"Magnezone;c-17461563" wrote:
"Scobre;c-17461557" wrote:
"Magnezone;c-17461510" wrote:
"Scobre;c-17461500" wrote:
This was an interesting article. Sims 4 being one of the games being recommended for kids to play:
https://www.pcgamer.com/parents-guide-to-pc-gaming/
The biggest problem we have had with kids and gaming has been Twitch. Our last Community Manager got heavily harassed because a parent wouldn't watch their kid on a 18+ Game Changer Twitch channel. So yes I rather have kids not play the Sims 4 and stick to the mobile games that are even more kid friendly than have Gurus being harassed because of absent parents. It isn't our job to babysit your kids online just because they can't follow site and game rules. This upset me greatly and the lies that were spread about it. So no let's raise the game to teen rated so the chance of things happening like this are lessen and please keep the kids away from 18+ streamers. I see it far too often as a Twitch mod rules being broken by unmonitored kids younger than 13. I tried my best to help this kid who was being sexually harassed. I had been following the channel know the channel rules. I had him reach out to SimGuruSteve and SimGuruGraham because it was a Friday and they were online. Sure the situation could have been handled better, but yes this is the risk of kids have to face and why making the Sims too childish is a very bad thing for crimes like this that continue to happen on Twitter and Twitch.
https://simscommunity.info/2019/03/11/lets-talk-about-what-happened-in-the-community/
I'm reading more into this as that article is very vague, and it seems SimGuruKate knew more about the situation for longer than she let on and just kind of swept it under the rug. The "harassment" she received wasn't because she didn't babysit someone's children, but because this situation was not handled and investigated as soon as The Sims Team knew about it.
This is a weird situation and whilst parents need to pay attention to what their kids do online, this definitely isn't the fault of "kids playing The Sims and going on Twitch". If anything, that's a super victim blame-y attitude. The Game Changer in question was sending sexually explicit messages to these children, this isn't just the case of "well these kids can't follow the rules!!!"
Things like this continue to happen on Twitch with different channels. The teen came into a 18+ Game Changer channel to report about another 18+ game changer channel, so yes I don't think that game changers or playtesters should have to baby sit kids. They were almost banned for breaking Twitch TOS saying their age. It just isn't fair to us as Simmers. It is just I am at a loss of how to make this situation better so it doesn't happen again. I don't like kids being harassed since I was flirted with when I was that age during a volunteer project. So yes I really don't think the game catering to 10 year olds is a good thing because it opens them to things like this especially while in social distance. Predators are in full force now and I hope that parents are aware of that.
So children shouldn't be allowed to speak out when a Twitch streamer is literally sexually harassing them? They're a child, they don't know the proper procedures to address this issue. A child may not want to tell their parents they're being sexually harassed for fear of them cutting off their internet or access to the game. What are they supposed to do? Stay quiet and let this happen to other kids over and over? I get they were under the age of Twitch's ToS and shouldn't have been on the site in the first place, but that's too little too late after the situation has already happened.
There is nothing wrong with children playing The Sims. I played The Sims as a child. The issues here are 1. parents not monitoring their children's online activities and just putting them in front of the game thinking nothing bad will come of it since it's just a video game, 2. EA not handling situations of a Game Changer literally being a predator correctly and 3. the adult streamer who is creepy predators in the first place.
It's not the child's fault or even the parents fault that this happened. It's his fault for messaging children. It's EA's fault for not dealing with the behaviour appropriately. It's Twitch's fault for letting such a person continue to stream on their platform.
No they should report it to Twitch and to EA directly here which EA didn't have before: https://help.ea.com/en-us/help/faq/report-players-for-cheating-abuse-and-harassment. I did have the teen report it. I just regret not asking them where their parents were when this was happening. Yes kids should let their parents know and I know this teen was scared to report it. Internet access being cut off shouldn't prevent them from contacting their parents too so authorities could get involved so it doesn't happen to other kids.
I do agree with your three list. Parents should monitor their kids gaming activities too. Being an aunt of four myself it was very easy for my nephew to spend $150 on mobile games. Thankfully my mom was able to report it as fraud and get her money back. Yeah I had to unfollow the channel right away when I found out who the Game Changer was two months later. It just bothers me how fear prevents people from talking to each other these days. It has taken me years to get over that fear myself and I learned never good to bottle things up especially as serious as this. So yes because parents weren't involved four more teens were victims after this and that isn't right. But yes this is why Sims shouldn't cater to kids under 13 because if teens can't be monitored what chance do kids have? I rather them play more age appropriate things so stuff like this happens to them less. ESRB rating is there for a reason and this is why.
