With regards to the specific allegations made by the nonprofit, Bigg added, “Like all services with subscription models, we do surface the benefits of our membership features from time-to-time to make users aware that memberships exist and what their benefits might be.
“No paid subscription is required for students to continue receiving completely free access to all of the educational content in the game, which has been designed by our team of accredited teachers.” “To support us in offering all of this educational content for free, we also provide optional memberships for families for use outside of school,” he added, noting that the majority of users learn through a free subscription. James Bigg, a spokesperson for Prodigy Education, the Canadian company that creates the Prodigy game, said in a statement that the company was “proud to provide millions of students, families and schools with completely free access to standards-aligned educational tools to support in-class and at home learning.” “Prodigy is preying upon that vulnerability in a particularly egregious manner because it targets young people, their parents, and our schools in the midst of a pandemic, when families are much more reliant than ever on remote learning.” “The Commission has long recognized the vulnerability of young people to unfair and deceptive practices,” writes the nonprofit in its complaint.
The nonprofit is calling for the agency to investigate Prodigy for deceptive marketing - by telling schools on its website and other marketing materials that the product is “completely free” - and unfair tactics for using persuasive design to promote its paid product to kids. “Schools are signing up for this thinking it is free and not understanding that there’s enormous commercial pressure put on children and families when they play at home,” said Josh Golin, the campaign's executive director. These included messages highlighting how members “have more fun” or get “better pets.”
The Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood said in its letter of complaint that during 19 minutes of gameplay it saw 16 unique advertisements for membership and only four math problems. While the game is given to schools free for students to play in a restricted mode with only their classmates, when children play the unrestricted version of the game at home, they receive regular reminders and messages encouraging them to become members, which costs $59.88 to $107.40 per child per year.
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