Worst Toy of the Year Award goes to Nickelodeans’s AddictingGames.com

Caroline and Tom are very involved in monitoring what their kids watch on TV and have always felt safe with Nickelodeon. Now they are not so sure with Nickelodeon’s AddictingGames.com winning the “worst toy of the year award.”

Discussion:
There is a wonderful organization following the exploitation of the media on our kids and it is CCFC, the Campaign Commercial Free Childhood. I get their informative newsletter. Recently they had a contest to all their subscribers on the TOADY (Toys Oppressive And Destructive to Young Children) Award. The over-riding winner was Nickelodeon’s AddictingGames.com.

Here is what they say:

“Inspired by Nickelodeon’s blatant disregard for children’s well-being, you [subscribers] overwhelmingly chose AddictingGames.com as this year’s winner of CCFC’s TOADY (Toys Oppressive And Destructive to Young Children) Award for the worst toy of the year. With an astounding 64% of the vote, AddictingGames.com easily outpaced its TOADY rivals: The Little Tykes Young Explorer (18%), the BARBIE DOLL’D UP NAILS Digital Nail Printer (8%), the EyeClops Mini Projector (5%) and the Halo United Nations Space Command Turret (5%).

Nickelodeon’s decision to exploit its reputation as a family-friendly company by linking to the games directly from its popular websites for young children earned AddictingGames.com the award for worst of the worst. TOADY voters were aghast that Nick allows children access through .AddictingGames.com to:

• Perry the Sneak series, where gamers take the role of a peeping Tom trying to catch revealing glimpses of naked women showering–and successful voyeurs are rewarded by getting in bed with their prey
• Stick Dude Killing Arena, the object of which is to “Train to Kill Until You Die”
• Kitty Cannon, where players can “make Fluffy bloody” by shooting a kitten out of a cannon onto a row of metal spikes

The fact that the games are free, making them accessible to any child with Internet access, was another reason voters frequently gave for why AddictingGames.com got their TOADY vote.

Since December, more than 4,000 parents have written to Nickelodeon to demand that the children’s media empire remove the links to AddictingGames.com from Nick.com, NickJr.com and Neopets.com. But Nickelodeon refuses to grant parents even this simple courtesy.

If you haven’t already, please tell Nickelodeon to stop promoting Addicting Games to children. Please share this campaign with friends and family by clicking here. Let’s let everyone know that truly disturbing content is only a click away on Nick’s websites for children.”

In admiration for all you do,
Kathy