What are the criteria for allowing a product test or is paying to advertise enough? I’m talking about the fortnight encouragement thread.

[AlternativePerspective]

That thread in product tests essentially selling fortnight/rocket league as a sport and wanting children between 11 and 16 to sign up.

Given the amount of threads on here about fortnight and the damaging effect it has on children, I would have thought MN would have done better than to allow an encouragement product test wanting to get more children playing fortnight in the name of sport.

Come on MN HQ, isn’t this a bit much?

[wed8pril]

I don't see how either game is inherently dangerous.

[LilyMumsnet]

Hi OP

Thanks so much for the feedback - we've passed it over to our insight team.

[GraceEMumsnet]

Hi OP, thanks for your comment on this. We recognise the impact gaming addiction can have on some people, but for millions of others it’s a pastime that fits into their lives in a healthy way. We know from many enthusiastic comments on Mumsnet over the years that with parental supervision for younger children and a thoughtful approach, lots of families find gaming not only enjoyable, but beneficial (in fact we wrote a whole article about the benefits last year, based on our users' comments). Our approach is that our users are adults and are more than capable of deciding which products and services they want to use, whether that’s with their families or as individuals.

We looked into Guild’s offering, and they lay a lot of emphasis on safety and mental health as well as on developing life skills such as team work and time management. Some parents may want to support a child who has a real passion for esports, and Guild can provide a structure and training programme for young people seriously considering taking it up as a career. Parental involvement is built in to their model, with a dedicated Parents Centre where adults are kept informed of what their children are doing and what they’re learning; this isn’t a ‘drop and run’ model, parental involvement is front and centre, and skills development is the focus. (If you’re interested in hearing more about that, there’s a video here with David Beckham speaking about the 'academy' model.) Parents have ultimate control over which games their children play, who they play with, and how much time they spend in gameplay on the platform.