Letting younger children access Fortnite - Looking for opinions
Not quite sure how to start this post, but I guess maybe a little bit of my own background could be useful?
I'm 41, Father of two young kids (almost 8 and 5), been gaming my entire life. I have a PC games library that's well over 20+ years old and 1000 games deep (not to brag, just for context) that my kids mostly (curated for them) have access too. My first multiplayer game was at about 11-years old with the Quake demo in 1996, later got heavily in to MMO's (Everquest, DAOC, WoW, etc) and in the early 2010's, I was heavily in to World of Tanks/Warplanes.
My oldest really wants to play Fortnite (which means the youngest will also play) and I'm a little torn on if I should allow that or not. They've played it a decent amount at their Uncles house and I'm well familiar with the game, though I've never played it or a Battle Royale style game myself and I don't really find anything objectionable about the content of the game itself, but I'm pretty reticent to put it on my own computers and make accounts for them to be able to play at home.
I can't exactly put my finger on why that might be, but I'm currently attributing it to the FOMO mechanics with skins, as well as the generally addictive nature of online games themselves, given I've been addicted to them myself. My kids only have a limited amount of time to play games or watch TV on any given day anyway, so I'm not necessarily concerned that they'll play it all day, but I am worried about their mental health when it comes to it. They both already get frustrated with games (but in different ways) and I feel like that would be exacerbated when they have a bad match or when they're called away to do something (which is a primary reason I quit multiplayer games when I had children. It became too difficult to disengage from a "match" of something and I'd become very frustrated and angry.) Now, I'm not afraid to take away things if they become a problem (they have been banned from Youtube) and while there's some short term pain associated with that, they tend to get over it after awhile. Also, I do generally feel that it's more wholesome to engage with stuff like Subnautica, Minecraft and other games that they're currently playing.
Anyway, I'm curious what other people's thoughts are on this subject. My wife proposed letting the older one have an account when they turn 8 here very soon, but I've told her about my reticence about it all, which she is understanding of. But I wanted to see if I'm being too anxious or paranoid about it and if Fortnite is actually fine for an 8 and 5 year old. I'm not generally one to wholesale ban things in the house and I'm open to all types of games and experiences, just not sure if it's totally appropriate yet.
Side note: there is the side benefit that I might (probably not often) play with them, but that they also have the possibility of playing with their (much older) cousins and their Uncles. Though I'm not sure any of them are able to play during the times my kids have their screentime.
I have played Fortnite a few times in front of my 8 year old daughter (she was 6 or 7 when I let her watch). My main hesitation with it is that the game is people shooting each other, but she seemed to deal fine with it in the end. Characters "come back" after they get shot, it's really little different than playing Nerf, paintball, or the dozens of other socially normalized violent games that kids have played for hundreds of years. There isn't really much gore that I have seen in my years of playing.
That said, I would absolutely shut off voice chat completely, and disable messaging. If your kid has friends who play, then support them doing an Xbox game bar for voice chat with only them, and they can play together when the time comes. You should be able to disable access to custom maps if you have any concern that someone is going to create an inappropriate map. I know that's an issue with Roblox. The thing with skins, purchases, etc. is that you don't have to allow them. Do not link a credit card, do not let your kid have access to it, and flat out refuse to let them engage with that part of the game. If you decide to make an exception to it, I would personally recommend starting by being willing to get them the Battle Pass if and when they are playing regularly (~2 hours a week). If they do not waste their coins on things that are not included, the Battle Pass lets you acquire enough coins to purchase the next Battle Pass only through in game currency, and then they can keep unlocking more skins for no real world money.
I do not think Fortnite is anywhere near the level of problematic that Roblox is. I flat out will not let my kid play Roblox. A huge part of that is probably that I have never played myself.
If your still not okay with it, I think letting them play some of the Lego games in Fortnite would be fine. There's a Lego Cat Island that my daughter loved.
Hopping in to support this comment - in my experience, there are so many safety and privacy settings to take advantage of. There are age limits for custom islands so they don't stray into content that's too scary for them, there are settings to put in a code to require a parent to approve friend requests, there are settings to turn on/off voice comms and refine their settings, it really is a comprehensive system to ensure young player safety.
Fortnite is probably a good choice for kids because it's so cartoony. I've been playing a couple years so I've seen a few chapters/seasons - the art is cute, they change it up each season/chapter so there are always new things to enjoy (or hate... looking at you Star Wars miniseason), and it's got a good sense of humour. My kid started on player islands and Lego modes - player islands have activities like Only Up, parkour courses or spiderman grapple courses, hide and seek, tower defense - all kinds of stuff.
The one thing I'll say that slightly departs from the above comment (and this may just be my experience because ADHD is a factor) goooood luck getting them to not spend vBucks on shoes or some useless crap, and then ask you for more when The Very Cool Thing TM hits the item shop. Fortunately I've been able to use this as leverage to reinforce healthy habit building: small human completes weekly tasks and responsibilities for 2 weeks, small human gets vBucks card, which he will 100% waste buying Chewbacca crocs (or 'chewcroccas', which were the impulse purchase back in May.) This aside, I agree with getting them the Battle Pass if it's feasible, as they can earn items and emotes and skins that they can tinker around with in their lobbies.
I'm nodding along as I read your comment: I totally get it. My ADHD is masked with an unhealthy dose of anxiety disorder, a component of which has always been a fear of being destitute. Couple that with the desire to always get the best deal, and as an adult I was able to convince myself to save all my earned vBucks for the next Battle Pass (except one occasion because I really really needed the Silver Surfer's Surfboard). I haven't tried to convince my 8 year old to do the same because she'd rather build bases in Minecraft with me for now. It's probably a lesson that gets learned when she spends the vBucks on an emote and can't get the next BattlePass. Being forced to sit out a season and see all of the skins you're missing out will definitely be hard for a kid. But I do keep hearing that consequences are hugely important for learning healthy habits with ADHD.
Could you elaborate on issues with Roblox?
Not who you asked, but my kid had a stint where they watched YouTubers playing custom maps, and some were gross, and some were scary. It really is an anything goes type of open world where users can make their own stuff, and there are weirdos out there. They started having trouble sleeping and getting stuck on topics that weren't age-appropriate. We ended up taking YouTube off the tablet to quickly stop those rabbit holes from happening. They still get to watch YouTube stuff, but it's on the TV and we are able to better monitor it.
There might be good stuff in there, but I view it as a cancer. There are plenty of other good games out there. If you don't want to give your kid unfettered access to Reddit (or the Internet generally) then I'd avoid Roblox as well.
Just like Newgrounds or albino black sheep et al, YouTube and Roblox are basically a roulette if it's something fun and silly, or something that'll stay with you forever. There's people making silly content, but also sickos making gross stuff specially because they know a lot of kids will be there.
Honestly, I'm not at all experienced with it the way I am with Fortnite, so it's tough for me to feel at all competent when forming a salient position. And that's exactly why I'm not letting my kid play for now, because I can't be sure it's anywhere near safe for her.
Here's one video I'm hoping to watch soon
For reference, my children are 19f, 14f, 10m.
In my experience, the most important thing is not necessarily the game itself, but the approach you have to the game. If you are letting your kids sit in a room by themselves playing fortnight, that's different from having it in an area where you hear and see what they are doing, and that's also different from if you take part in it yourself.
I love video games, and I play a fair bit of games, and I love sharing that with my kids, and our video game setup is a group of desks in one corner of the basement and most of the time if they're playing I'm also there. Whatever game they're into, I'm hearing about it and seeing it, and if there's something "bad" that comes about because of it, I'm there. Even right now, when I'm working and they're home during the day, I'm in the next room, about 7 feet away, and I can hear what they're doing (Kid2 and Kid3 are playing Guntouchables together).
Fornite itself is a game that I have never played, but I have observed my son play it a number of times. We turn off voice chat, he knows not to give out details about himself, and he knows that if anyone asks him for details about himself, he tells me. It's the same set of guidelines I used with my daughters, and now they are responsible internet users.
My son and I also play the dreaded Roblox together, and it's honestly nowhere near the boogeyman that people online make it out to be. Many of the games are hot garbage, but most of them are just fine, and it's actually a reasonable place to start learning about creating games, which my son has done.
tl;dr I think that as long as you're somewhat involved - and I don't mean necessarily playing with them, but being around and knowing about what is happening - then Fortnite isn't problematic at all.
I honestly think the violence in video games thing really isn't a problem, generally. Where its potentially a problem is when the violence is so visceral that it starts giving your kids nightmares, and fortnite is really unlikely to do that.
The thing is that video games did not imbune the human psyche with the propensity to hunt or kill one another. The causality effect goes the other way. Games where you kill other people are popular because of something innate in the human condition.
Before it was video games it was target shooting, hunting, full contact sports, war reenactment and so forth. There's some drive in us that drives fulfillment with competing against and eliminating competitors, sometimes in a brutal way.
I don't think that's a problem at all, at least where your kids are concerned. The key thing there is understanding the difference between play and real life. I think kids are much better at this than people give them credit for, but it can't hurt to have conversations about how guns are real things, they aren't toys, and they have ended or destroyed millions of lives throughout human history. It's not a problem to pretend to shoot your friend in a video game, it very much is a problem to shoot people in real life (or pretend to shoot your friends in school any time post 1990s).
I grew up playing doom when I was around your son's age, and I never even had a moment where I confused action in the game with real life. I don't think most kids would, but as long as you've crossed that t and are keeping an eye on him, I wouldn't have much of a problem with fortnite.
I have an 8 and 4. I don't let them play Fortnite (or Lego Fortnite) despite playing myself. The two biggest reasons:
Fortnite and Roblox are verbotten for that reason, despite Lego Fortnite being a pretty decent survival crafter and Fortnite itself being a decent shooter.
Wildmender, Breath of the Wild, and Slime Rancher are the current vices.
For experimenting with games, 8 is making and remixing games in scratch and makecode arcade. No need to thrust them deep in microtransaction hell. They're currently working on a tomagatchi clone for the microbit, which they have their little sibling test drive.
Fuck microsoft for closing off Makecode Minecraft mods to education edition only.
Yeah, I'm kind of worried they'll give up the other games they love, that I think are good for their brains, because they're addicted to the dopamine of a live service game.
Side note, thank you to the brave parents figuring out these pain points before my kids start becoming aware of these things and giving me the crash course.
I think the fact that you're comfortable taking it away after giving it says to me you should go with your wife's suggestion. Not much risk in giving it a go.
The general unease you feel I think is the
fact(edit: assumption) that Fortnite is a massive MULTIPLAYER game. Meaning you lose the ability to curate their exposure to the evils of Internet folk. That plus the predatory fomo driven in game economy are very valid concerns. But the flipside is they definitely have friends already playing, and imo its better to let them engage on limited terms with your involvement and supervision than to begin to seek it out at other venues.And FWIW I was playing starcraft online by myself from age 10 or so and weathered the internet abuse just fine. Probably should've had parental guidance but I don't think it's a massive issue.
That isn't entirely true though. Fortnite actually has pretty granular social interaction and parental controls. You can set it to only allow their friends (which you can set it to require your approval before it adds them) to send messages/voice chat, or even disable text/voice chat entirely. Either of which I would suggest doing for a child that young playing the game.
See: Parental Controls and How do I manage my party, voice chat, and text chat options from the Fortnite Lobby?
TIL, thanks!
I should have clarified for the rest of the responses in the thread, it's definitely the FOMO stuff and general exposure to the rest of the internet that I'm concerned about. Violence bothers me little to not at all and much of the fear surrounding it and video games is overblown; my oldest has played and loves Quake for example. And both understand the difference between violence in games and violence in real life.
But yeah, it's probably not an issue I suppose as long as I shut all the social aspects down and they play in a common area at home anyway, so it's easy to monitor what's happening. I'm guessing they wouldn't be able to play online with family in this case though, since everyone is on different systems, between Switch and Playstation with us on PC.
But yeah, the FOMO is my real concern, I suppose. My oldest has been talking non-stop about the skins in Fortnite and how he wants them if he ever plays.
Fortnite actually has crossplay, so people on Switch, Playstation, Xbox, PC, and even mobile can play together!
Fair warning though, I'm pretty sure that, because mouse and keyboard users have an advantage over controller users who have an advantage over touchscreen users, there are three tiers of game lobbies. There's the mobile pool, the console pool, and the PC pool. You'll be matched in whichever pool fits the highest advantage control scheme in the party. All this means is, when your relatives on Playstation play with you and your kids on PC, your relatives will be playing against other PC players who will be more difficult than what they're used to!
This is how I heard it worked a few years ago, I imagine it's still the same.
Oh it is. It is quite grand watching console people play against PC people.
You can tell the Switch people because they'll often run into walls that haven't rendered yet and have a visibility of approximately 20 feet. Like fish in a barrel.
This makes me feel like this isn't as much a games or even Fortnite question, as it is a microtransaction / buying stuff because "keeping up with Joneses in general" question.
For example, if he wanted to play Doom single player, I don't feel like you'd be as concerned. Closer to a question of if he wants to play a match three dress up farm sim, but he definitely wants to buy the whatever packs.
How much allowed budget does he have for games, both in terms of time and money? Is he aware he'll need to spend his own money on skins and if so what rate he'd be able to afford unlocking them? Is he open to doing chores to earn money for skins? Who is he trying to impress exactly with these skins?
Could be an early teachable moment that the joy of something you super want and sink money into wear off quickly. Being allowed to "blow" my own money in my 20s taught me how to be frugal for life fast, far more effectively than the previous 2 decades of "no you don't need trendy X" combined.
I think it may be too early for them to play Fortnite, but you obviously know them best. My wife’s little sister is 5 and even when we play Kirby together, she can get a little too amped up. There’s some amount of maturity that’s needed to have the necessary emotional regulation to not crash out when playing more “exciting” games.
Most of the other comments seem to be focused on the violence, which was stated as a lesser issue. I'd keep young kids off of any game with custom content (and few barriers), and basically all F2P games. The games of today are not the games of yesteryear, for better and worse.
F2P games want you to spend money. Gacha mechanics, multiple obscure currencies, and even the gameplay exist to drive you to spending money. Kids need to be old enough to understand the existence and motivation of these things and be able to make more informed decisions, prefererably with their own money. Otherwise the dark patterns win, and they end up addicted.
Custom content games with a lot of freedom (Roblox, I'm guessing Fortnite) to create what you want means people will make all kinds of stuff. And kids will eventually land in an over-scary or over-gross or over-sexual type of creation eventually. If they're not old enough, it will have after-effects. Again, a kid has to be old enough to have the 'shock' of hitting one of those creations not be so big.
Predatory games are at least as bad as your kid finding a bad movie or some other explicit media. Probably worse, because their success relies on ramping up dopamine and FOMO and encouraging addictive habits.
It's not a hard thing to avoid, really. There are a million great games that don't do any of this. We play Castle Crashers together, Boomerang-Fu, Spiritfarer, various Kirby games, Animal Crossing, Pikmin, Unpacking, etc. In a couple years I will likely introduce Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts.
I do not have kids, have played basically 0 fortnight, and as such have tried writing this a few times.
I think the summary of my thoughts is that 8 seems extremely young to be playing fortnight and that’s as someone who credits Dota in high school as being a portion of my success in life in what it taught me. It’s an awfully commercialized game with a lot of ugly community aspects in and around it.
It’s hard to compare though because its not like such games even existed when I was 8.
Yea that's a tough one. At the end of the day, everyone has to make their own choices for what they think works best for their kids while navigating social pressures and everything else. It's not necessarily an easy decision, but also remember it need not be a permanent one either.
My kids are a little younger than yours, but here's my plan. For reference, I'm also an avid gamer but my wife is not. I think we'll wait until my youngest is 5 or 6 to introduce video games but only games I curate. I'm thinking games like BotW or Super Mario Odyssey that hearken back to a simpler time in game design. And also games we can play together as a family like Stardew Valley. I'll only add a title or two to their catalogue a year with the idea of getting them used to gaming but de-emphasizing the dopamine factory that comes with it. Then when they start hitting double digits they can start picking out their own games. For multiplayer games specifically I'm not really sure -- largely depends on the social situation -- without IRL friends to play with I'll probably skip it or at least not encourage it.
But I also have daughters, and while a lot more girls are playing video games these days from what I have observed with older kids is that the social pressure to play games together still isn't quite the same as it is for boys. So I'm hoping there won't be too much FOMO going on.
I wouldn't let them play. I think they are too young. But you saying that they already played the game may change things a bit.
Why I wouldn't let them play: Fortnite is game where your objective is to hunt and shoot down other people (even though the world is cartoon-like). If thy should play some game, I'dimagine the game being like Toki Tori 2 or LittleBigPlanet or some other game like this. These games are meant for kids and while you (or others) die in such a game, it is not ulimately the objective. I think thy should still be kids at their age and not competitive people killers.
Why maybe let them play: Thy played already, they already know what the game is about. They have relatives they can play with (against). And finally - them already shooting people should be described to them by YOU as being fiction and thing you do not do in real life and why not - and this dosn't mean just "you would go to jail or get shot yourself", rather explaining why you don't kill or harm other people.
I have older kids than you (11 and 6) and not even them play games where you kill others. My older one plays Talos Principle, Portal and some lower tier games (Stardew Valley and such).
I played Tomb Raider on PS3 when the older one was say 5 and I had some explaining why I kill wolfes ("because they would eat me if I didn't") and I specifically didn't play through killing people parts if she didn't go to sleep prior. I didn't finish GTA5 on PS3 for the very reason of not playing when she was around. I stopped playing on TV altogether because I didn't want my kid to see the games I played at the time. Nowadays she sometimes stick around when I play ARMA3 coop with my friends as she is old enough to unerstand. And if she was good enough in FPS games, I would let her join us. But this would be highly individual.
Disclaimer: I’m not a parent.
I think if you’re comfortable taking things away as you said then there’s no real concerns. I don’t see Fortnite being a long term harm (and rare instances of abuse can be managed by restricting social functions).
My parents often worried about the influence of media portraying any kind of violence. They are strictly pacifistic and worried I’d somehow support the military or get into fights if I watched or played their banned media. To me that seems entirely ridiculous in hindsight. They were both very involved parents. They read books to me and my brothers, talked with us often about values and ethics, and lived in the exact way they hoped I would as an adult. Given all that I can’t imagine how playing Halo as an elementary aged kid would have had any lasting effect.