$99 Virtual Smurf Berries! (Scam)

[heydude]

On the news, they did a story about the ipad. There are games your kids can download for free. But, during the game, you can get to higher levels, etc. if you purchase things. One game, about The Smurfs features smurf berries. They allow you to build more houses and expand your village. In a click of a button, you can charge a barrel of smurf berrifes for 99 bucks! (a handful is five dollars).

It is real money!

Who is going to spend 99 bucks on smurf berries that are not even real!

That is a total scam! Parents are complaining that their kids are buying these things not knowing they are charging up real money!

What sane person would spend 99 bucks on smurf berries!

[Zoebird]

a lot of people do that sort of thing, and yeah, it's insane.

we are against video games here. the computer is a tool. we watch movies, listen to music, write, work, create, and "play" online with "friends" (eg, facebook, chat rooms, messageboards), but NO video games.

i just think they are terribly boring.

[Miss Cellane]

It's not just the Smurf game--it's a lot of games, and not just on the iPad, but on Facebook and Google + and I don't know how many others. The games are set up so that you can only get so far without needing to buy "money." Or it would take weeks to get what you want in the game, whereas buying the game money gets you what you want right away.

On the other hand, it's not just one click to buy the in-game "money." It's a couple of clicks, and for a lot of stuff for Apple products, a password as well. And you have to have a credit card set up with whoever is providing the game. And if the game was downloaded from the Apple App store, parents can prevent these in-game purchases if they want. I think a lot of parents give their kids the password to the App store, so the parent doesn't have to stop what they're doing and go type the password in when the kid wants to download a new game. But that means that the kid has the ability to make the in-game purchases.

If parents disabled the in-game purchase utility and didn't give their kids the password to the account, this would be a non-issue, at least for Apple stuff. Facebook and the others--I honestly don't know.

But, yeah, apparently there are a lot of people who spend real money on these game, and it's not just kids.

[Gardenarian]

Has anyone read Neal Stephenson's "Reamde" ? The money/video game thing is sort of the premise of the novel. And it's a very good book.

[ApatheticNoMore]

Well, I don't know .... these $99 virtual smurf berries ..... are they at least organic? :~)

[heydude]

Laughing My Smurf Off!

The smurf berries are smurfing organic!