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Neopets Gambling Controversy
To "feed" their pets, Neopets players have to win points in a variety of mini-games, including versions of poker and blackjack. Australia has a high rate of gambling problems with poker machines ("pokies"), so when a mother discovered her nine-year-old playing online poker to feed his virtual pet, she approached Today Tonight claiming McDonalds was setting her son up for a life of gambling addiction.
TT aired the story Parents not McHappy over pokie toy and the Neopets message boards went nuts. Meanwhile McDonalds heavied Neopets into banning Australians from the gambling games. Today Tonight must have received a lot of hate mail because the next night came Neopet players fight McDonalds ban, featuring interviews with adult Neopets addicts. But this only increased the outrage on the Neopets boards - they're now trying to squash rumors of McDonalds withdrawing sponsorship altogether, and Neopets shutting down."
I guess we should take dreidels and dice away from all kids. So much for monopoly....
Video poker systems that take real live money to play will clean you out. These fake ones that they have to feed your virtua-pet obviously are set up with easier payouts.
Simply make the neoPets gambling area obey the odds of real gambling!
Little Sally won't end up with a gambling addiction -- her neoPet will simply die of starvation because she lost all her cash at the poker table. Now THAT's the kind of lesson that sticks with ya!
--
free gmail invites! join the club.
...so when a mother discovered her nine-year-old playing online poker...
Perhaps said parent should have been supervising their child's internet usage? You know, there are only about five hundred million worse things an unsupervised child could be doing on the internet. This mother should be happy it was just neopets. Perhaps she'll learn a lesson here, but my [cynical] guess is that she'll just continue to blame other people/companies for her lack of parenting skills.
Well, they don't play the Neopets games, but I do play poker, blackjack, gin (and other rummy games), pinnochle, and eucher with my kids. I guess I should expect DFS to show up and haul me away. ;)
Playing games, even games of chance, does not lead to gambling addiction. Being dumb as a rock, and thinking that you can win when the games are legally stacked aginst you, that can lead to gambling addiction.
so when a mother discovered her nine-year-old playing online poker to feed his virtual pet, she approached Today Tonight claiming McDonalds was setting her son up for a life of gambling addiction.
Those are the wrong steps. If she, as a parent, feels that neopets is not good for her child, then you make this rule known to the child, and then enforce it. I fail to see what McDs or neopets has done wrong. I dont really understand the moral crusade, conceptually. Why do other people care, as long as its not hurting them?
So you think neopets is bad for your kid, then dont let your kid play neopets. Who are you to parent the rest of the world.
Meh.
no
Jacqui Adams, 22, and Anita Esposito, 19, are just two of the thousands of adults hooked on the Neopet games. They're now fearful the site could be shut down altogether.
"There's many, many different species and they're all based on real things, like a Lupe is a dog, a Scorchio is a dragon," Jacqui said.
AAAAAHAHAAHHA! What kind of a response is that? Sounds like a 5 year old describing their Duplo construction.
Lupe is a dog, and Scorchio is a dragon! They're based on real things! We have a winner for today's "You're Not Helping Yourself Any" Award.
... of a child who has a "neopet," it's like anything else on the Internet that's aimed at kids: you, the responsible parent, have to know what your child visits on the Internet, make rules, set boundaries and impose limitations.
Any game of "chance" is gambling. The difference is the stakes. In Monopoly, it's fake money. Neopets is a point system. In Vegas, it's cash. With Microsoft, it's your data. At least with neopets, they're not telling the kids to take the "little green pieces of paper" out of mommy's purse. It's more like those damn tamaguchis...
BTW, I ROCK at Bilge Dice.
Responsibility is the punishment for compentenc
These parents and their BS groups crack me up. Really they do. They are so rife with double standards and hipocracy that I am certain if you ever put a mirror in front of them they would attack it for morally corrupting society and the groups demands to have a say in how they raise your children. Its never the individual parents fault for not paying attention to what their kids are doing, its always societies fault.
It's apparently okay with them to give out Barbie toys to little girls and enforce the stereo type that you should be a little prissy California princess with size DDD breasts and a 6 inch waist to be beautiful, but its wrong to give out some nice plush Neopet toys (they are really nice quality) as a part of the McDonals Happy Meal cross-promotion gimmick? Or better yet, its okay with these groups to allow kids to see and play voilent video games... just as long as it's cartoon voilence?
So I guess the solution for NeoPets is to sell this off as cartoon gambling? That way its okay because it works for voilence doesn't it?
You obviously didn't RTFA. Neopets is a vast online gaming / chat / community area. The toys are just marketing crap to attract them to that online area. The problem is the games and such involve gambling. No, it's not real money, but it's the same argument over violence on TV and Videogames. The intelligent amongst us can deal with it of course, but when the average child is allowed to view violent material from a very young age, it can affect them. Get it? The worry is the same about the gambling.
-Jesse
Nothing says "unprofessional job" like wrinkles in your duct tape.
your're right, I am complaining about a well-designed game. i forgot to mention that we're preparing (high-horse alert!) students for life through a process of "education" ... math, literacy, science, etc. Neopets has a different mission: profit. The students' interest is sadly neglected by the makers of neopets. Okay, off the high horse.
How do you teach self-control if there is nothing attractive?
Achille Talon
Hop!
i forgot to mention that we're preparing (high-horse alert!) students for life through a process of "education" ... math, literacy, science, etc. Neopets has a different mission: profit. The students' interest is sadly neglected by the makers of neopets.
High horses aside, I am not sure what is the point that you are making. Are you trying to say that all non-educational games are bad? Are you saying that companies with a profit motive should not exist? Or should not be allowed to make good games, only bad ones?
Obviously, Neopets (the company) is not a school. So? A great many things in life are not schools either.
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
(Slightly off topic but related)
Those places are probably subsidized by the Vegas Tourisim Comission.
If you are not familiar with them, kids play games to win tickets, which they use to buy stuff (read: crap -- spend 5 bucks in quarters to win enough tickets to buy a friggin Sponge Bob pencil). This has been going on for years with skee ball, whak-a-mole type games. A rip off, yes. But harmless fun.
But in the last several years roulette wheel type games have shown up, which actually have progressive jackpots to win x number of tickets. Not to be a prude, but I think we're letting kids get hooked on the excitement of the 'big win' (which is the allure of gambling more so than the actual money [or prize, tickets, etc.] won).
Sweet informative mod.
I can see how it's all the game's fault that the parents and teachers have failed to develop the kids self-discipline and time management skills. News flash: learning how to deal with distractions and prioritize activities is an essential part of the educational process.
Why is it that the proponents of "one nation under God" are so eager to get rid of "liberty and justice for all"?
For all their marketing, I just don't see that many Neopets laying around. In fact, around here they are hard to find.
I actually had to look in a few different Clairs stores to find a decent selection of them. They are not as common as the action toys tied to the cartoons and the kids get more education from the site than they would from the toons.
Seems to be a decent tradeoff to me. My kids could be finding far worse things to do. And yes, there are better things to do outside.
Guess I am one of those parents you had better be worrying about. My kids get the same connection I do. The catch: I must remain involved and I log their traffic.
Just knowing the log is there does more to reinforce good behaviour than any lame, easily cracked censorware does.
THE PARENTS THAT DO USE CENSORWARE ARE THE PROBLEM.
You have to surf with your kids plain 'n simple; otherwise, they are going to be adopting some one elses value system, not yours. This makes me believe parents who use censorware have a weak value system composed mostly of fear and ignorance. Baah....
Funny too, when they know there is a log, they will be happy to come and talk about what happened. This is always better than not.
I'm probably going to get flamed for this, but what the hell....
All of my kids are getting near straight A grades in school. No crime, no drugs, well respected in their peer groups.
Our family has no taboo becuase ignorance is weakness and places those that subscribe to it at a clear disadvantage to those that don't. Tough subjects are important to young people. They *will* get the information. Who better to set the primary expectations than you?
The real world is not always a nice place. Thugs, porn, disease, scammers, you name it, it's all there right? Who do these people pray on? The naive, ignorant, and fearful, and sometimes the unlucky. The net is the exact same way.
Being a good citizen means knowing your rights and responsibilities and setting the right expectations for those you interact with. Depending on other entities, to exhibit good behaviour is so totally passive aggressive as to make me sick frankly.
How to cope and make a difference in the world? Vote with your feet. Don't like the value proposition Neopets brings to the table? Don't visit and let others know why. That is your right and responsibility to do so.
However, don't ask Neopets to give up their rights too.
Everybody knows Neopets wants you to buy their toys. Instead of blaring their message in a passive mind-numbing cartoon, they choose to put up a fun, educational and interactive community almost anyone can enjoy.
What's wrong with that? Seems to me they are honoring their obligations as a citizen as well as they can be frankly.
You need to take a more active role in things along with just about everyone else that says what you just did. My family knows their rights and how to set expectations. When those are not met, we move on to where they are and let others know why, just as I did here. Making clear choices is one of the most important skills young people can learn. Empowering them to actually make those choices is the difference between future leaders and everybody else.
Sadly, the only real check on corporations today is your dollars. Vote with your feet early and often and talk about why to your family and friends. It works. More people should be doing it.
I don't mean to flame you with the above. Don't take it personal. This is important stuff. Consider my view and contrast it with your own and get something good from it. Might do you some good, might not...
Blogging because I can...
That's where Mr. Pimp comes in. He might look all flashy and pretty, but he's a businessman. He doesn't take kindly to you cutting off a source of his cash-flow, and probably wouldn't have a problem cutting off stuff from you as well.
You don't think these girls hook up with Pimps because they like doing what they do for money and then give it to someone else. They get protection of sorts, so it's usually a bad idea to double-cross or harm a hooker you haven't paid to harm.
Good luck conversing with the Slashdot crowd about this. "Everything is the fault of the individual, so there's no need for us to get involved at any level other than telling the individual to shape up." is the way things go here in Libertarianville. Those who think that minors might not have the decision-making abilities of adults and may need guidance, or that school systems should make any effort at all to compensate for deficiencies in parenting, are generally not well regarded.
Not to worry, Slashdotters have about as small of an effect on the real world as the real world has on them.
An excellent point, it is the responsibility of parents to educate kids about societal dangers. I wonder if all parents have the same resources - education, time, money, community - to draw from in the process of regulating their children. And if not, what role does the various institutions that intersect children's lives have to make up any institutional barriers to protecting those children? Neopets is a tempest in a teapot, I don't really mind it that much, though it is extremely addictive. What's more troublesome is the darwinian / libertarian perspective of "let them sink or swim" with respect to things that threaten the well-being of children.
Wow, bitter person decries slashdot via anonymous post.
Seriously, what balls!
I don't see how expressing an opinion on Slashdot could possibly be ballsy, anonymous or not. Slashdot is where you gripe about stuff, occasionally become deluded with the idea someone is listening, but ultimately are ignored. Doing it anonymously is really just redundant, that's all. I've been posting for years to Slashdot and have never created an account. You know what? I'm not missing anything.
You have obviously missed my sarcastic humour (FYI, I used it again at the beginning of this post since it fit so well). I apologize. I normally dislike tags and thus avoid using them. I shall take your misunderstanding as a data point and change my personal views to better interact with other slashdot members.
But, you have admitted to never having a slashdot account. How would you know if you aren't missing anything? I'm not saying that posting AC isn't your thing (cool if it is), but please make informed statements.
Personally, the main reason that I frequent slashdot, is for the humor. If you look at my posts you will realize that makes up the majority of my participation. I never was a huge advocate pushing the importance of slashdot and the conversations which take place here. You came up with that one on your own buddy.
Yay for you, for comprehending that children need guidance. Boo for you for thinking that if children don't receive this guidance from their parents, they're just not going to get guidance, and we'll just toss 'em in jail when they become the inevitable sociopath.
Wow, allow me to quote myself (and how I love to do that):
There are other ways to tackle the bad parenting problem and I personally don't feel the school system is the way to do it.
How in the world did you take that statement to mean we should ignore the children until they all become sociopaths and then put them in jail? Once again, you came up with that one all on your own buddy, I had nothing to do with it (although I am really curious how you made the jump).