Any "Fortnight" parents out there?

[Rockdiamond]

Arkieb, I'm honestly jealous....
I tried, just a little, to get into the game when I sent you the invite- and I realized it would take me some time ( that I didn't want to spend at that moment) even to figure out how to play.
The whole story of Laser Beam is ....well, sad in a way.
Sure it's amazing that people "hit it big"...
At the same time, it makes it much more difficult for parents to prevent kids from having these aspirations.
I could make an analogy to ...dreaming of becoming a famous person- an actor, or rock star. But you'd first really need to have some talent and play an instrument or sing. Learn to act. Do what it takes to become a model.
If you want to become Laser Beam, you need to learn how to use profanity and play fortnight.
My boys make the case that there's useful skill development playing fortnight, teamwork, and other things.
I'm sure there's truth there....
Going back to my original thought- I truly wish I could grasp the game, and what draws people to it. I am pessimistic....

 

[yennyfire]

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. Our 15 yo sons plays Fortnite and Madden with his friends, but they also get together to play basketball or football a couple of times a week (weather permitting). Our rule is that as long as he maintains his grades and meets all other obligations, he can play. Between school, high school baseball and friends, he honestly doesn’t have much free time. I tried to say no electronics during the week and it backfired in that he’d run home on Friday afternoon and want to play all weekend. Moderation and learning to self regulate is a better long term solution for us.
@arkieb1 you are amazing! My son is totally impressed!!!

 

[arkieb1]

Arkieb, I'm honestly jealous....
I tried, just a little, to get into the game when I sent you the invite- and I realized it would take me some time ( that I didn't want to spend at that moment) even to figure out how to play.
The whole story of Laser Beam is ....well, sad in a way.
Sure it's amazing that people "hit it big"...
At the same time, it makes it much more difficult for parents to prevent kids from having these aspirations.
I could make an analogy to ...dreaming of becoming a famous person- an actor, or rock star. But you'd first really need to have some talent and play an instrument or sing. Learn to act. Do what it takes to become a model.
If you want to become Laser Beam, you need to learn how to use profanity and play fortnight.
My boys make the case that there's useful skill development playing fortnight, teamwork, and other things.
I'm sure there's truth there....
Going back to my original thought- I truly wish I could grasp the game, and what draws people to it. I am pessimistic....

Try playing Team Rumble, I spent two seasons playing nothing but team Rumble mainly to learn how to shoot, build and move around the map...... because we are older and our reflexes slower than the kids and young adults that play you will unfortunately need a fair bit of time to become proficient at it.

Go into Playgrounds with your kids and get them to teach their Dad how to shoot and build....

I'm not sure what to make of LaserBeam, I mean, I don't think he set out to be an overnight success. He used to live in Dubbo (remote rural Australia) and was a brick layer or brick laying apprentice. He made YouTube videos of himself playing Minecraft which he admits he likes more than most of the other games and no one watched them. He then started making videos of himself doing dumb stuff in Fortnite and hey presto the guy worked his way to get millions of world wide followers.

Being an Aussie from the outback (rural Australia) myself I get the swearing, I swear a lot too, it's not horrid profanity for the sake of profanity it's how a lot of Aussies in their natural state simply are.... We are quite different from Americans in that respect, it's not meant to be particularly offensive.

Having said that I've listened to my son playing LaserBeam and Click videos on my Iphone in my car and the amount of swearing for the many children that watch his videos is unnecessary. He used to edit out a lot of it, but now he is so successful he has the attitude he doesn't care if you don't like it don't watch it, which again is a pretty Aussie way to be.

I've lost count of the amount of my son's friends that want to be YouTubers, professional gamers and content creators now..... one of his friends who is 12 plays in a junior professional team and another of my son's friend knows a kid (teenager apparently) that develops VR content in LaserBeam's offices.

Those guys will tell you they work hard at what they do, it just happens to be playing video games and making online content about it. I figure unlike people that post videos of fake Fortnite events (yes ask your kids about those) and get donations from viewers/subscribers to make money, which are the parasites of the Fortnite community these guys are pretty harmless..