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[Northeastmonk]

The developer MOB Games has created a horror game called “Poppy Playtime”. I didn’t know a lot about it until my daughter came home one day ranting about how all the kids love it. I bought it and played it. It’s pretty good for being a $4.99 title on Steam. It might not be a GDC award winner, but it has some very creepy things going on. I like quality horror and the game/franchise has a lot of potential to it.

Now back to why I’m bringing this game up in a thread. Chapter 2 of Poppy Playtime is due out sometime soon. My daughter is banned from having anything to do with it. This came after all these parents on social media groups and articles on the web started to complain about fan made videos and how kids are watching these depictions of “Huggy Wuggy” being grotesque and evil. Kids are apparently hugging each other and whispering creepy things in their ear. Stuff that the game doesn’t actually depict.

I could bring up Slender Man, the big 90’s Supreme Court case against MK and Night Trap (which by the way is available on a Nintendo system), or any other attempt at protecting today’s youth from the horrors of creativity.

I get why we want to shield kids from this stuff at certain ages. I just know how this will all end up, it will boost sales of the game regardless of how some people react. I grew up during the D&D, Mortal Kombat, and DOOM era. I am worried that if we shield kids from this stuff too soon that it’ll only make them want to play Poppy Playtime even more.

Why Police Are Warning Parents About Poppy Playtime

Children are viewing creepy Poppy Playtime videos.

screenrant.com

 

[I_D]

You didn't hide the stealth-advertisement sound from your post quite well enough, but your game looks pretty solid for a kids' game.

 

[rofif]

Kids are all about this games and fnaf.
My 7yo nephew plays the shit out of those. He is not scared. He just plays them because it's popular on yt...

 

[Omali]

It's always good to see the pearl clutching "video games are corrupting our kids" shtick is still alive and well. Of course the police in the UK would be seeing children hugging on a playground and conclude they need to warn parents about some great threat toward their kids. It wouldn't be a day ending in Y if the UK police weren't trying to justify a nanny state. I love the completely fabricated story in the Sky News article in the link where the mom explains that her three year old tried to jump out the window after seeing a video.

She said: "He got to the stage where he didn't know the difference between reality and gaming. He tried to climb up my bedroom window, saying he would die and come back to life telling me that's what Huggy Wuggy does.

Nah, I'm gonna call bull shit. That didn't happen.

One thing I will agree to is that YouTube Kids is a stupid idea and often shows disturbing content flagged as child-friendly. This is still on the fault of parents for sitting their kids in front of a tablet and just letting it autoplay acting as a babysitter.

 

[Northeastmonk]

You didn't hide the stealth-advertisement sound from your post quite well enough, but your game looks pretty solid for a kids' game.

It comes off like an ad. All of it comes off like an ad or at least good publicity.

Kids are all about this games and fnaf.
My 7yo nephew plays the shit out of those. He is not scared. He just plays them because it's popular on yt...

The creepy and the weird always hit home with the kids. What I’ve learned is that kids love open world, do anything, sandbox type games and the creepy and weird jump scares. No need to wow them with plots or special effects. It makes sense. Good horror shouldn’t take a lot of explanation.

It's always good to see the pearl clutching "video games are corrupting our kids" shtick is still alive and well. Of course the police in the UK would be seeing children hugging on a playground and conclude they need to warn parents about some great threat toward their kids. It wouldn't be a day ending in Y if the UK police weren't trying to justify a nanny state. I love the completely fabricated story in the Sky News article in the link where the mom explains that her three year old tried to jump out the window after seeing a video.



Nah, I'm gonna call bull shit. That didn't happen.

One thing I will agree to is that YouTube Kids is a stupid idea and often shows disturbing content flagged as child-friendly. This is still on the fault of parents for sitting their kids in front of a tablet and just letting it autoplay acting as a babysitter.

Yup. Parents don’t know the difference between the actual game, a mod, or a fan made video. People can take Anna and Elsa out of Arendelle, turn them into spoiled dolls taking jacuzzi baths. That alone creates a much larger sense of imagination in the kid’s mind and it’s not Disney at the helm anymore. On top of that, YouTube has millions and millions of videos using brands or other intellectual properties as bait. If a kid gets scared and over reacts to a video then they need to evaluate why the kid has access to the internet. Jump scares are notoriously known for that. I don’t think they’re forcing the kid to jump out of a window nor do I think they’re telling kids to go commit crimes either.

 

[PendekarRajawali]

As an adult I'm pretty scared just to see the game but my 5 year old nephew loves it.

 

[Bridges]

I had heard of this before but didn't actually know it was a game, I have a young relative who had the shit scared out of her after a friend showed her Poppy. Videos had been circulating around their school and scaring a bunch of them, apparently (another reason why young children shouldn't have smart phones imo).

No idea if this is some viral marketing thing or what but I guess it definitely helps with brand recognition. As OP points out all this controversy ever does is get more eyes on the product.

 

[SlimeGooGoo]

.

 

[Chris_Rivera]

Kids are apparently hugging each other and whispering creepy things in their ear. Stuff that the game doesn’t actually depict.

Wtf, that’s hilarious. Sounds like kids having fun to me, but hey every parent has to do what they think is right for their kids, without getting pressured by social media.

YouTube is what kids watch these days, so it’s good to keep up with what they are being exposed to. Shit like mr beasts is more frightening to me than playthroughs.

 

[AX8]

The world is too soft nowadays let kids have fun, it's a harmless "horror" game, it's not even scary.

 

[AV]

I'm not getting why your daughter is banned from playing chapter 2 when you then go on to explain that there's a dumb moral panic around it which you've seen before growing up with MK.

 

[Northeastmonk]

I'm not getting why your daughter is banned from playing chapter 2 when you then go on to explain that there's a dumb moral panic around it which you've seen before growing up with MK.

It’s my wife that’s making that call. Instead of getting into an argument (which it could have already been considered an argument), I just said my case and that was that. She’s 8, so she can probably play more of these games when she’s older. I teach her right from wrong, fiction and nonfiction, but her grandparents and her mother both drill me over the subject of horror or spooky games. I’ve caught her reading my Junji Ito books before.

 

[Punished Miku]

I was watching Robocop in elementary school.

 

[Notabueno]

I'm always baffled at degenerate justifying kids looking at horror and why not snuff, knowing what studies shows about teenagers. Actually let's call it pedo psychological abuse. There's a reason for rating even if our acceptation standards have lowered and lowered.

 

[AV]

It’s my wife that’s making that call. Instead of getting into an argument (which it could have already been considered an argument), I just said my case and that was that. She’s 8, so she can probably play more of these games when she’s older. I teach her right from wrong, fiction and nonfiction, but her grandparents and her mother both drill me over the subject of horror or spooky games. I’ve caught her reading my Junji Ito books before.

Fair play. I'm sure they'll learn soon enough when they realise their kid knows more about technology than them and watches whatever she wants. No point trying to ban kids from this stuff when it's so easy to get and banning it only makes it more appetising.

 

[BigBooper]

The developer MOB Games has created a horror game called “Poppy Playtime”. I didn’t know a lot about it until my daughter came home one day ranting about how all the kids love it. I bought it and played it. It’s pretty good for being a $4.99 title on Steam. It might not be a GDC award winner, but it has some very creepy things going on. I like quality horror and the game/franchise has a lot of potential to it.

Now back to why I’m bringing this game up in a thread. Chapter 2 of Poppy Playtime is due out sometime soon. My daughter is banned from having anything to do with it. This came after all these parents on social media groups and articles on the web started to complain about fan made videos and how kids are watching these depictions of “Huggy Wuggy” being grotesque and evil. Kids are apparently hugging each other and whispering creepy things in their ear. Stuff that the game doesn’t actually depict.

I could bring up Slender Man, the big 90’s Supreme Court case against MK and Night Trap (which by the way is available on a Nintendo system), or any other attempt at protecting today’s youth from the horrors of creativity.

I get why we want to shield kids from this stuff at certain ages. I just know how this will all end up, it will boost sales of the game regardless of how some people react. I grew up during the D&D, Mortal Kombat, and DOOM era. I am worried that if we shield kids from this stuff too soon that it’ll only make them want to play Poppy Playtime even more.

Why Police Are Warning Parents About Poppy Playtime

Children are viewing creepy Poppy Playtime videos.

screenrant.com

Sounds like the kids need to be banned from unsupervised social media and youtube instead.

 

[Northeastmonk]

Sounds like the kids need to be banned from unsupervised social media and youtube instead.

I find this is hard to do. Kids have other relatives, friends, and the school has their own access to the internet. Having to supervise and monitor each one of those is close to impossible. You can only teach them so much, but they’re their own person. If one kid is banned, the other kid isn’t. They share stories off other kid’s experience. I have heard my own fare share of fan made stories about Huggy Wuggy. Kids have a such large selection of games, movies, music, and etc. Squid Game was popular with the kids for a while and now I rarely hear anything. I went outside one night when that show was being talked about and I saw kids up the street playing red light, green light.

Chapter 2 came out this week too. I wonder how much the developer earns when a large group people watch the game on YouTube rather than purchase it for themselves.

 

[BigBooper]

I find this is hard to do. Kids have other relatives, friends, and the school has their own access to the internet. Having to supervise and monitor each one of those is close to impossible. You can only teach them so much, but they’re their own person. If one kid is banned, the other kid isn’t. They share stories off other kid’s experience. I have heard my own fare share of fan made stories about Huggy Wuggy. Kids have a such large selection of games, movies, music, and etc. Squid Game was popular with the kids for a while and now I rarely hear anything. I went outside one night when that show was being talked about and I saw kids up the street playing red light, green light.

Chapter 2 came out this week too. I wonder how much the developer earns when a large group people watch the game on YouTube rather than purchase it for themselves.

It's hard work to be a parent. My oldest is 11. She doesn't have any social media accounts or a phone. Schools around here don't have open internet access for the students. Maybe high schoolers do, not sure.

True they will still talk to their friends, but you don't have to make them believe everything their friends do is right or acceptable.

 

[ZoukGalaxy]

It's 2022 buddy.
Hope it helps.
Cheers.

 

[SF Kosmo]

Not to sound like Grandpa Simpson, but no, in our days kids played games, not watch them. The whole YouTube content creator culture has created these weird phenomena where these games like Bendy and the Ink Machine or Poppy Playtime become huge cultural memes for children despite only a very small percentage of those kids ever actually playing the games.

My stepdaughter is also terrified of Huggy Wuggy and all the shit in this game and so are her friends but none of them have played the fucking thing, but all these kids content creators chase around the same alogorithmic trends and sometimes these things just snowball like that.

The amount of fucking music about games aimed at kids on YouTube is staggering, I don't mind my kid listening to that sort of thing but she ends up getting obsessed with songs about Among Us and Bendy and the Ink Machine and all that without necessarily having a connection to the games.

Like this kid shows me a song she wrote about Doki Doki Literature Club, like shit she has never played because she is 7.

She's a sensitive kid too, not least because she is going through some post trauma and separation anxiety because of her shithead biodad, so this stuff scares the shit out of her.

 

[DevilMayFlyForAWhiteGuy]

Not to sound like Grandpa Simpson, but no, in our days kids played games, not watch them. The whole YouTube content creator culture has created these weird phenomena where these games like Bendy and the Ink Machine or Poppy Playtime become huge cultural memes for children despite only a very small percentage of those kids ever actually playing the games.

My stepdaughter is also terrified of Huggy Wuggy and all the shit in this game and so are her friends but none of them have played the fucking thing, but all these kids content creators chase around the same alogorithmic trends and sometimes these things just snowball like that.

The amount of fucking music about games aimed at kids on YouTube is staggering, I don't mind my kid listening to that sort of thing but she ends up getting obsessed with songs about Among Us and Bendy and the Ink Machine and all that without necessarily having a connection to the games.

Like this kid shows me a song she wrote about Doki Doki Literature Club, like shit she has never played because she is 7.

She's a sensitive kid too, not least because she is going through some post trauma and separation anxiety because of her shithead biodad, so this stuff scares the shit out of her.

I’ve been thinking about this off and on, well the whole younger people kids/watching more games than playing them thing that is. At first I didn’t get it, but I think kids just don’t have the attention span to focus on much else than whatever the new popular thing is.

When I was in elementary that’s when Pokémon first came out and got popular. All the kids wanted the trading cards, but nobody knew how to actually play the card game. It was just about collecting and trading them to seem like the coolest kid on the block.

I think the difference from nowadays is that back then toy/kids show TV commercials were the media being aimed at them constantly, and now it’s YouTubers and ads on YT. I think the worst thing now though is social media; the reach it has in terms of overloading people and kids in particular with worthless information has made chasing the popular thing an exponentially faster thing.

Fads that used to last a year or more when I was a kid today would only last at most a week.

 

[SF Kosmo]

I’ve been thinking about this off and on, well the whole younger people kids/watching more games than playing them thing that is. At first I didn’t get it, but I think kids just don’t have the attention span to focus on much else than whatever the new popular thing is.

When I was in elementary that’s when Pokémon first came out and got popular. All the kids wanted the trading cards, but nobody knew how to actually play the card game. It was just about collecting and trading them to seem like the coolest kid on the block.

I think the difference from nowadays is that back then toy/kids show TV commercials were the media being aimed at them constantly, and now it’s YouTubers and ads on YT. I think the worst thing now though is social media; the reach it has in terms of overloading people and kids in particular with worthless information has made chasing the popular thing an exponentially faster thing.

Fads that used to last a year or more when I was a kid today would only last at most a week.

The thing is my kid DOES like games they just aren't the same games she watches all this YouTube shit about. Like she plays Kirby and Mario and Toejam and Earl and shit, which is age appropriate and accessible.

It's just that all these kids YouTube comment creators do is "react to" shit that other people made. And the kid still likes to zone out on the iPad sometimes like every kid does. Like real gaming gets her all worked up, but iPad time is zombie time, it relaxes her. I try not to let her do it for more than an hour because it's poison to their attention spans, although sometimes I cave when I want to sleep in on a weekend.

 

[DevilMayFlyForAWhiteGuy]

The thing is my kid DOES like games they just aren't the same games she watches all this YouTube shit about. Like she plays Kirby and Mario and Toejam and Earl and shit, which is age appropriate and accessible.

It's just that all these kids YouTube comment creators do is "react to" shit that other people made. And the kid still likes to zone out on the iPad sometimes like every kid does. Like real gaming gets her all worked up, but iPad time is zombie time, it relaxes her. I try not to let her do it for more than an hour because it's poison to their attention spans, although sometimes I cave when I want to sleep in on a weekend.

I mean I’m not a parent yet, but maybe you could try to get her into regular cable TV shows, or at least something more closed-platform than YouTube?

 

[SF Kosmo]

I mean I’m not a parent yet, but maybe you could try to get her into regular cable TV shows, or at least something more closed-platform than YouTube?

I do. The kid has a ton of shows she loves, books, comic books, she has no shortage of "good" entertainment. Tablet time is something different, though. And I can limit it, but it's hard to avoid entirely.

 

[thelurkinghorror]

You didn't hide the stealth-advertisement sound from your post quite well enough, but your game looks pretty solid for a kids' game.

Trust me, this game don’t need a stealth advertising on gaf, is already a big hit worldwide, but adult didn’t know

 

[anthony2690]

Can people start advertising good games to kids please.

Otherwise I worry about what the future off games will be like, when games are made to appease these people.