Back in the day, an unexpected bill racked up by your kids was most likely something like a broken window after a game of cricket gone wrong. As technology became a bigger part of daily life, it became important for parents to sit down and have a chat with their kids about using a mobile phone responsibly so they didn’t make calls to premium numbers or use tons of excess data.

Fast forward to today and microtransactions in games are becoming a serious problem. They’ve been a common pest in mobile games for a few years now, but thanks to the massive popularity of “free to play” games such as Fortnite, more parents are learning about them the hard way.

Fortnite is a battle royale shooter game that made waves when it was released on mobile devices, making it extremely accessible. After all, most kids are more likely to have a mobile phone than a certain gaming console or gaming PC. Fortnite doesn’t cost money to start playing, but a number of in-game items such as different costumes for your character to wear cost V-Bucks, which are actually bought with real-world cash. A quick Google search will show you there’s already dozens of stories of kids blowing hundreds of dollars on the in-game currency.

Fortnite isn’t the only game to have a big microtransaction problem and mobile phones aren’t the only device you may need to lock down to stop kids racking up a bill on supposedly “free” games. To help you (and your wallet!) we’ve put together a guide on how to stop kids making purchases in games across a range of devices including mobiles, tablets and gaming consoles. Just follow these steps for some peace of mind that your littles ones won’t be making any in-game purchases, by accident or otherwise.

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