By now, most adults are used to the idea that the software and services they use — including video games — record what they do to send feedback to the companies that make them. But when some third-graders found out that games they love have some kind of data-mining, it was a heartbreaking combination of funny and sad.
NPR visited a third-grade classroom in Washington DC in a follow-up to a previous piece about game-makers’ increasing monetisation of player behaviour research. The kids had listened to and talked about the preceding report with their teacher and then wrote letters in reaction to this revelation. Four of the loss-of-innocence missives get highlighted in NPR’s newest report.
The tenor of the combined segments unfortunately shores up the idea of video games as a scary, addictive threat while highlighting the need for parents to monitor their kids’ game-playing. But, then again, this is the target audience — or the most naïve, vulnerable part of it, anyway — giving a different kind of feedback. “Kind of creepy”? “Brillent [sic] idea but bad idea”? Game designers of the world, you might want to listen to them.
[Via NPR]
Comments
5 responses to “Kids Really Don’t Like Video Games Tracking What They Do”
Well no shit! Just because we adult accept it, doesn’t make it any less creepier. And if you think Adults don’t seem to care anymore, do you care to remember the huge problem with the Xbone not letting us unplug the Kinect?
And things will only get creepier.
Well, it might be that most adults aren’t particularly concerned with a little metrics collection from their gaming, but my suspicion is that there hasn’t been more of a furor because most people just aren’t aware how prevalent it is.
If they think that’s kind of creepy, wait until they hear about sites like YouTube, Facebook and Twitter where not only do the companies running them have loads of data about you they can use, but so does everyone else. I think it’s good that children are being made aware of these things at an early age so they can be a little more careful when going onto the internet.
I’m amazed at how okay most people are with this.
In other news, I’m also amazed at how many people populate facebook with their real data. Why would you want to really tell them who your family members, birthdays are etc? Why does it seem like not a big deal to give out privileged information?