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What Kids Really Think About Kids' Games
marcellizot writes "For a hobby that's supposedly childish, real child gamers have quite a hard time of it. When they're not having every avenue of fun scrutinized for nasties and bad influences, they're often being sold game ideas that are boring and old even when the adults of today were young. Pocket Gamer asks, what do kids really make of today's kids games? 'Both Polly and Andrew both agreed that there were more good games for kids than bad overall, but most of the games they showed weren't just for kids at all. This betrays the difference in perception between parents and their children. Most of them aren't looking for the same old killing - instead, they want something that genuinely entertains them.'"
Kids enjoy fun things more than boring ones? Get outta here.
...but is it art?
Kids these days need nethack it shows just unfair the world can be..... and why you should not kick the kitty
The problem is that these games are marketed to the parents, who play the game little, if at all. A sale's a sale!
How is this news?
"Kids like to play the same games adults do" and "Not all games are about violence and beating hookers" is not news. Any real gamer (aka not some FPS kiddy who thinks Nintendo is for kids) can tell you that violence doesn't make a game fun. It can be part of a fun game, but senseless violence without a good system behind it will suck for all age groups.
I doubt there are many people who would argue that Tetris is one of those all time greats that everyone has played at some point. Yet the most violent thing in Tetris is a line of bricks (blocks, tertites or whatever you call them) disappearing.
So why the hell are we acting like games can only be fun if they are rated 15/18 (or whatever Americans use as their adult oriented entertainment label).
I like muppets.
While not new games, my nephews (3, 5 & 6 years old) love the Freddi Fish series. It's the only time I've ever seen the 5 year old sit still & concentrate for longer than 10 minutes at a time.
There is a war going on for your mind.
I'm an artist and designer in the industry, and I've wanted to make kids games for some time (I currently work on Teen/Mature "next-gen" titles).
I'd prefer to make really simple, but quality titles that have solid stories and are morally enriching for the audience. i.e. the kind of entertainment that I remember being provided as a kid by public broadcasting, Fred Rogers, Shel Silverstein etc.
The problem I'm having is that the level of commercialism in today's kids entertainment is just as bad, if not worse, than most mainstream software. Usually involving other products so the parent company can tie in other potential sales to it (Barbie, et al). Just the kinds of things kids should absolutely not be faced with at young ages.
The only solution I can foresee is either finding funding from an independant source who shares my personal goals, or hoping somewhere along the way the genre manages to break the stigmas associated with "kids" and "educational" entertainment softwa Kids games are seen by publishers as "simpler", and therefore thought to be quicker to develop, receive lower budgets, and are treated as discardable products. Educational titles often have difficulty pushing away from boring gameplay. (I still think Oregon Trail is one of the only "educational" pieces of software that ever provided any sense of reward or fun for the audience - and it's over 30 years old! that's the timeline of the industry!)
I guess I typed up this rant hoping someone could point out a good childrens game developer that actually cared about it's audience, and treated their product in a responsible and respectful way. Any ideas?
Someone made something like that. Sorta. It was more like you could all connect to the same Angband game... or something.
Google if you want more info, I'm too tired to remember.
Seriously, anyone in any age group doesn't want a 'game' thats 'not fun'. The lower the age group, the lower the tolerance.
Sure, most kids won't like the graphics since they are used to modern game engines, but if these games could be redone with someone modern graphics while retaining the same fun factor I'm sure many kids would love it.
Yes, they have MI4 with 3D engine, but I still liked the way they did MI3 better. Grim Fandango was fantastic, and the Dig was good too. Too bad many kids nowadays prefer brainless shoot-kill games.
Fighting over religion is like seeing whose imaginary friend is best.
Don't know where you've been hiding, but Sam & Max are back!
Belief is the currency of delusion.
Nah, that much is obvious to everyone.
The story is actually that what grown ups think as a fun kid game, isn't actually fun for kids. The story isn't kids dislike boring game. The story is, basically, "yeah, but some grown ups thought that those boring games would be the apex of entertainment for junior." If you will, the story is about the disconnect between (A) what kids really _are_ like, and (B) how their parents imagine them.
Imagine, if you will, being 10 years old and basically someone coming over and telling you, "I just painted the fence. Wanna come watch the paint dry? I bet it'll be hours of fun for someone your age." Worse yet, they actually believe that.
The problem is, almost everyone grows up and proceeds to forget that they were children too, and what it really was like. They flip to some imaginary world where kids are stupid simpletons. Which just isn't true.
Yes, especially in the 3-4 years of life the kid doesn't even have all neurons yet, and later doesn't have all the data yet. Yes, they're still wired until puberty to follow mommy around and learn by playing. But they're not brain-dead. (And not half as blissfully care-free as most adults think, either, btw.) And learning by playing is slightly more complex than just being entertained by _any_ simplistic stuff.
Playing with dolls is pretty much enacting "what if" scenarios with those props. They're not the most intricate scenarios, but they do involve some neurons firing. They involve some creativity, at the very least. (You have to think up the script in real time.) They also exercise the memory (what did I see mommy/Buggs Bunny/whatever doing in that situation?) and some critical thinking (would it really go that way?). It's more like playing chess against yourself for practice, than just being entertained by anything whatsoever that involves dolls.
That's what most people who come up with kid games have forgot. They think that just dropping some cartoon character or franchise doll in a game is all that's needed to make a game fun for kids, and that it has to be stripped of anything that involves any thinking at that.
And then there are the games for little _girls_, which actually go one step further in dumbing it down. Everyone seems to be dead sure that little girls are too stupid to even understand more complex stuff than dressing up Barbie or becoming prom queen in 5 dialogues. Or if not too stupid, surely girls don't have other interests and can't be motivated to follow any other plots, right?
Well, actually, wrong. Even in the countries where they do eventually flip to pretending to be an airhead, it happens at puberty. Girls in elementary school still dream of being a chemist, a teacher, an astronaut, whatever, just like boys do. Only in high school the culture becomes distorted into, basically, "being popular is everything, being smart is outright uncool".
And it does so for both genders, anyway, so no need to single one out as the simpletons. Just as girls flip into trying to be the popular airhead, boys flip into trying to be the popular dumb jock.
At any rate, making a game for a 10 year old girl based on how you perceive 16 year old girls, is just a dud for both. It's missing what the 10 year old is actually interested in (she's still wired as a kid, i.e., to follow mommy and to learn), and it's too dumbed down for the 16 year old. Heck, most are too dumbed down even for the 10 year old.
Briefly: people would do well to actually ask the kids if they find a game fun, instead of basing the whole design and testing on adults and their mis-conceptions about kids.
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Anybody remember these features from 1UP, with commentary from sarcastic elementary school kids?
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I think the army has them covered: http://youtube.com/watch?v=DwZ8GxqwKq4
Most kids are stupid and just beg there parents for the latest shrek game.
"There's a lot of role modeling: Princess Anneliese loves to study science, but she never says anything like, "You should study science!" Rather, it's just her favorite thing to do, and it's mostly background."
Reminds me of the Girl Genius comic books.
Because I didn't. I payed for the game, why can't I have it installed on multiple computers that are all mine. They are going to be installed by one person (my son, BTW he's 5 not 4, screwed up). I have my laptop that he can use to play the games while we travel, my wife's laptop to play with while I am at work, and then when we get back to the US I will install it on my desktop where he will play it full time. To be fair to the company, the process of reactivation can be done 5 times without involving their customer service people. But DRM still bothers me. If the company holding the registration server ever folds then I will lose my ability to activate and play the game in the future if something were to also happen to my computers. By the time that happens my son will be too old to play the game but my daughter will be old enough. It's a potential problem. Again, why protect such an old, inexpensive game. I know there are at least 5 sequels to this game; I was planning on purchasing all of them. Not any longer. I hate obtrusive DRM.
"Sure, a game for kids can be spared the dramas and plots within plots some adults are suckers for, but it doesn't mean it has to be dumbed down into oblivion."
;-p
What'ya mean? Oblivion was a *great* game, and not dumbed down at all!
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
If you want to make a kid's game educational, treat it as any other type of media. It needs to have an edgy storyline, identifiable characters, and some type of fun factor involved. The storyline however, is essential because this is where you pepper your educational, intellectual and moral factors. Notice I say pepper, and not dump.
For example, everything I learned about morality and principles I learned from Ultima IV. That's a slight exaggeration, but there's truth to it.
It might sound silly, but what's the alternative, church? Don't get me started. You know what fun is? Playing a game that upholds virtues and responses to certain decisions major and minor, things like showing mercy to the fleeing monsters for the sake of honor, accepting the hardship of battles for the greater good of valor, and not using the skull of Mondain for the sake of all that is holy even if it does kill every monster in you or your ships peripheral.
Ultima IV taught me that stealing the chests of coin in Lord British's treasury is wrong, even if you really need to buy that pirate ship to sail to Buccaneer's Den. You never had to steal, see, because it was inevitable that a pirate ship would attack you, and using your valor, you would slay the pirates, and let the fleeing pirates run off land. Then you commandeer the ship, organize your party and valuables and there you go! You've obtained your ship without falling to the dark side of virtue. Now you sail to the island of Magincia where they foolishly celebrated Pride as a virtue, in turn the island inevitably fell to an onslaught of demons forcing the survivors (living and undead) to realize that humility was the virtue, not pride.
In light of this Ultima IV rant, there are many ways to make things fun and educational. Don't beat the idea of education and morality into a kids head. Just be settle, have a solid, fun, game with an adventurous storyline that exemplifies and mandates what virtues a real hero holds onto.
When you try to cauterize principles it's obvious to the kid and they shut down immediately. It's really not that difficult, it just takes a little imagination and a board of executives and producers who can understand the benefits of putting a good storyline with an intelligent decision making parsing engine.
Just be settle. Kids, believe it or not, want to learn, but it's the spoonful of sugar theory. Make it fun, make it sweet, don't dump more sugar than medicine and don't remove the medicine completely.
Well, apparently most of these 'Games for Kids' are simply too trivial.
Kids have quite a bit more brains than a lot of people seem to think. For example, the 1985 Mac-game "ChipWits" was for rated for "Kids from 12 years and up".
Well, I wrote a (free) Windoze-Version of ChipWits, and know two seven-year old kids who really like it (it teaches them how to program using a funny bot and a bunch of command icons).
Thus: don't make these games too darn simplistic.
Free PC version of ChipWits at http://www.breueronline.de/klaus/chipwits/
We need more kids games like Rocky's Boots and Robot Odyssey!
"There are people who do not love their fellow human being, and I _hate_ people like that!" - Tom Lehrer