Have you ever seen what you thought was a very peculiar advert, offering to sell you some sort of next-level weapon or “server status” which is for nothing more than gaining some sort of advantage in an online game? A closer look at what turns out to be a common practice probably had your sensible self wondering just who on earth would whip out their credit card just so that they could buy their way through a mere game, especially since many such games have such- well, “alternative” graphics.
If these adverts, discounts, and special offers to buy game-specific weapon’s upgrades and the like are so common that some of them are even auctioned for a handsome amount of money in popular online marketplaces, then it must mean there are just as many people actually buying them, right? But who exactly is buying up weapons upgrades, virtual minerals, “fertile pieces of land” and the likes, just so that they’re better equipped to go further in an online game?
Apart from people who clearly have a hard time separating reality from fantasy, the answer to that question might shock you to the core, because you could in fact be paying for things like “enchanted swords” or “impenetrable shields” without even knowing it! This is where the difference in security between apps and the web is laid bare, because your children could grab a hold of your Smartphone or tablet and appear to be innocently having a bit of fun playing some harmless games they downloaded as apps, whereas some of those apps could very easily be linked to your credit card.
Your children could very easily pay for their weapon’s upgrade fixes without even noticing it themselves. Besides, they are indeed just kids after all, so paying $10 here, $5 dollars there and any other seemingly small amount every now and then, to advance in a captivating game app like Angry Birds doesn’t seem as bad to them as it may seem to you.
That’s essentially why the web offers much more security than mobile phone apps. While your smart device conspires to “streamline” everything for you so much that it can sometimes even be used to pay for physical things by merely passing it over a contactless pay-point, the web offers more security in that basically your children can’t make any payments without your permission and in many instances, your confirmation.
This invisible but efficient layer of security can be seen in action when one looks at explosively popular online gaming sites like Jackpotland. If children understandably find themselves playing games which have the option of playing with real money, playing via web inherently offers the security of requiring a password to log-in and requiring some very specific validation to deposit money to play with, like whether or not they’re 18 years of age or older.
The mobile phone equivalent of this built-in security layer would otherwise then probably be compromised by those long terms-and-conditions you usually accept without reading in detail, which usually have gaming apps just link everything up (including your payment details) so that you can “pay easily without any hassle” if needs be.
