Pay up,
kid, or your igloo melts
By Mireya Navarro
New York Times
October 28, 2007
LIKE many 10-year-olds, Laila Rodriquez adores
stuffed animals, but when she asked her parents for a
particular stuffed cow, cat, duck and dog she had an
ulterior motive — the toys come with an access code to
an online game that allows her to take care of virtual
“pets” (one for each stuffed toy), to cook for them and
to furnish their rooms.
“I’d like to have 10 pets, because once you get 10 you
can get an exclusive bed,” Laila explained while playing
the game, Webkinz, at home here one afternoon after
school last week.
The “exclusive bed” is as pixelated as the pets, but at
least Laila’s parents have four real stuffed toys to
show for the $60 they spent on the game. Laila also just
discovered another Web site, subeta.org, which charges
$20 for an “angelic potion” and other “virtual
thingies,” as Laila put it.
Her 7-year-old brother, Jared, wants to be a paid member
of Club Penguin.com, the popular Web site for children.
That would cost his parents $5.95 a month and enable him
to amass virtual knickknacks for his virtual penguin and
the virtual igloo it lives in.
But Jared’s and Laila’s father, Hubert Rodriquez, 43,
has ruled out buying toys he can’t touch. “You pay real
money to get virtual use,” he said. “There doesn’t seem
to be any value in that.”
Like many parents, Mr. Rodriquez, a computer consultant,
and his wife, Sarina, 37, a laboratory manager, are
adjusting to a world that increasingly requires them to
pay for their children’s computer play. Meanwhile, they
are trying to figure out whether there is any reason to
buy magical powers or virtual sunglasses.
The money-driven aspect of the games, whether involving
actual or virtual cash, is becoming a concern for
parents and consumer watchdogs as popular game sites
like Club Penguin attract millions of new users. The
number of unique monthly visitors to Club Penguin more
than doubled in the last year, to 4.7 million from 1.9
million, while the traffic on Webkinz.com grew to 6
million visitors from less than 1 million, according to
comScore Media Metrix, which tracks online usage.
While most online games for kids 12 and under are still
free of charge, many now come with a price tag. Consumer
groups like Common Sense Media and Consumer Reports
WebWatch say games for tweens and children have
proliferated noticeably over the last two years and now
number in the hundreds.
Behind the games are major companies like Disney, which
bought Club Penguin last August for $350 million and
already has online games of its own.
Many of these sites offer stripped-down versions of
their games for free, but if their children are truly to
be involved in the games, parents are required to hand
over their credit cards.
Club Penguin offers free play but requires a monthly fee
for access to child-pleasing features like the ability
to buy clothes and decorations for the penguin and its
igloo. There is also a shop selling real toys and
clothing.
Other games follow the Webkinz model, requiring the
purchase of a toy to gain access to the game. Some sell
virtual weapons and gadgets for real cash to get to the
next level of play. Many also feature advertising.
Consumer Reports WebWatch started a study this summer to
evaluate the commercial content of online games for 3-
to 7-year-olds.
“Every interface is becoming an opportunity to sell
children something, either brand awareness or real
things,” said Liz Perle, the editor in chief of Common
Sense Media. “That’s the end game.”
Some parents are appalled and refuse to play along. But
even their critics argue that these games are really
nothing new; they are, they say, just a different medium
for the commercial pressures parents have always faced.
Robin Raskin, an author of books on being a parent in
the digital age, said: “In general, kids and the toy
industry have not changed. There’s always been the game
to turn kids into consumers.” Ms. Raskin is an organizer
of a conference on technology and children’s play at the
International Consumer Electronics Show in January at
Las Vegas.
In the online world, the competition to collect can be
fierce.
When Trevor Pennett, 6, asked his mother, Sylvia
Medellin Pennett, 47, a creative director for luxury
good companies, to pay for a Club Penguin subscription,
he was ready to argue his case.
“He said ‘Elizabeth is a member’ and ‘Myles is a member’
and he gave me a long list of friends he could play
with,” Ms. Medellin Pennett said. “He convinced me. He
said he could have a play date online with them.”
In just a few days, Trevor’s penguin, named after one of
his two real-life dogs, had assembled quite the pad. Its
igloo features a drum set, a bamboo floor, a banner
reading “Party,” a giant clam with a pearl in it, a fish
bowl, a dragon, a chair and several “Puffles,” the
penguin’s virtual pets.
Trevor used Club Penguin’s virtual coins to buy his
eclectic igloo furnishings, but his parents spent real
money for four tangible toy Puffles from the Club
Penguin shop at $4.95 each. Watching the action from a
sofa, his father, Gregory Pennett, 53, a consultant to
country clubs, said he appreciated how Club Penguin made
Trevor earn his imaginary coins by working — for
instance, virtually unloading bean bags from a truck.
But he summed up the virtual play by saying: “It’s
teaching them consumption.”
Karen Mason, a spokeswoman for Club Penguin, which
started up two years ago and has over 12 million
members, 700,000 of them paid subscribers, called such
criticism “ridiculous.”
“What we’re doing is teaching children to make smart
choices they are going to need to make in the real
world,” she said. She added that the site is free of
advertising.
David S. Jones, the chief executive officer of PAYjr.com,
which markets a prepaid payment card for online
purchases to children 13 and older, said the online game
craze is prompting the advent of a card for younger
children.
Mr. Jones said his own two children “are constantly
coming to me saying I want to sign up for this game.”
Not long ago, he said, his 9-year-old son asked him for
$19.95 so he could buy a virtual “dragon amulet.”
Intrigued, Mr. Jones said he checked the site,
DragonFable.com, and found nothing wrong with it. He
still said no to the amulet.
“I told him $19.95 is a lot of money,” he said. "But
next week it’ll be another game."
Parents are of two minds when it comes to the new online
playground. Many said they liked the aspects of the
sites that require children to read, to learn strategy
and to make decisions.
Kristen Cook of Flemington, N.J., has a daughter, 6, and
a son, 3, who are participating in the WebWatch study.
So far, she said, her daughter has been oblivious to
ads, and her son, who plays games at
thomasandfriends.com, among other sites, “gets really
annoyed” when he clicks on anything that takes him away
from the game.
“Maybe I’m naďve, but there’s advertising all over TV
and I don’t feel there’s any more of that on the
Internet,” said Mrs. Cook, 40, a graphic designer. “In
fact, they can avoid it easier on the Internet. You can
choose not to look at it.”
But some parents worry that the games are extensions of
marketing plans to hook children on brands, to teach
them how to shop and to turn them into what Ms. Perle of
Common Sense Media called “gimme machines.”
Of course, some parents have just said no.
Kim Pike, 37, a cashier in the business office of a
community college in Grand Rapids, Mich., said she nixed
Webkinz for her 10-year-old daughter after she realized
the toys came with an expiration date. After one year,
she would have to buy new toys to continue play.
“I didn’t want any more of that stuff,” she said.
“That’s 30 bucks that can go to something else. I can’t
imagine my parents spending what we spend today. They’d
be like, ‘Go out and play.’”
Amy Leonard, 48, of Westport, Conn., a magazine photo
stylist, said her 10-year-old son, Charlie, is
“obsessed” with Club Penguin, so she limits his play to
weekends. She wonders if children weaned on computer
games will grow up to know how to do anything beyond
point and click.
“When you played with G.I. Joe, you’d build a fort, or
tie something with a string, and figure stuff out and
work with materials,” she said. “As adults, are these
kids going to be able to solve any problems, like if a
button falls off your shirt? It seems they’re getting so
far away from things that are hands-on.”
Her concerns are not grave enough to cut off the
computer, though.
“I don’t think it’s all bad,” she said. “I guess he’s
getting great decorating skills.”