shape
carat
color
clarity

Any "Fortnight" parents out there?

Rockdiamond

Ideal_Rock
Trade
Joined
Jan 7, 2009
Messages
9,711
This game ( which admittedly I have not played) is insidious!!
It's bad enough that it's a shoot and kill game.
Bad enough it's played online so you have to watch for predators posing as kids.
But they also have the kids conned into buying "skins" which cost ...well, I'm not sure how much a single one is, but they come in $25 packs.
Then they offer these "skins" to the players for a limited time- buy by 7pm or you can't be Kyler Wren!!

Anyway, thanks for reading my vent- how do other parents deal with this?
 

MaisOuiMadame

Ideal_Rock
Premium
Joined
Jan 9, 2015
Messages
3,451
Ugh I'm not there yet because my son's only 12 and I'm super strict about screen time. But I can only imagine the discussions this would +or eventually will) entail. I'd (will) go crazy. Hang in there!
 

MarionC

Ideal_Rock
Premium
Joined
Dec 9, 2013
Messages
6,246
This game ( which admittedly I have not played) is insidious!!
It's bad enough that it's a shoot and kill game.
Bad enough it's played online so you have to watch for predators posing as kids.
But they also have the kids conned into buying "skins" which cost ...well, I'm not sure how much a single one is, but they come in $25 packs.
Then they offer these "skins" to the players for a limited time- buy by 7pm or you can't be Kyler Wren!!

Anyway, thanks for reading my vent- how do other parents deal with this?

How old are your kids?
Or, having been through this myself, i might ask; how old are your kids making you? Lol
 

Rockdiamond

Ideal_Rock
Trade
Joined
Jan 7, 2009
Messages
9,711
My guys are 9 and 11.
Lucky for me, they're actually keeping me younger ( I'm 62)
@kipari OMG you're my hero(ine)!!! I wish I had a way to have prevented them from playing this in the first place....
 

MaisOuiMadame

Ideal_Rock
Premium
Joined
Jan 9, 2015
Messages
3,451
I think I've said it before : he'll thank me much much later, hopefully....like, when he's got his own kids, I guess...because atm this doesn't makes me popular . He's allowed 1 hour of Minecraft on Friday nights and I wish I hadn't even allowed this
 

lyra

Ideal_Rock
Premium
Joined
Jul 13, 2007
Messages
5,249
DLC is the bane of video games these days. Downloadable content for $$$. I play video games, and I've bought DLC. I'm definitely not the target audience at all, and I don't know why I've bought pixels on a screen, but then again, no one is the boss of me. Knowing that DLC is strongly targeting your kids is helpful. Telling them they can't have it, or whatever, is your decision. As is limiting time played. Having to earn any time played. All those things are your choice. You will find DLC with virtually any game these days. It's generally frowned upon, but that's how the game companies make money.
 

arkieb1

Ideal_Rock
Premium
Joined
May 11, 2012
Messages
9,786
It's Kylo Ren actually, my 11 year old plays, and I play it like a bad a@#*. I started playing it because my then 9/10 year old was talking to random strangers on it and I wanted to see who he and his friends were talking too.

Then I got a knock on the door - the parents of one of his friends turned up on my doorstep and it turns out a local paedophile known to police had been grooming and was trying to meet one of my son's friends. And no, my son had not been talking to nor had he virtually friended the 36 year old guy involved.

So I kept playing, and I know which kids talk about drugs, which kids talk about sex, which kids are depressed, I hear what some of the parents are doing in the background. Of of the kids that has separated parents Dad's likes to bring home multiple girlfriends for example. I know which kids are on there way too much.... which kids parents work and leave their kids at home on their own or with siblings all day.... It's like a tiny window into lots of his friends personal lives....

I got good at playing it and because of that the kids now forget I'm a woman that is almost 50.... All anyone sees and judges me on is my skin and my ability or lack thereof to play the game.
 

Rockdiamond

Ideal_Rock
Trade
Joined
Jan 7, 2009
Messages
9,711

Rockdiamond

Ideal_Rock
Trade
Joined
Jan 7, 2009
Messages
9,711
It's Kylo Ren actually, my 11 year old plays, and I play it like a bad a@#*. I started playing it because my then 9/10 year old was talking to random strangers on it and I wanted to see who he and his friends were talking too.

Then I got a knock on the door - the parents of one of his friends turned up on my doorstep and it turns out a local paedophile known to police had been grooming and was trying to meet one of my son's friends. And no, my son had not been talking to nor had he virtually friended the 36 year old guy involved.

So I kept playing, and I know which kids talk about drugs, which kids talk about sex, which kids are depressed, I hear what some of the parents are doing in the background. Of of the kids that has separated parents Dad's likes to bring home multiple girlfriends for example. I know which kids are on there way too much.... which kids parents work and leave their kids at home on their own or with siblings all day.... It's like a tiny window into lots of his friends personal lives....

I got good at playing it and because of that the kids now forget I'm a woman that is almost 50.... All anyone sees and judges me on is my skin and my ability or lack thereof to play the game.

OMG- that's so scary!!!!!!
We listen to the kids play and they're always on the phone with friends ( we know who they're speaking to)
I really wish I had the drive/ability to learn and play the stupid game....
 

arkieb1

Ideal_Rock
Premium
Joined
May 11, 2012
Messages
9,786
OMG- that's so scary!!!!!!
We listen to the kids play and they're always on the phone with friends ( we know who they're speaking to)
I really wish I had the drive/ability to learn and play the stupid game....

Let me know if you want to learn, I play as ArkieB and am more than happy to teach you how to shoot and build. It took me 3+ seasons and a lot of hours late at night when my son and husband had gone to bed to be able to get good enough to get "wins"

Yes, you should always keep a close eye on who they are "friending" and talking to on it and any other games where they can chat to strangers. My rule is that my son is only allowed to "friend" other kids no people that sound like adults unless I approve.... and you should also keep an eye on things like discord and other places they talk or chat to each other as well.
 

YadaYadaYada

Super_Ideal_Rock
Premium
Joined
Feb 2, 2016
Messages
11,840
We banned Fortnight in our house, I was too nervous about him being online (he is immature) and it also seemed like it could become consuming. DH is a gamer and he can be obsessive so I was very careful with the kids. The 12 year old plays Madden on his IPad or Minecraft and various games on the Switch. The five year old also plays Mario Odyssey on the Switch or Kirby.

Maybe I am super conservative but we try to really limit games/media/screens. No social media and the 12 almost 13 year old also doesn't have a phone. I get hell for the phone thing but I'm still holding out!
 

Rockdiamond

Ideal_Rock
Trade
Joined
Jan 7, 2009
Messages
9,711
I'm blown away by your offer @arkieb1
A friend request has been sent!

I'm totally with you @StephanieLynn!
Well- as far as waiting as long as possible before giving them phones.
I make every effort to limit my usage around them too.
No social media too.
But I couldn't stop this fortnight thing.
 

YadaYadaYada

Super_Ideal_Rock
Premium
Joined
Feb 2, 2016
Messages
11,840
@Rockdiamond, well you are letting kids be kids and that's a good thing! I'm sure my kids would tell you that my husband is the fun one, he plays the games with them and gets them through the parts they can't, that makes him kind of a hero. Me, I can make a good meatloaf lol!
 

Rockdiamond

Ideal_Rock
Trade
Joined
Jan 7, 2009
Messages
9,711
What time’s dinner????
 

arkieb1

Ideal_Rock
Premium
Joined
May 11, 2012
Messages
9,786
You need to tell me either your Fortnite name or your kids Fortnite names (or all of them), I get 20+ people a day (sometimes as many as 50+ per day from random strangers) sending friend requests to me and I reject most of them, unless I know them, or have played with them and they seem like nice decent people....

I play on Oceania servers, you need to have your regional preferences set to ALL so you can play with anyone in the world to maximise your speed when playing with me.
 
Last edited:
Q

Queenie60

Guest
OMG - so glad my kids are young adults!!!!!
 

Karl_K

Super_Ideal_Rock
Trade
Joined
Aug 4, 2008
Messages
14,633
OMG - so glad my kids are young adults!!!!!
The other day I heard a I'm guessing around 25 year old guy complaining about getting a written warning for playing it on his phone at work when he was sposed to be working.
Another person I know is a manager at a place that employs a lot of late teens and college kids and its a constant battle to get them off their phones and get some work done.
Thay have had to fire a bunch of them.
 

House Cat

Ideal_Rock
Premium
Joined
Feb 22, 2009
Messages
4,602
My son is 14 and he and his friends play it sometimes... I think they started playing it as a joke, but I noticed they play it every night now and my son has bought two skins, LOL. I guess the game is catchy....
 

missy

Super_Ideal_Rock
Premium
Joined
Jun 8, 2008
Messages
53,978
I know nothing about this game but googled it and it is advised that younger children (younger than 12) shouldn't be allowed to play this game.

Fortnite has a PEGI rating of 12, PEGI have said this is due to the: ‘frequent scenes of mild violence. It is not suitable for persons under 12 years of age’.

This PEGI rating only takes into account the content in the game and not the contact element, where players may be exposed to swearing and offensive language from strangers in voice or on-screen text chat.

We don't have kids but I detest violence of any kind especially online video games so yeah I wouldn't allow our kids to play if we had kids. Sorry I know that doesn't help you at all @Rockdiamond because that cat is out of the bag already...

I read that the game is highly addictive because when you lose you lose by just a hair so it makes you that much more motivated to keep playing.

Good luck. Hopefully your kids have good heads on their shoulders (and I am pretty sure they do based on who their parents are) and will be OK no matter what games they play.
 

Rfisher

Ideal_Rock
Premium
Joined
Oct 19, 2013
Messages
5,486
I treat it as most everything else.
Moderation.
I don’t fund their online gaming wishes, nor are they allowed to use all their earned/birthday money. But I do allow some.
Same with time spent. I don’t allow unlimited access, but don’t set a timer either.
They do other things/have other interests and are good kids/good grades/keep up with sports and 14yo has part time job .
I keep my nose in their real world friendships, and their online friendships too. I may not know 100% of everything said - but I know a good chunk, and we speak openly and often.
For me- total restriction or extremely limited access didn’t work as a whole, years ago so I modified.
Each child/family is different.
 

sledge

Ideal_Rock
Premium
Joined
Apr 23, 2018
Messages
5,791
DLC is the next wave of gaming. I play Rainbow Six Siege on my XB1, and love it. The game was released 5+ years ago but they keep adding new maps and contents to keep it fresh. Very smart.

The game is very realistic in the fact it's a 5 man team that has to operate together to hold or take over objects (offense vs defense) and you can win by eliminating all team members or completing the objective. Also it's not unlimited life. Once you're eliminates you have to wait for the next round.

When you work as a team with friends and have some decent skills you can obliterate the average Joe players.

The content is graphic, but IMO, the LIVE interaction is the concern. Loads of kids talking about all sorts of things as already pointed out -- drugs, sex, etc. My experience has been lots of smaller kids have high pitched voices, scream and toss tantrums and generally viewed as annoying especially when they toss around the F word. So I've heard older players trash talk them but not stalk them.

I've not tried Fortnite yet but would assume it's similar to PUG with similar struggles.

Obviously we all have different parenting styles and each kid needs a system setup for them specifically but I view parenting as an opportunity to teach them how to do life.

I have lots of real guns and beginning to teach my daughter about gun safety, etc. We struggle more with social media with her than anything and have to limit time. Game wise, we play FIFA soccer together and she isn't into shooters like me. But the point is to teach her how to function as a well balanced human. Totally blocking guns, gaming, social media, etc doesn't teach them how to navigate the world, it just puts them in a bubble.

What happens when we die, or they get old enough to move out and can have unlimited and unfiltered interaction? To me, that's the scary part. I'm trying to teach her to survive when I'm not there to protect her.
 

AGBF

Super_Ideal_Rock
Premium
Joined
Jan 26, 2003
Messages
22,143
When I saw this thread I thought "fortnight" was going to be about sharing custody. My friends' grandchildren are still small. Only my cleaning woman (among the people close to me) has kids who are in the 10-13 year old range. They do play all kinds of video games that are mysterious to me, but certainly not this one!

Thank you for keeping me slightly more in the loop, David!
 

Rockdiamond

Ideal_Rock
Trade
Joined
Jan 7, 2009
Messages
9,711
Thank you so much @sledge!!!

I find that expanding the circle allows a far greater perspective.
I was at a jam session a few months back and this subject came up- specifically regarding Laser Beam.
Laser Beam?
He's a young guy ( early '20's?) who creates youtube videos of himself playing Fortnight- all the while narrating in the most annoying ( to me) profanity-laden drone.
I can't take more than about 30 seconds of this drivel- but this percussionist buddy of mine said he loves watching ( and listening to) it- and he's about 67 years old!
Which made me think maybe I'm being closeminded.

@arkieb1 - I did send a request- but I'm not sure of the account name- I'll have this figured out soon.....
 

lyra

Ideal_Rock
Premium
Joined
Jul 13, 2007
Messages
5,249
David, you'll also need to educate yourself on Twitch streamers, and Discord servers. It's not hard to do, lol. Also, Minecraft is a very safe game for kids. Lends itself to a lot of creativity.
 

Rockdiamond

Ideal_Rock
Trade
Joined
Jan 7, 2009
Messages
9,711
I think we're going to bite the bullet on this and pull Fortnight. They already play Minecraft and I can't tell you how much I appreciate everyone's input on this!!!!
I'll let them know about the suggested age restrictions.
Major league suckage that I know, for a fact, other parents don't really care- and allow their kids ( my kids friends) to play past midnite, on many an occasion.....
SO I know our guys will put up a large protest....ah parenting.....
 

Loves Vintage

Ideal_Rock
Premium
Joined
Nov 19, 2007
Messages
4,568
Good Luck @Rockdiamond ! Emphasizing that all households do things differently has worked somewhat for us.

We've been holding out on allowing games. My daughter is 9. So much easier with girls, I think, because it's really a thing for boys at this age. They talk about playing video games, but girls are not so much into it. One of the kids in my daughter's class reports that he plays video games all weekend, and that makes me sad for him, but I am only in charge of my own kids. We limit screens, but not as severely as I would like to!!

I do limit the content of the media my kids are exposed to. I think that's appropriate at their ages (9 and 4). I think it's really important to restrict what they see until they are older. I suspect a lot of anxiety results from exposure to certain media in younger years. I get to protect my kids from that. They are not even allowed to watch the news, or have the news on when they are present, because sadly as we all know, the news is the worst.

This isn't directed to you Rockdiamond. We are all on our own journeys.
 

arkieb1

Ideal_Rock
Premium
Joined
May 11, 2012
Messages
9,786
I banned Roblox when my son was tiny because there were so many adult guys on there talking to little kids. My son stole my husbands phone when we were asleep when he was 3 or 4 and installed and completed every level of angry birds in a night by the next morning.

And I've written before about one of my sons best friends he's also 11 and hacked into their primary school (5 to 12 year olds) internet, changed it so it ran faster and got out all without anyone from the school finding out. The friend came to my house and hacked our internet in under 30 seconds and he hacked all of his neighbours internet for a block in both directions and across the street just for a challenge.

That is what I'm dealing with. My line of thinking is that if I ban it, they will find a way to play it anyway. My son is going into a high school this year starting next week (12 to 18 year olds) and they get a school laptop so I'd rather know about what he does at home and set limits than find out he's doing something he shouldn't be at school or at the homes of his friends.

Out of all the online video games out there I don't find Fortnite that violent in fact most parents allow their kids to watch movies and TV shows that are rated the same or worse than it is. There is no graphic blood or anything when characters die and the skins make them seem more cartoonish than real.

But the game is highly addictive and as pointed out I find the worst part the online chat, what is being said and who is saying it is the part that always needs to be monitored.

LaserBeam is an Aussie YouTuber that all the kids and many adults follow.... he plays Fortnite averagely but has a very dry laconic sense of humour and makes funny videos of himself doing dumb things or trying to break things in Fortnite. He mostly does that with another Aussie who is a young guy called Fresh who plays on a professional gaming team in Sydney.

Together a heap of YouTubers that all play with LaserBeam bought or lease a multi million dollar house/mansion with 5 levels swimming pool etc and they called it the "click house" there are 4 guys and one girl that all play online games and make youtube content and each of them have well over a million followers. The house is home to Muselk, Loserfruit (the girl in the house), Bazza Gazza, Crayator, Lachlan, with viewership between them racking up over 700 million views a month.... your children and friends would have watched members of "click" as well..

LaserBeam himself just bought a house or apartment in Sydney somewhere near the "click house" which he used to live in..... he is Australia's no.1 content creator or Youtuber like him or not he has made millions of dollars posting swearing filled videos of himself doing dumb stuff in Minecraft, Fortnite and other online games. Not bad for a guy who barely completed high school and as he points out himself used to be a bricklayer from Dubbo (out in rural Australia where I grew up)....

He and Fresh (MrFresh Asian on Fortnite) also just rented or bought offices in a prime location in Sydney too. These days lots of kids and people are trying to become Youtubers or live streamers playing online games, very few succeed but when they do they can make a lot of money.

People including kids (like Fresh) that are top players can make a living being professional gamers, online gaming is now considered a sport and an industry. But most of them make their money live streaming or creating content on places like Youtube.
 
Last edited:

Snowdrop13

Ideal_Rock
Premium
Joined
Aug 27, 2011
Messages
2,960
I treat it as most everything else.
Moderation.
I don’t fund their online gaming wishes, nor are they allowed to use all their earned/birthday money. But I do allow some.
Same with time spent. I don’t allow unlimited access, but don’t set a timer either.
They do other things/have other interests and are good kids/good grades/keep up with sports and 14yo has part time job .
I keep my nose in their real world friendships, and their online friendships too. I may not know 100% of everything said - but I know a good chunk, and we speak openly and often.
For me- total restriction or extremely limited access didn’t work as a whole, years ago so I modified.
Each child/family is different.

This is the view we take, too. As long as chores/homework/music practice/sports activities are maintained they can play Fortnite (or more often FIFA with my 2) in between. Lots of their friends have access to much more violent games with 16 or 18 ratings via older siblings or even dads! Not much can be done about that if they go to a friend‘s house. We have a complete ban on spending any money on in game purchases, though. So far they have done this and maintained their “real time” friendships. 15 year old has managed to gain a girlfriend too! It’s not all bad doom and gloom stuff.
 
Be a part of the community Get 3 HCA Results
Top