One insistent Fortnite: Battle Royale player has come up with a new strategy to get money for his in-game skins: quoting the Bible.
The mother behind YouTube channel That’s Inappropriate posted a rant last week in which she claims her 12-year-old son is relying on parables from Jesus to beg his mom for Fortnite skins.
Meredith Masony turned to YouTube and Facebook last week after struggling with her son’s ongoing obsession with Fortnite. Claiming that the game has “completely taken over” and that her children are “total addicts,” she says her 12-year-old son has been hounding her non-stop for cosmetics from the Item Shop.
But after Masony repeatedly put her foot down and refused to give him money for skins, her son decided to draw on Jesus Christ to score some more outfits.
“He looked at me and says [sic], ‘Mom, do you remember when we were in church last week and the man was asking for bread ’cause he needed to be fed, and Jesus said all you need to do is ask and you shall receive?'” Masony recalls in the video. “He is trying to use Bible verses to get me to buy him Fortnite skins! He has lost his ever-loving mind.”
Don’t worry though, Masony has a solution to fix the problem. She wants Epic Games to personally reach out to her and come up with some kind of compromise to get her child to stop repeating Bible verses.
“I know you’re all billionaires now, okay, but you need to do something for us ’cause this is making us crazy,” Masony says, addressing Epic. “This Fortnite, we gotta do something, we gotta make a deal here, okay? I know it’s not gonna go away, but somebody from over there call me, we gotta make a deal, alright?”
While ranting to the internet isn’t going to cause Epic Games to change up its multi-million dollar cosmetics system, it definitely speaks to a larger issue with gaming addiction. The World Health Organization has since classified “gaming disorder” as a disease within the Classification of Diseases, considering it an “addictive disorder” that plagues people who invest way too many hours into video games. It reportedly has an adverse effect on work, school, and building friendships.
Whether game developers are responsible for creating systems that prevent gaming addiction remains a larger question in the industry, as both developers and players alike continue to push back against the WHO’s definition.
Parents like Masony may be frustrated with Fortnite—but if their kids are truly addicted, they may need outside help to get their children to work through their addictions to games like Fortnite.
H/T SegmentNext
