Stiftung Warentest examined 16 popular game apps for children. Almost all of the games failed. The testers found alarming content and questionable business models.
They look harmless, they are supposedly free, and you always have them with you on your smartphone. Game apps like “Brawl Stars”, “Clash of Clans” or “Fortnite” are popular, even among children of primary school age. The 13-year-old student Jule from Cologne explains the appeal of the games: “They are really cute and animated Fun.”
But she also sees risks. The games are built in such a way that you always want to keep playing. And many of their friends invested a lot of money in the supposedly free games in order to buy advantages in the game. Some have already invested over a hundred euros. “I think that’s crazy, you could do so many other things with this money,” says Jule.
Right-wing extremist usernames in chats
The Stiftung Warentest confirms Jules’ impression and even goes one step further. The testers examined 16 popular mobile phone games based on various criteria such as child-friendly content, advertising or incentives to play every day. “Our result is that the games are overwhelmingly not suitable for children. Once we found a lot of content that was not suitable for children, for example right-wing extremist or anti-Semitic user names in chats,” says Holger Brackemann from Stiftung Warentest, summarizing the results.
The majority of the games tested are designed in such a way that they entice you to play more and more and buy more and more additions to the game. “We have seen that there is a risk of losses if you abandon the game. There is also a very high pressure to buy things in these apps. For example, the flow of the game stops and you only get to the next level when you buy a weapon has,” says Brackemann.
Digital games tighter Leisure component many children
What to do? General gaming bans are not a solution, say experts like Deborah Woldemichael from the EU initiative “klicksafe”. Mobile games are now an integral part of the leisure time of children and young people and are also an integral part of youth culture. In 2023, according to the JIM study by the Media Education Research Association Southwest, 72 percent of twelve to 19 year olds played computer or smartphone games every day or several times a week.
Instead, Woldemichael appeals to parents to think intensively about the games and their children’s gaming behavior. “Especially with free game apps, parents should regularly look at the settings on the devices on which the games are played together with their children and determine the terms of use for the apps.”
Disable in-app purchases
Parents can subsequently make the games safer by deactivating in-app purchases or setting chat functions so that their child cannot write to strangers. Push notifications should also be turned off so that the child is not constantly reminded of the game.
It is also important that parents explain to their children the manipulative game designs that are built into popular games. Information about this is available from initiatives such as “klicksafe” or “schau hin”.
See what the children are doing
At the children’s and youth leisure facility “Die Arche” in Cologne, this job is taken on by facility manager Maike Hess and her colleagues. There used to be a ban on cell phones here, but now people are forced to integrate smartphones into everyday life. “We can still control and influence everything that the children do here in the facility, so it is important that we are aware of that,” says Hess.
It is important for the social worker to make children aware of what excessive gaming behavior can do to them. In the “Arche” they also consciously offer alternatives: analogue, but also electronic. Because there are definitely games on the market that are educationally valuable.