How Smart Should Smart Be?

Yesterday we took our boys to Fun City . This has been on their list since long. However we have been trying to avoid crowded places. Eventually we gave in. Both the boys spent close to 1.5 hours having absolute fun there. They had their Fun City card loaded up and were sprinting from one station to the other racing, catching and fighting wars. 

After they were done they were just too tired and headed to the car with their dad. I stopped at the tickets counter and handed them the game card to check for the balance. That’s when they told me at the counter that there are reward points accumulated from the games and I could redeem them. Now I remembered that earlier there were redemption tickets that would get dispensed at the game stations. Apparently, that has now been replaced with smart systems were the points get loaded on the card directly. These cards are called Powercards. 

I thought that was smart and redeemed it for knick knacks. When I reached the car and told my son about it he looked mighty disappointed. At first he said - "I thought they had stopped giving out tickets at the stations because of covid". So I told him he should be glad they hadn’t but were instead loading it on the play card. That’s when he exclaimed - “What’s the point! It was so much fun to wait for the redemption tickets to come out from the machine and then to carry them all around and to count them. That used to be fun! Mummy if everything becomes smart then what’s the point!”

That’s true right? Fun city sure made it convenient for parents with their Powercard, but what about the user experience? Did they just compromise on that? 

Let’s hold on to the same case in discussions here:

I, as a parent and as the person who pays here, was quite impressed with the Powercard. It definitely felt like it made my task easier. However my 7 year old as the user of their experience was disappointed as it reduced the overall thrill quotient for him. 

How should Fun City balance this? 

Should they give weightage to the disappointment of my son?

Should they let it be because they know that at the end of the day kids who love Fun City will anyways continue to come, tickets or no tickets?

After listening to my son express his disappointment, has it impacted the initial positive impression I had about Powercards? This is probably the only question to which I can answer and it is a resounding YES… Now when I think of the Powercards I am disappointed and I wish it wasn’t there. I don’t want my kids to miss out on the little pleasures of life. 

What do you think? Would love to hear your views on this.