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"
You should reach out to him and introduce him to emulation and older games. The benefit is that you can obtain a lot of roms at one time and the system requirements are very low. If you get an HDMI adapter and a controller you can deprogram him out of freemium games.
I'm planning to donate my current laptop to my younger cousins as a "SteamOS-like" machine and a HDMI adapter when they're old enough and load it with a bunch of games running at 1080p under Vulkan. I could introduce them to pokemon romhacks and shit.
Someone needs to make a prepackaged Linux iso with like, every remotely popular rom and pc game through ps1 era pre set up. It would only be 100 GB or something.
There are already ISOs like that running Batocera out there if you look around.
Never heard of it, thank you
You wouldn't have to do that, a torrent tracker would work just as well. There is a "gamer box" Linux iso and it's called bazzite.gg which you can install on your steam deck which can go up to Nintendo Switch games if its optimized enough.
Are there any where you can get ROMs through the package manager? That would be cool af
If you use a pure package manager like Nix or Guix you can set up a flake/channel that hosts roms via direct download, then you can use a redump site like https://myrient.erista.me/ as a source and then set up a build farm/substitute server that can be wired to transfer roms via tor.
Lotsa possibilities.
I've done that with old laptops. Loaded it up with minecraft and some other kid appropriate games so they'd have fun games that are "safe" from a super-exploitative skinner box perspective.
He's 8 and i dont get a lot of time with him because we dont live close, and i also dont have a lot of knowledge about that stuff myself. (I can emulate via pc, but he doesnt have one literally at all. Just an Apple tv and a switch).
He does have switch online so i could maybe at least introduce him to old Nintedo games via that? I just saw the last of him ill see this visit but maybe ill try that next time i visit or if he visits me. Could do a lot if he visits me by emulating via pc and with my large steam library.
Switch Online would at least be a good entry point to emulation. If there's any possibility at all of like used lenovo thinkpads/their workstation desktops with like a 6th or 7th generation (or higher) chip in them you could (I and many others here would gladly assist too) load it up with a curated retro-romset and you could set up a steam family library to share all your titles with him
Im already in a steam family (and they dont allow multiple right?) So im tied up there but the rest seems possible.
You're probably aware but its's up to 6 people and you can set child accounts to prevent access to certain games. Just wanted to share that information in case it was guiding any future decision
Yeah its not my family its my girlfriend's.