Have you heard of Adopt Me, the cute and cuddly multiplayer online game that is sweeping the nation right now?
If you haven’t before, you are about to learn a lot about it in this blog right now.
Adopt Me was developed by Uplift Games and it is made available through the development platform Roblox. If you don’t know what Roblox is (but you have heard the kids around you talk about it more times than you would care to count), it is simply an online game platform in which people can play games created by others using a universal virtual currency called Robux for in-game purchases. It is a really popular platform amongst young people and children and that popularity seems to continue to rise. In the Summer of 2020, there were 164 million monthly users and the platform continued to grow throughout the Covid-19 pandemic.
Adopt Me is just one of the games featured on this Roblox gaming platform. It was released in 2017 but it has been most popular in the last 1-2 years, with an average of 500,000 players playing at the same time in January of 2021, making it one of the most successful games ever debuted on Roblox.
What is Adopt Me?
The basic premise of Adopt Me! is to hatch different pets from eggs and then to care for and look after them. There are different types of pets and they are divided into 5 main categories or classes:
- Common
- Uncommon
- Rare
- Ultra-rare
- Legendary
These categories and where pets fit within them depends on their rarity and cost. Some of the pets can’t be hatched and can only be purchased via Robux. You can earn “Bucks” within the app itself without financial means but there are encouraged in-purchases, especially when it comes to getting ultra-rare and legendary pets.
Once pets are hatched or purchased, they grow up through different life stages. If you have four fully grown pets of the same kind, such as dragons, unicorns, tigers, or giraffes, you can combine them together to make a “neon” pet or a “mega-neon pet”. These are very popular and can be traded or made. Videos of obtaining these mega pets are super popular on YouTube, Twitch, and TikTok, and they rank up tens of thousands of views in a matter of hours.
The game itself is similar in form to older classics such as Pokémon, with trading and evolving aspects. Expect everything with Adopt Me! takes place virtually and is contained with the Roblox platform.
However, that being said…
Scamming in the Adopt Me! World
Due to the increasing popularity of the game and the popularity of rare and legendary forms, Adopt Me! has unfortunately and accidentally lent itself to the world of scammers.
There are a few different types of scams that take place in and around Adopt Me! and they fall into two main categories, in-app scamming and external scamming.
With in-app scamming, some players will pretend to be someone famous, offer things that aren’t possible (making pets flyable for example), ask to borrow something with the claims of giving it back, and so on. They do this so that they can take items from other players, particularly rare items, without paying for the item or earning it themselves.
The scamming that happens outside of the platform usually takes the form of expensive, financial transactions for rare pets, which can sell for up to $100 each.
As the majority of users in Adopt Me! are very young, scamming has unfortunately been both common and successful on the platform.
However, the platform itself is taking more actions to prevent this from happening to their young players, including trade licenses. It appears to be getting safer for the children who play the game but scamming is definitely something to be wary of within the game.
Should You Let Your Child Play Adopt Me?
After all of this information I am sure there is one big question on your mind – Should you let your child actually play the game?
(Or do you want to play the game yourself? That is ok with us, no shame about enjoying shiny tigers and fluffy unicorns in this corner).
There are a couple of things to consider when it comes to allowing your child to play any game on Roblox, including this one:
- Valuable items take a long time to procure and your child could easily spend a lot of time on the platform
- There is a possibilty of addiction to playing due to the high level of reward in the game
- There is the potential for scamming
- Children can spend money in the game and they have been known to rack up high bills
- There is in-app communication where chidlren can talk to other people on the platform
That all sounds a bit negative when you put it together, so let’s also look at the other side of the coin to this point:
- All chats are monitored and limited in language so there isn’t a huge chance your child will read harmful content
- You can monitor how long your child spends on the game and limit their play time
- You can encourage your child to play in a common area and you can keep an eye on their play
- You can set limits on how your card is used on the platform, preventing crazy spending sprees
- The platform is doing more to protect children in the game
So, as you can see, there really are both sides to this argument.
In my opinion, if the game is practised safely and under a watchful eye, it can be a lot of harmless fun for children. It is very colourful and enticing, and they can have fun with their friends through a safe chat function.
Regardless of what decision you make, it is always good for us adults to be aware of what our children are doing online and so I hope this blog has given you a little more insight into the wonderful world of Adopt Me!
If you have enjoyed this blog please leave a comment below and let us know what you enjoyed! Also, you can check out our other blogs on gaming and digital platforms to see a little bit more of what we are interested in.