are right - there are some nutters out there that spend so much on these games, they are people in my Alliance that have spent hundreds of bucks. It can be pretty addictive and full on.