If I were you, El Tiburon , I'd also try to emphasize how much of a waste stupid in-game purchases like skins are as well. Show him all of the cool real life tangible things he could theoretically have for the price he paid for a bunch of useless skins that are purely aesthetic and provide him nothing worthwhile in game much less outside of that one game.
$2700 is chump change in the world of big skins. there are CSGO skins that retail for 40-50k+. The most expensive dota items are usually around 5-10k. Some of the people doing it are absolute whales. The biggest dota collector is an actual saudi prince who spends 250k+ every year on cosmetics. CSGO skins are actually so valuable that there is an entire economy based around them with professional traders and secondary market gambling. The gambling is highly addictive and is possibly a front for russian money laundering, functioning basically as an unlicensed casino. over the last 8 years i think i spent close to $1000 between CSGO and Dota. recently sold almost all of my skins in those games and got about $400 back.
Europe is in the process of trying to ban lootboxes, correctly recognizing that they're a device designed to get children addicted to gambling.
you sell that kid's account and he's going to come to hate you with a fucking fury. he's 9, you punish and teach like a sane person, don't go to defcon 5 over something he doesn't fully comprehend. like it or not, Fortnite is important to kids his age and selling his account is going to be tantamount to stabbing him in the back as a father in his eyes. if you're lucky when he's 30 he may realize that selling his account was fine but you will no joke be risking about 20 years of uneasiness between you two in the meantime. continue the punishment, sit down and teach him about gambling (use monopoly money or something and teach him about basic odds), dangle the account as a carrot for excellent grades or something and in 6 months or something you revisit the situation.
He can just make another account. All he would lose is the cosmetics and username. and of course, he needs to lose the cosmetics as punishment for stealing 2 grand.
By the same token, 9-year-olds have very short memories. If he holds a 20-year grudge over a Fortnite account, Tib will need $2k for another purpose.
I was fucking furious when I found out my 3 yo was tipping onlyfans creators to the tune of 70k so I shot him out of a cannon
I just recounted this story to my youngest (15), currently melted into the couch cushions in the back room playing ARK: Survival Evolved. He snorted when I got to Fortnite, then at the end laughed and said "Dude, that kid is a total PRODIGY. Fuck, I wish I'd thought of that"
lol "yeah kid you can just keep the 2 grand you stole" is quite the parenting strategy i am sure it will work out well
HOLY FUCK. My 10yo TODAY changed my Apple password so he could download a free game on his iPad and I read him the riot act. I don't even know what I'd do if this came about.
Is that game any good? I think I got it for free on Epic Games (probably in exchange for selling my kidneys to China or something).
You'd be amazed I mean depending on the skins or items an account holds and also the max rank the person has achieved lazy players or collector's will pay bank for it.
If you can't figure out where or how to sell the account, just delete it or change its password to something random that even you don't know. letting your kid keep the account should be a nonstarter.
He tried it for free several weeks ago, then the free trial ran out and he threw a few $20 bills at me and said he wanted to purchase it. Then a week later he threw more $20 bills at me and said he wanted to buy some add-ons. Seems to be THE group game for him and his friends at the moment. I suppose it's good if they're enjoying it, and they are.
I'll tell you what though....if I could pay 2 grand for my kids to shut the fuck up instead of constantly yelling and talking when they're playing video games, I'd consider it.
The problem is skins or weapons in games are like trading cards, pogs, ect when we were younger it is a way to show off to his classmates and friends. Shit kids get bullied if they have basic skins or in game weapons. The industry knows this and exploits the hell out of it.
I'm aware. My point is if I were him I'd do my best to explain to him how pointless that stuff is and how it's a huge waste. I know it worked for me as a kid because I had absolutely no interest in Pokemon cards. Not to say I was a great kid or didn't waste my parents money elsewhere or something, it just stuck with me that stuff like that might seem cool or important but it is only that way for a brief moment in time and useless once the trend has ended.
I’ve heard it’s really involved. You basically start out with nothing and have to work your way up to having lots of stuff within a clan
Regulating interests just doesn't work, you can't expect someone to try to tell you how pointless sports or being a fan of sports teams are just like you can't tell kids how pointless cosmetics are.
This sounds shockingly like my childhood Well plus mowing the lawn, dusting and vacuuming the house, washing my dads truck, etc
compromise: sell his account and he’s only allowed to play ncaa 06 and mvp 05 on ps2. there is literally zero risk of him even accidentally buying something plus now he can play the classics
Not a single 9 year old on planet earth is going to hold a lifelong grudge against his dad because his dad sold his video games after he stole $2k. This advice is incredible
that post perfectly encapsulated the millennial participation trophy culture that boomers always complain about
My 6 yo got into my special cough syrup and shared it with his friends and I was all like “what can I do the kids these days love lean”
I would have him do 2k worth of manual labor to see how hard you actually have to work for that amount of money. make him dig some ditches or holes in the ground
that’s how dumb your post was. not only has everyone itt laughed at it but even the boomers can use it as evidence of the failures of this generation
i dunno about that, i have some moral ambiguity, if I lived in what people have hinted at is the bougie neighborhood the kids theft could be praxis
Son if you steal, as long as you work hard enough you will be rewarded with what you stole is quite the lesson.
To each their own but I've absolutely seen it work with friend's kids from time to time. Obviously not every time though. You have to show them something else cool to compare it to I think. Something tangible that they can put their hands on and play with seems to work best from my outside experience. A bike seemed to have success for them. It's also not telling him sports are stupid or that video games are stupid or a waste. It's telling him that the skins aspect of video games are a waste. Not having skins doesn't affect ability to play the game one bit.
Looks like El Tiburon is going to have to up the consequences since his son apparently hacked Sir Phobos 's account.
- Bank the sky miles - Claim it as a business expense, write it off on his taxes - Discreetly delight in the $2k he just got in manual labor off me - Make a grand parenting gesture, most likely coordinate a ruse involving a “fraud investigator“ from the credit bureau, convince me I’m facing a mandatory sentence at a juvenile detention center. - teach me the power of compounding interest by making me complete some insane task illustrating the exponential growth. Go to the bank, get a $100 worth of loose pennies and make me roll them. - take the Xbox, tell me he pawned it, but actually hide it in the attic and give it back to me once I’ve learned my lesson but by that point I will have built up so much resentment, Id look at that Xbox the same way I look at a lawnmower.