advertisement
Facebook
X
LinkedIn
WhatsApp
Reddit

UK retailer offers to harass your kids in-game to get them to eat dinner

Are your children constantly playing video games? Is their gaming getting in the way of dinner? Well the UK retailer Aldi has a “solution”.

We’re using quotation marks there because the solution – called Teatime Takedown – involves giving your child’s gamertag to a stranger online so that said stranger can beat your child in a game when they should be eating dinner.

“Parents! Tired of your kids missing dinnertime because of computer games? Then call upon the services of an elite squad of professional gamers who will join their game online and take them down. Now they’ll have no excuse not to be at the table when dinner’s ready,” Aldi writes on its website.

The thing that strikes us as odd is that Aldi encourages parents to invade their child’s privacy in order to find out what their gamertag is for PlayStation, Xbox and Twitch. While the mention of Twitch seems odd, the platform does have a game launcher though we find it out that Steam, Epic Games, Origin, Uplay, Bethesda Launcher and Battle.net are omitted from this section.

That having been said it appears as if Aldi thinks Twitch is how folks play PC games because when signing up for Teatime Takedown it asks which platform your child uses with the options being Xbox, PlayStation and Twitch.

Bizarrely only the Twitch section says parents should ask for permission before grabbing the gamertag.

The alternative to this is parents simply, you know, asking for their child’s gamertag.

“Ask your child for their gamer tag directly. It will arouse suspicion, but at least you’ll have it. If they really want to know what’s going on, let them know. They’ll be excited at the prospect of a professional gamer challenging them and will still learn a valuable lesson about the importance of family teatime,” writes Aldi.

Parents are required to sign-up for the service over on Facebook where Aldi is encouraging parents to get their kids to accept friend requests from strangers.

“We know you may be concerned about ensuring a safe environment for your kids to play online games and many parents feel its right to ensure their kids reject any request from strangers to join their games. But, to make sure your child can be ‘taken down’ during their game you’ll need to allow your child to accept the invitation from the professional gamer.”

A quick look at the Terms and Conditions for Teatime Takedown reveals that Aldi can’t even guarantee that this service will work because, well, if your child is a gaming prodigy the “esports professional” tasked with taking them down might come up short.

That’s not even mentioning that we don’t even know who these professional gamers are. What if Aldi employs the services of somebody like Tyler1? We can’t tell you because nowhere can you find a list of the gamers, their accolades or how well they behave in-game.

This is a terrible idea and while it seems fun and clever it’s really just showcasing how out of touch Aldi is with gaming in 2019 and you know, basic privacy rights.

Don’t sign up for Teatime Takedown, rather speak to your child and if they won’t listen, cut the power while they’re playing. Sure your child will be mad at you but it’s better than opening them up to harassment by strangers on the internet.

[Image – Alexas_Fotos from Pixabay]

advertisement

About Author

advertisement

Related News

advertisement