The spongebob game wasnt so bad. It had like a login bonus but it didnt seem to be too bad But once we got into the lego star wars game the f2p bullshit started. And oh god. This game clearly designed for kids had all the f2p bullshit. Login bonuses. Gridnyness. Multiple in game currencies. The daily/weekly ect missions. The unlockables
But god the racing game was even worse. 100000 things to unlock and basically nothing is by default basically. Sooooooooooo absurdly grindy. And most harrowing of all... i swear to god... 5 seperate in game currencies.
I want to reach out and scream to him "games werent always like this maaaaan"
Valve TF2 allowing users to buy hats circa 2008 -------> 2024 and children have gambling addictions that their parents and teachers have little to no resources to cure.
If there's one thing you can rightfully slam China for is allowing G@mer gacha into their country I would have purged that entire industry and jailed its ringleaders as child predators.
It was an insidious crawling march of normalizing horrible monetization practices and it's gotten to the point that younger people just accept it because they haven't ever known a different way.