[imagesource:wikimedia]

If you’ve ever had to fork out money so your child can buy a new ‘Fortnite emote’, you’ll be able to understand a Chinese mother’s pain when she realised that her daughter just blew the family’s entire savings on mobile games.

The woman’s teenage daughter’s finger tapped away a whopping R1,2 million in savings the family had squirrelled away.

Suddenly, that R50 ‘Hug Me’ emote doesn’t look so terrible.

The 13-year-old girl, who is addicted to mobile games (like every other teen) allegedly maxed out the family savings by adding her mother’s card to her gaming profiles. The youngster apparently claims to ‘not know how money works’, and when she spotted the debit card laying around at home, she quickly linked it to her gaming profile.

For the next three months, the girl went money-mad and even bought games for all her friends, until a teacher noticed her obsession with games and notified her parents.

‘’When they asked me to pay for their games, I paid despite feeling reluctant,’’ the girl was quoted as saying. How kind of her to share the strange ‘money stuff’.

You can imagine the conversation she had with her parents as she revealed she had spent R323 163 on the games, R561 330 on in-game purchases, and R267 355 on games for 10 of her fellow pupils.

My dad would have smacked my gatvelle af, but this is a new generation of gamers that thinks money can be earned by collecting purple hearts while bouncing through a maze of chocolate.

As for the young gamer’s family, they were left with R1.33 in their bank account.

Young millennials and Gen Z are the first generations to grow up with the internet easily accessible and available to almost everyone.

The problem with this leap into the digital age is that gaming apps evolve faster than any parent could possibly monitor or keep up with. One day it’s V-Bucks for emotes, the next it’s those elusive Robucks that little James needs to unlock a ‘secret level’.

These millennials are in for a big surprise when they have to start paying taxes. Now that’s a real money-for-nothing game.

[source:iol]