Apparently this world that we live in isn’t big enough, and so the large corporations and marketeers are busy creating new virtual worlds for our kids to inhabit, and they’re teaching them valuable lessons that they can take back to the real world as they grow up.

Like, “spend, spend, spend!”

Brett at DadTalk tells us that these virtual worlds are on the rise.

My kids went through the Webkinz phase. I think there was something before that, but I can’t remember. It’s been a while. Now my son is into Runescape, which as best as I can tell isn’t overloaded with marketing. But there was MapleStory, which he was eager to part with his money to get ahead in that game. Apparently, you could take Dad’s hard-earned money and turn it into play MapleStory cash and buy accessories in the virtual world. Uh… no…

But he did come up with $10 that he received from Grandma as a gift… So he handed over the money, and put through the transaction on my PayPal account. Just a couple of days later, he burned through his virtual cash, and showed up with another $10 in cash that he wanted to give to me to transfer another $10 into his MapleStory account. Uh… no…

“Earning” virtual cash in the game to spend in the game is one thing, but when these games start requiring monthly subscriptions or drum up the desire in the kids to convert their real cash into “play money”, forget it.

Go read Brett’s post. He’s got some great quotes and he elaborates more on the impending assault be the huge corporate marketing machines on our kids.

And naturally, I’m going to plug ComputerTime for parents who would like a little help keeping their kids in the real world. We get a lot of compliments on how it eliminates the fighting. If you struggle with the endless “Just five more minutes! Please!” arguments, give it a try!