Basic VMK question - ages

[bkaz]

Okay...I have never played VMK...but my DD10 is obsessed and spends as much time as I will let her on VMK. Several of her friends also play, so most of the time she is playing with those kids..or at least that's my understanding. But I have to say that I am confused about their target audience. I thought the game was targeted for kids her age....in the 8-14 age range...like Club Penguin. We love Disney World, so we thought this would be a fun way for her to get excited about our upcoming trip. However, she often tells me that "this guy was just following me around" or "why do they keep coming up and asking if I'm taken when they don't even know me", etc....which leads me to believe that this is just a social chat room where young kids are trying out their pick up skills!!! And now that I'm reading more on the DIS, I'm realizing that lots of the people she's chatting with could be 16 or 21 or 40 or ?...and that makes me even more uncomfortable...that she thinks she's chatting with other kids and really they may be adults. I realize that this is the risk of the Internet...which is why I have limited her to Disney and a kids e-mail program. Any thoughts or suggestions or ideas for advice that I should give her? I guess I need to get an account myself and figure it all out!

 

[aengus]

Okay...I have never played VMK...but my DD10 is obsessed and spends as much time as I will let her on VMK. Several of her friends also play, so most of the time she is playing with those kids..or at least that's my understanding. But I have to say that I am confused about their target audience. I thought the game was targeted for kids her age....in the 8-14 age range...like Club Penguin. We love Disney World, so we thought this would be a fun way for her to get excited about our upcoming trip. However, she often tells me that "this guy was just following me around" or "why do they keep coming up and asking if I'm taken when they don't even know me", etc....which leads me to believe that this is just a social chat room where young kids are trying out their pick up skills!!! And now that I'm reading more on the DIS, I'm realizing that lots of the people she's chatting with could be 16 or 21 or 40 or ?...and that makes me even more uncomfortable...that she thinks she's chatting with other kids and really they may be adults. I realize that this is the risk of the Internet...which is why I have limited her to Disney and a kids e-mail program. Any thoughts or suggestions or ideas for advice that I should give her? I guess I need to get an account myself and figure it all out!

You will find many adults do indeed play the game, myself included. The good news is the very limited dictionary is a big plus in keeping her from giving someone personal information. she cant use numbers or talk about where she lives for instance. I would also suggest the obvious skills you already possess by seeing your concerns which is keeping an eye on her and what she is doing.

A large percentage of the kids do see it just as you said, a pick up shop.

 

[aliceblue]

Make sure she understands never to give out any personal information; including where she lives (not even the state or area of the country), what grade she's in, what school she goes to, or what her user title is on any other site. Yes, the dictionary is limited, but it's possible to spell out words or even numbers by "dictionary dancing".

VMK does everything they can to prevent players from being contacted outside of the game. They will ban a player (make them unable to log into the game) if they catch them either asking for or offering this information. Sometimes the ban is permanent, sometimes it's as little as 24 hours. From a parent's perspective, I would not consider this to be total security. But from what I've noticed, it's usually the kids who exchange this kind of information with each other without even thinking. If something doesn't feel right about the behavior of another player in the game, your daughter can use the "Call for Help" button to get assistance from staff.

As for the "taken" business, even though there's a lot of it going on, she sure doesn't have to be part of it if she doesn't want to. Plenty of kids aren't. It's simply a matter of ignoring it or saying "I don't do taken".

While there's nothing unsafe that can actually happen in the game, some players can be pretty obnoxious; trying to use bad language or just being downright rude.

I've mentioned the negatives so that you'll have a full picture; there's really only so much that Disney can do to control an online game like this. The positive is: VMK can be loads of fun, especially if your daughter chooses her friends in the game wisely. (The friends list is flexible, and if someone turns out to be a bad choice it's very easy to delete them.) I would highly suggest that you create your own account and ask her to show you the ropes; that is the best way to get a feel for what the game is like.

Also read the section for parents on the VMK home page, including the FAQs at the bottom. There's a link to contact them if you have further questions.

As for the adults in the game, yes there are a lot of us! We have both adults and kids on our friends lists; after a while we can kind of sense of who is who. But for all intents and purposes, we are ageless in the game, and pretty much treat each other the same. In VMK, we're all reduced to a common denominator, if that makes any sense. (Edit: Just want to make clear that ages are "anonymous" because of the personal info rules. I think most of us would tell other players that we are a mom, teacher, etc. if we could, but VMK does not want us to.)

I hope that helps a little. I know if my kids were still young I would want to be aware of their online activities and involved as much as possible. It's great that your daughter is talking to you about her experiences with VMK!

 

[Barbday62]

I am an adult who plays VMK and I am very very adminant about not allowing kids to think Im a kid. I know its against VMk values to say that but I dont care. Its weird, terrible and dangerous for a kid to friend me like he/she would a friend his or her own age. For this reason I wont allow them to think Im a kid.

I am a mom, grandma and I am very very much for safety for Children. I play with many many kids on VMK. (Maybe half my friend list is kids) and they all know I am not a kid and they know I know they are not an adult. Other than that I talk nothing person, I discourage them from anything of that sort. My friends who have kids that play consider me a very safe person to friend their kids.

I personally dont run into a lot of taken stuff from random people. But I dont go to a lot of kids rooms or games like cute or boot either. I suggest you sit with your daughter to witness what she is talking about.

My grand daughetr is 6 and we only allow her to play with certain adults. She has her friend and trade turned off. So far she has not had much problem with others and she is limited to being in her rooms, public rooms and her moms or mine.

One last thing someone cannot follow her if he is not on her firend list.

 

[mikeyandscoobyx2]

Im really not sure on how to say this, but.

im 12 years old, and i play VMK. You would think i would have a life, but i dont Heh.

On the safe side :
I play probably everyday for over three hours hehe. I have kids, and adults on my list. I've really had no problems with anybody in the game.( In fact, i think probably my best friend IS an adult.) I believe VMK tries their very best to do the best to keep everybody safe. You can ignore people, so you can't see their chat, you can ' report ' them, or Call For Help, and explain what happened, and VMK Staff will look over and see what happened. Then they will take appropriate action, and do whatever they have to do, for that person to stop, or etc.

On the bad side :

Well, this isn't really so bad, but I mean alot of people are desperate to find their love in game ( taken ) Lots of people come up to me and ask if i want to be their boy friend, or if im taken. I always just say " Sorry, i dont do that ". Or i ignore them, or just leave the room. VMK has tried to stop the taken thing from going over the limits. A while back, they had rooms to find your boy or girl. Now VMK tries to close up those rooms whenever one appears, or ban the owner of the room. Other things that happen that are far more worse, is when i play a mini-game called Pirates of the Caribbean. When i win the game, usually what happens is somebody on the other team gets so angry, they start calling me bad names, dictionary dancing. I guess greed gets to the best of them. Ive reported those people numerous times, but im really not sure what happens to them. ( Because i dont stick around and watch ).

Well, i mean this is sort of good and bad. ^

In the end, to sum this up I believe VMK Is a VERY safe game. Staff do their part to keep us safe, and players have many ways to stay safe too.

You should read the VMK Values, here in this forum at the top of the page. Its a sticky, and you can also read VMK'S Values, which is at their home page.

Like others said, I think you should keep an eye out on your daughter, and watch what she does in VMK. Thats probably the best tip out there.

" The Ignore Button Is Your Best Friend. "

Hope this helps a tiny bit.

~The_Mike

 

[redshoe]

My 7-year old son plays. He is only allowed to have people we know in real life on his friends list...his grandparents, me, his father, my sisters, our cousin, etc. Also, because we do share items back and forth and he often has some of my magic or more rare items, he is only allowed to make trades with those same people that we know are safe and not scammers, unless I give him special permission to trade with someone else (which I have done once or twice).

He loves to explore guest rooms, especially the ones with teleporters in them, but I only allow him to do that when I am literally where I can watch over his shoulder. He is not allowed to have his own guest rooms open to anyone but friends (which again, is almost all just family). It seems like some of the nastier experiences happen in the private guest rooms, and I want to be able to monitor that. Otherwise, though, he's content with visiting public areas or playing games to build credits. We have set up a "hub room" where anyone in our family who wants to share their guest rooms can put a teleporter, and he can wander through those at whim. That's been one of the best things we've done...it gives him a little more of the freedom that he wants, but at a degree that I'm comfortable with. And it gives him a way to show off his guest rooms, too.

I've found that the fact that I and my mother play so often has been one of the best ways to monitor him. This way, I stay current with the different issues and scams that pop up, I'm able to discuss the game intelligently with him and he respects what I have to say because he realizes that I know what I'm talking about, and it gives us some common ground. It's also been great for him and his grandma. He's the only grandchild and we live 3 1/2 hours away from her, but VMK gives her a way to interact with him fairly often, doing something with him that they both enjoy. They can log on at the same time and play a game of mansion together, or just hang out. She can spoil him to her heart's content by logging onto his character to get him more credits, or by buying him gifts in-game with her own credits. Recently, she helped him get enough credits to buy his own quest kiosk, which has been his little heart's desire for months. It's fantastic!

I definitely understand your apprehension. You'll find that the "taken" thing is fairly harmless for the most part, though. It's more annoying than anything else...mostly they're kids who are old enough to be interested in the opposite gender but too young to date trying their wings and playing out the dating relationships they've seen on tv. Some of them will play house, and they even "have a kid," usually a third person who is willing to act out the part of the baby, almost ALWAYS a girl, and often with the motivation of having "parents" to buy them stuff in-game. Personally, I think that's even creepier than "taken" itself, and can be a form of scamming, so you might want to warn your daughter against those situations. If you'll watch the conversations of the "taken" crowd, though (and I do...because my much younger VMK-playing sisters are around the age where "taken" gets interesting, I'll occasionally go to places in VMK where it runs rampant like the Blue Bayou or the Sci-Fi Diner just to observe and get a pulse), you'll notice that what the kids say is practically plagiarized word for word from tv and movie situations. They're just exploring a role. I'm not minimizing the creepiness and potential danger, and I'm not saying that inappropriate situations don't arise, but the restrictions on VMK do take care of a lot of it. Once I explained to my son what "taken" meant, he decided on his own that it was dumb and he wanted no part of it (which meant that I didn't have to play the bad guy and tell him "no taken"). Seeing someone ask his GRANDMOTHER'S character if she was taken sealed the deal for him that "taken" is not cool, and potentially very gross! It might not be a bad idea to get a volunteer to help you illustrate the creep-factor of it for your daughter by arranging a situation where they would ask your character if you're taken, in front of her. That should pretty effectively demonstrate that there's no way of knowing who's behind the cute little cartoon characters she's talking to. It could be someone old enough to be her parent or grandparent, for all she knows. We didn't do that on purpose, but it sure worked for my son.

I also explained to my son the fact that not everyone on VMK is a kid his age, that some people were on different "levels" in their lives than he was, kind of like he would be if he'd been playing, say, a Pokemon video game for a year and his friends were just starting out. I pointed out that there wasn't really any way to tell whether he was on the same level in his life as the people he might meet in VMK. If he wasn't, then situations could come up that he wasn't ready for because he shouldn't be on that level yet, and I wanted to help keep that from happening. That analogy seemed to do the trick and put the whole anonymous internet interaction situation in a perspective that he could understand and respect.

Sorry this is so long. I get wordy when I talk about something important to me, and the safety of the VMK kiddies is definitely one of those subjects! I hope some of it is of help.

 

[queenj]

i am a kid in a 36 year old body.... i tend to make sure things are safe around me. i met redshoe and her son and since he liked magic i wanted to gift him some along with the sits pin but his trade was off. wth his mom in the room he still would not trade me -and she said he could- so i gave to mom who hapily passed it on to him. i was impressed how she "kept" him safe and was still hessitant since he had just met me. he was very greatful and said thank you on his on - no prompting from mom. personally i think red has a GREAT system in place, no trades without permission and he wouldnt talk to strangers (lol). i know before i "met" the dis boards i made a few bad trades but noe i try to look up certain items and figure out thier value. but to keep a kid safe turn off trade and use the ignore button

 

[redshoe]

Aww, thanks, Queen! He's a really good boy, I have to say...he's one of those rare children who polices himself very closely and errs on the side of caution when it comes to following the rules (as you noticed when he wouldn't trade with you even when I told him it was ok!), so I probably don't really even have to watch him as closely as I do. I trust him completely to follow my rules, but even so, he IS only 7. Besides that, there are social situations he still needs to be prepared for. VMK is a good, relatively safe place for that ("did you see that boy in Central Plaza saying mean things to that girl? How do you think she could have handled it better? What do you think might have upset him so much? True, it could be that he had a bad day at school, and now he's taking it out on her. What should you do if you have a bad day at school?"), but I can't instruct him if I'm not there to see these situations and point them out to him.

He still talks about how nice you were to give him that magic, by the way.

Sorry, done hijacking the thread to brag about my fabulous child!

 

[Disneychick74]

I'm a 33 year old vmk addict lol
I have kids on my friends list along with most of their parents.
I have a 10 year old that is currently NOT allowed to play VMK but we are thinkng about giving him an account soon.
I think it all comes down to what YOU teach your child is appropriate behavior online. There are some nutcases out there and sadly there may even be a few in VMK (I hear that guy Aengus is a bit shady )but I think if you teach your child what to do when something happens online to make them feel uncomfotable and how to go about handling the situation then VMK is just as safe if not safer than any muliti player online game.

 

[bkaz]

I REALLY appreciate all of you taking the time to respond and explain things to me. I am going to print out the posts and discuss them with my daughter. This being a long weekend, I think I will take an hour to sit with her and have her really show me how it works...she loves to talk about it so I know she would love to "teach" me how to play VMK. The depressing thing is that I used to be a computer consultant...before the Internet was the thing...and now my 10 year old is having to teach me about it! Crazy life!