New stories of children racking up massive credit card bills for their parents keep trickling in as we live in an era where micro transaction based video games have become the norm. We have learned of this particular story after Jeremy Hillman shared it on his blog .
His 13 year old son is an avid FIFA gamer and fan of the Ultimate Team mode, where people can buy player packs to improve their teams respectively. What Jeremy didn’t realize was that the same credit card used for buying a digital copy of FIFA 15 on the XBOX One console, was held on file for future transactions.
The teenager then could buy virtual currency to use within the game in the Marketplace at upwards of $100 per transaction. Although all real money transactions ask for confirmation, it surely didn’t seem like real money to the teen as he continued to amass this bill. It wasn’t until days later that Jeremy saw a number of charges from Microsoft on his credit card statement. The son confessed to buying packs to better his team but it wasn’t until Jeremy contacted Microsoft, he would learn the extend of the spending spree. $4500 worth of digital content in a matter of a few short days. The parent anknowledges that he should have paid closer attention to what his son was doing on the console but does think there should have been more effective safety features set up, like Apple uses in which you have to enter a password before EVERY transaction. Even though there are parental safety feautures present on both Next Gen consoles, parents too often aren’t familiar with how to set them up and prevent things like these from happening.
Jeremy has taken full responsibility for paying this astronomical amount and chalks it up to a “lesson learned” experience. Although $4500 is a pretty hefty sum, it is chump change compared to what this teen racked up in micro transactions. If stories like these keep arising, we are sure to see a change in how these micro transactions are processed in the future. Perhaps a daily spending limit could be put in place or a password prompt before every transactions. A detailed look at how micro transaction based games have changed the landscape of the video gaming world, check out my other article here.
What are you guys’ thoughts on this? Should parents be more careful and aware of what their children are doing? Or should the game publishers take a bigger role in preventing things like these from happening? The answer is probably somewhere in the middle. Comment, like and share as always and stay tuned to SGO for all the latest news in the gaming world.