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Indoctrinating The Young As Gamers
Gamers with Jobs has an interesting look at what it's like to indoctrinate the next generation of gamer. From the article: "Now, as I stumble through my fourth decade on this spinning marble in space, it is my great privilege to pass this obsession on to my own son. It is something of a shock to me that my years of gaming can be measured reasonably in terms of percentage of a century. I shudder to think how many productive hours and how much money I have sacrificed to my passion. Instead of dwelling on that point, I pretend that the question doesn't even exist, in much the same way that I occasionally like to pretend the mortgage doesn't exist when a desired game finds its way onto store shelves. And now, already, my own son has begun his own epic sacrifice to the pastime, so that someday he too can struggle in the decision between food and maintaining his subscription to World of Warcraft."
Besides, its snowing like crazy now, its 20 degrees outside, what the hell else am I going to do?
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
In no time at all, he'll be bagging your favourite childhood games as being unplayable crap.
Kids grow up so fast these days, don't they?
...je'll act like this
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Daddy can I got outside and play? No! You'll stay in the house and play videogames! Why can't you spend all day cooped up in your room like normal kids?
We're homeschooling. Educational games play a part of that. We have games from the "Reader Rabbit" series as well as a few other one-offs such as "Physicus" which is a cool physics simulator/tutorial/game and "Rosetta Stone" for Arabic and Chinese. However, much as he doesn't mind these, they are not what gets him really interested. He's been a Civ player for over a year... and he's only seven and a half. Right now he loves CivIV. He is starting to learn the difference between strategy and tactics, learning about planning, and of course, learning some things about history from the game itself. However, we have found that we need to put tight limits on his time playing. Currently, he plays CivIV only on weekends, and only in the time he has available when we're not doing other things (visiting, groceries, etc.). We have had some struggles with obsessive game-playing and we are trying to moderate that, but given that I myself go through periods of intense game playing (and so does my wife), we have to balance that with our own example. When we first got CivIV, we didn't do much else except eat for about three days... I truly hope that this is not a problem. I haven't seen anything conclusive about this and we do have a balance with visiting, regular academic work, and my son is an avid reader as well. I'm not worried, but like with television or other forms of entertainment, I don't think that children are able to set their own boundaries very well. It's important as parents to do that both verbally and by example. For those interested, my wife keeps an extensive web site about homeschooling and some other things.
Helping with organizational effectiveness is our job.
What kind of father is this guy?
When the fruit of my loins is unleashed upon the world, I am ready to raise him properly.
That means starting him out with Donkey Kong, Pac-Man, Burgertime, and all the classics. He will move up to the NES, SNES, Genesis, and along up the generations as he gets older. Of course, Number Muncher and other classic educational games will be on tap, too.
Start a kid off with current-gen stuff will only produce another graphics-obsessed drone that will shun anything that isnt 3D and is too soft to handle the occasional hard game that is released by brave studios (FZeroGX, Ninja Gaiden, etc).
Off-topic:
And when he isnt playing the classics, he will be watching Transformers, Thundercats, the original TMNT, and all the other great cartoons that were on when I was a kid. It worries me that kids are growing up these days watching YuGiOh GX and other drivel CN and the other networks are putting out. Sleep in on saturday, kids. We can watch some cartoons on DVD when you get up.
"so that someday he too can struggle in the decision between food and maintaining his subscription to World of Warcraft."
"Too?" As in you think about whether to buy food or WoW? And you have a son to feed?
Look, we get enough flak from Jack Thompson types as it is, why don't you do us all a favor and call child services now before your face is plastered on TV news.