Slashdot Mirror
Most Parents Don't Game With Their Kids
A recent study, reported on by MSNBC, has found that a sizeable percentage of parents don't play games with their kids. Of those that do, many only play for a small portion of the time their kids are gaming, or have no real understanding of what their kids are playing. "Besides those who simply don't play the games with their children, another 30 percent say they spend less than an hour a week doing so. All told, about three in four parents of young gamers never or hardly ever touch the stuff. 'I don't think it's good for them, the violence, the obsession,' said Karen Kimball, 55, of Hale, Minn., another nonplayer who estimates her 17-year-old son plays 25 hours weekly. 'No longer is it, Let's go out and throw a football.'" I wonder how many parents object to their kids watching 20-25 hours a week of television. Is this a sign of current popular attitudes towards games, or honest parental concern over the 'dangers' of gaming?
In the article, it says 43 percent don't play with their kids, that means 57% DO play...seems MOST parents play games with their kids....Of course, this is coming from MSNBC.
Is this really surprising? Who here DID think parents game with their kids??
"We can categorically state we have not released man-eating badgers into the area." - UK military spokesman, July 2007
Since when was it cool for teenagers to hang out and "play games" with their parents? MSNBC, you suck.
Of course I don't game with kids. I'd pwn their n00b 455es all over the screen.
The guild I help lead currently has several parent/child members. I think its great. I just have to remind our 16-22 age crowd that there is a 12 year old in the guild and please be mindful of that fact.
:)
I can't wait till the day I can play games online with my kids. I'll finally have a 2v2 partner for Arenas who I can ground if they suck
I think the gaming generation (those who grew up with video games being ubiquitous) are just now approaching parenting age. I'm thirty years old and I can't wait until my two children are old enough to play video games with. This is something Nintendo noticed, and so they created their system so that a 30 y/o parent can play along with their 5 y/o child. That parent has been playing video games since Atari, and will continue to play. Ten years from now parents and children will all play together and it will be the norm, and not considered some "gimmick".
The same group has published other interesting studies about teen behavior.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
I grew up watching my parents playing Pacman and Asteroids on the venerable 2600, and got my first chops on a computer by making levels for Lode Runner with my dad. My childhood's filled with those kinds of memories, along with the fishing trips and the amusement parks and all the other usual stuff. So it's no wonder that my son's growing up dancing along to Guitar Hero, rolling around the pretty shiny ball in Metroid, and learning his alphabet by playing online games (Fisher-Price and Starfall are his favorites)
I do all the usual Dad stuff with him too; we throw the ball around, I read books to him, we push around toy cars (Vrrooms, as he calls them), we hang out the park on weekends. But it's the digital age, and the generation that grew up with the Video game industry is going to incorporate it into their children's lives just as our parents grew up in front of the TV. The interactivity of video gaming just makes it a much better bonding experience -- it's something we do together actively, not passively.
My parents don't game at all.
Is that strange?
I actually grew up gaming with my dad. He, naturally, was the owner of the PC and he and I played various DOS games together starting when I was about 6 or 7. When the SNES came out we played a lot of Super Mario Kart together and on the N64 we played Goldeneye and Perfect Dark non-stop. It was a blast. There's no reason playing with your parents can't be fun. Of course... I had to take it easy on him, otherwise he'd get mad and stop playing. :)
You are using English. Please learn the difference between loose and lose; they're, there, and their; your and you're.
Those kinds of comments from the mother talking about obsession etc are born of ignorance. For my generation, the past ones and the coming ones gaming is just going to be part of life (barring some kind of theocrat take over....*gets plane tickets ready*). I would want to see what games my kids were playing, yes, but more out of an honest curiosity and yes...a want to play the games with them (multiplayer is more fun!)
One of the first things my dad did for me was help me get our 486 to play the games I liked. This involved going into config.sys and autoexec.bat and REMing out a bunch of entries. That not only taught me critical thinking skills (as at a point he just said "ok, you have to figure it out from here") and made those hours upon hours I spent with my dad doing that very fun and rewarding.
Current parents...give the games a chance, try them, you might find out you actually *shock* like them too. What's the worst that could happen? You could only be as screwed up as your children are, and lets be honest, most kids are allright.
Happiness does not come from having much, but from being attached to little.
I hate the media with their artificial sensation causing slants... "Common Cold Season To Start - Will You Die?"
What adult has an extra 25 hours a week to play video games? I run a business, I'm raising 3 kids, I try to have some time with my wife. I'm lucky if I get to play an hour or two of games a week.
Plus my kids don't WANT me sitting in their room all weekend playing video games with them.
I'd rather them playing games than passively watching TV though.
- For the complete works of Shakespeare: cat
My parents never did, but they didn't grow up with electronics anyway.
It's more interesting to consider those that did.
It's sad to see a parent just ignore his kid while his kid's in a game. You could be bonding with him, and suddenly you are working on something meaningful. Then he might actually want to spend time with you outside the game world.
side point: If anything in life can be considered meaningful outside of what we think of ourselves. A hobby is a hobby really. You could knit a sweater, but does having something tangible add value? I'm not so sure other than the ability to remind yourself of your accomplishment. If I beat a game, and the data is lost, I still accomplished something to my mind. Everything turns to dust, even Ozymandias' splendor. There's value in touching humanity, but also in peaceful and happy solitude, so I don't think you can scorn either one.
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
Is anyone really surprised by this? After all most video games aren't even designed to support 2 players.
Even those that can usually do so by splitting the screen, which just causes confusion and even headaches for most adults.
Besides, I can't see it being that fun for either the kid or the parent, especially if the parent is a non-gamer in the first place. It really isn't very fun to get continually pwned by your opponent while you're still trying to figure out how to even hold the controller, much less which buttons do what. And the parent's aggravation will just aggravate the kid. "No, daddy, hit the X button! X BUTTON!" "Uh..." *looks down at the controller* "Which is the X button again?" *splat*
Yeah, that sounds like fun for all.
If anyone wonders why the Wii is doing so well, this is why. The controller and included sports games are easy enough to handle for newbie and expert alike, so at least the parent feels he can give the kid an appropriate challenge.
Would kids let their parents play with them? It would probably depend on the game.
- Little kids don't like being beaten at a simple game consistently
- Older ones can be impatient attempting to show their parents the ropes.
- Sometimes parents want to play when they see their kids playing with their friends. The kids don't like to have their friends see how much the parents suck at the game.
- Stereotype of parents not being cool *period*
Disclaimer: I'm talking about parents born during the 50s through to the early 70s.
What's so bad about parents not gaming with their kids? I bet most parents don't play hide and seek with their kids too. And I bet most kids wouldn't like their parents playing with them all the time too.
-- Cheers!
"It's just such a waste of time," said Lackman, 47, a power plant operator from Center, N.D. "I tell him, 'Do something that has some lasting value.'"
And what, exactly, has he accomplished with his life that's got lasting value? The article declines to mention any charity work, artistic endeavours, or community programs he's involved in that his son's neglecting. Odds are good he spends his spare time in front of the TV, watching football and drinking beer.
News flash for parents: if you want your kids do great things, first you have to do great things with them. If your son's more interested in slaying monsters online than spending time with you, it's probably because whatever he's doing is more engaging than what you've got planned for "Quality Time".
"I don't think it's good for them, the violence, the obsession," said Karen Kimball, 55, of Hale, Minn., another nonplayer who estimates her 17-year-old son plays 25 hours weekly. "No longer is it, 'Let's go out and throw a football.'"
I really hope this is misquoted, because if this 55 year old mom is disappointed that her 17 year old son to offer to go outside (where his friends can see) and throw a football with her, she's got more problems than video games. How about challenging him to a game of Madden? Would it kill you to try and engage your teenage son on his level, rather than guilt him into breaking social norms? I'm not saying there's anything *wrong* with throwing around a football with your mother, but try explaining that to the pimple-faced horndog who's just trying to survive the pressures a high school social fishbowl.
Grow up. Video games are for children. Grow up.
My grandmother actually plays games. She was into stuff like Secret of Mana, Zelda, Might and Magic, and Diablo way back when; that's actually what got me into it. My father only played games like that so he could laugh as he punched enemies with a shield in his other hand.
Now, all she plays is Everquest, but I can't play with her because of the monthly fee. I admit, it'd be fun to play together, despite the fact that we play completely differently in MMO's.
On the other hand, there's my father, who yells at me if I use a shotgun or pistol in SOCOM instead of a scope and rifle, or if I take too long to pick either a magic or physical attack in LotR: The Third Age, or even if I beat him at anything. Needless to say, we don't play very well together.
So, perhaps gaming habits are just recessive genes in certain families?
Don't tell someone got paid for this study?
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
many only play for a small portion of the time their kids are gaming
I know I do, because my kids spend more time gaming in a day than my total free time. I find it hard to believe this is unusual.
GTA Hot Coffee with your mom?
Some things are not meant to be.
My father was an old Unix hacker and had a number of games on an 8086 of...questionable legality, which is where I first played games. Later on he got into stuff like Sim City and Microsoft Flight Simulator, and I got into Nintendo consoles; there was some crossover (I liked Sim City, he liked Dr. Mario) but not a whole lot. By the time I got into disc systems like the PS1 there was almost a complete disconnect in our tastes (jRPGs weren't his thing, it seems).
I mean, I wouldn't be shocked if most parents didn't spend much time watching TV with their kids; my parents didn't spend much time at all watching cartoons with me, for instance.
Yet there seems to be a huge difference in how much people worry about each medium--I don't remember complaints from my parents about watching three hours of TV straight, but after an hour of videogames it was "Maybe you should take a break now". Granted, presumably modern parents are better-informed.
`Anyone else out there gaming with their four year old? Wii Play has finally found its perfect audience! My son will play it for hours if I let him (he's beaten me quite a few times on that cow riding game).
At times, I'll also let him run my orc shaman (usually in Ghost Wolf form) around Thunder Bluff in WoW. He loves to make him swim through the pond on the lower rise. He learned to spell his first word - "dance" - by making my orc dance. So if you're logged onto Trollbane and you see an orc dancing in the middle of Thunder Bluff, it's probably him. Feel free to say hi - I'm standing right next to him at all times.
"Can't you see that everyone is buying station wagons?"
My sister-in-law isn't allowed to play Xbox with her son because she makes him cry. "Get the powerup, Tyler! Get it! You missed it! Jesus, Tyler, it's like you're not even trying..."
Anyone who loves or hates any language, platform, or manufacturer, doesn't know what they're talking about.
These days, I often find myself watching or helping my kids play and less time playing myself.
Last night I had both kids playing Garry's Mod (a HL2 mod) against each other. Emma, who's four and a half, was having a great time spawning in odd things and making rebel companions. I did have to step in and mediate Emma wailed "Sam's murdering my buddies." Ah, parenting.
They also both spent a lot of time playing the experimental game Darwin Hill. Emma requested it, "The one where there's the bugs and you get to squish them!".
Ironically, I was just reading this article, that describes Super Mario Galaxy's coaster mode which looks like it is geared toward playing the game cooperatively with younger children.
As the second player, you don't get a character on screen, you get a cursor that is used to capture gems, gather coins, help give Mario jump boosts and distract would-be foes. So younger gamers still get to control the primary character, feel like they're controlling a game and ensures that the game experience lasts longer than what would occur based on their current abilities.How many PARENTS spend 20-25 hours a week watching TV and ignoring their kids?
Like it or not, raising a child is a full-contact sport and REQUIRES that you spend the time to learn about your children. Who knows? You might even find out that you like them and the video games they play!
If "disco" means "I learn" in Latin, does "discothèque" mean "I learn technology"?
Even those that can usually do so by splitting the screen, which just causes confusion and even headaches for most adults. Even Bomberman and Smash Bros.? Those games are zoomed out far enough to show the whole playfield, including all players' characters. And the parent's aggravation will just aggravate the kid. "No, daddy, hit the X button! X BUTTON!" "Uh..." *looks down at the controller* "Which is the X button again?" They're all the X button.
I for one find it kind of surprising. Both my wife and I are avid gamers, and our kids are too. I play games with my kids all the time. We always have a roaring good time with co-op games like Lego Star Wars or Harry Potter Goblet of Fire or -- the old stand-bys -- Mario Kart, Mario Party, and Smash Bros. Heck, even Project Gotham Racing gets in there. I mean, why wouldn't you game with your kids?
Our intelligent designer has never created an animal that we couldn't improve by strapping a bomb to it.
is playing games with me, his Dad. I found that Co-op games work best with him. In particular, he loves the Lego Star Wars series. I keep an old xbox around just so we can play together. I do limit the time he can play though. He does understand that some games are for adults only (Gears of War, Halo 3) and I make it a point not to play those games when he is around. I have found myself looking for 'E' rated games that are simple enough for him to play.
I have thought about what my gaming policy will be when he gets older. I spent way too much time in front of the Nintendo when I was growing up, and was pretty chubby as a teen because of it. My parents didn't care how much time I spent playing games. I think I will limit the amount of time my kids will spend gaming. I am glad to see the Xbox now has parental controls that allow you to limit the time spent playing per day. If that console is still around, then that feature will get used.
There is no qualification of the participants. I'd wager a guess that these numbers include a large number of parents that don't play with their kids AT ALL.
Let's see some numbers on parents that actually have a history of interacting with their children to begin with, then I'll be more interested.
My son and I have a shared WoW account, and I try to play most of the games that I buy him for our game consoles and computers.
... "Dad! Can you make sure I don't die while I go to the bathroom?" "Sure, np".
But outdoors? Um, dude, he has friends for that. We live in a city, not the country.
When I grew up in the boonies on a tree farm I played games with adults and older kids a lot more - because there were fewer kids my age in easy distance to play with - in a city, as our society has moved from a farm-based agrarian culture (1900) to a city-based culture (2000) it is very easy for kids to find nearby kids who are the same age to play with - who don't live (true fact) 25 miles away (most of my girlfriends since I was 10 lived about that far away).
Plus, in some online games, we even coexist on the same server and sometimes run each others characters
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Well, that seems to be easy then. Make the kid a mage or sorc and tell him/her that fluffy is a familiar. People tend to take care of those, what with the penalty for getting your familiar killed.
;)
'Course, I guess it can backfire. Next thing you know, the kid could decide he/she wants a bat or a pig as a familiar. And may Mielikki have mercy on you if your kid wants to be a Druid or Ranger
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
I don't anymore. Mostly because of the controllers. I've been gaming since day one. That yellow ship vs. saucers game seen on Solyent Green!? Played it, with my dad.
I played Quake against my boyz (4 and 7), but it became increasingly difficult to afford enough machines to play the oncoming games. So I bought an XBox. But after 25 years of computer gaming, the controller is all wrong. joystick on left thumb!? WTF? I played until the screen looking disease took over me. I got p0wned by my eight-year old... daughter. She made dad proud!!!
Get me the ability to play on a separate screen with a controller for people not born with one in their hands... and that's all I'd ever do!
I am their parent.
We don't have to share interests, although it is nice. However my main priority when it comes to my kids is gaming in the real world.
One time I caught my son chasing his sister with a whiffle ball bat -- it's not heavy enough to really hurt somebody, but it certainly can sting like the dickens.
"Here, give me that," I said. "We're going to play a game. You are going to take this bat and tap me on the shin. But the rules of the game say I can tap you back on the shin just as hard."
So, my son takes the bat and gives me a tiny little tap. I take the bat and give him a tiny tap. Then he gives me a slightly harder tap which I return. Then he gives me a look that plainly says he doesn't believe I'm serious, then gives me a painful whack in the shin. I take the bat and promptly give him an equally painful whack in the shin. He then gives me light tap which I return.
This goes on for a while, and my son is literally whooping with laughter, when my wife walks in to see what's going on. She snatches the bat out of my son's hands. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" she yells.
"I'm teaching our son about the Golden Rule," I reply. "Also, that it hurts to be whacked with a bat."
One other time, I walked into the room and caught my daughter calling my son a "shithead", for which I remonstrated with her.
"Do you want me to apologize?" she asked.
"Of course I want you to apologize," I replied," although I realize I can't keep you from insulting each other."
"You mean its OK to insult each other?" she asked.
"Of course it's not OK," I replied. "I simply recognize I can't stop you from doing it. I insist, however, that we don't use potty language in this house."
"What do you mean?"
"Well," I replied, "let's play a little game. Try insulting me without using potty language."
"Er,'You are a stinky idiot.'"
"No, playground language isn't acceptable either," I said. "How about, 'You are a fetid addle-pate.'"
We went back and forth a few times, and were just getting into the swing of things when my wife came into the room. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" she cried.
"I am teaching our daughter not to use vulgar language," I replied. "I am also working on her vocabulary."
Sometimes I wonder if women understand child-rearing at all.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
30 minutes a day is plenty of computer time right now. They get more on Saturdays. As they get older, computer time will increase, but it will have to be productive computer time. Programming, typing, i.e. learning...
Life's 90% work and 10% play. The kids that learn that early on have a better chance at being successful and self-controlled.
The kids and I play catch with the football. As soon as I stop watching, they're crashing into each other and dragging each other to the ground. That's the way football is actually played competitively. They see that and imitate it (without pads of course).
I understand what she's saying, but what an ironic choice of non-violent activity. I know I'm coming off like a weird hippy, by sometimes I see football games and think that we're not nearly as far separated from the Roman crowds watching the gladiators as we pretend.
-Dave
Regardless of how parents choose to be involved, the underlying and most important fact is that mutually beneficial experiences between kids and their parents must occur for a relationship to be viable and have a basis on which to grow. Active mediums are excellent for this - games, sports, video games, art, yard work, etc. Passive, fat-ass mediums such as T.V., movies, etc. don't generate enough new experiences to contribute to a relationship. Learning to play a video game is no less challenging than learning to hit a baseball, and it allows a parent to support and interact with a child in a positive fashion. Any active activity can provide a parent an opportunity to be a good supporting role model, or an overbearing heli-coach. Of course, MOST parents don't even understand this concept, and are comfortable raising their children in a similar dysfunctional fashion in which they themselves were raised. Btw... I introduced my girlfriend to WoW last spring, and our relationship has benefited greatly the frustruations of an "experienced player" helping a noob (she has a 49 warrior as of last night!! ding!). Giving her lots of room to find her own way gave her confidence that I wasn't an overbearing idiot like so many boyfriends can be, and we now share many conversations about the "game". Her two kids join us to play in limited amounts. They enjoy it much more when we play with them, and amazingly, we now pay weekly allowances in WoW gold!!
the day I brought home a 48k Spectrum with a few games. ;)
My wife said "Why couldn't you buy something ALL the family can enjoy!"
Two days later I couldn't get near the thing.
Of course I am 33. I am his "kid" only in a genetic sense...the connotation of preadolescence does not apply.
My 60 year old dad plays World of Warcraft more than I do, but when I am on he is always up to go to the battlegrounds with me.
This is not recent; we have always played games together.
So, I guess I can answer your question. I am one of the people who did think parents game with their kids.
The percentages in the article suggest that plenty of other families game together too, so we are not total freaks.
Or at least I do, as well as many other people I know. We're in our mid-to-late thirties, grew up with arcades and Atari 2600s. I still play games as often as I can with the kids. We'll play together (three on one in Halo multiplayer- I'm a tough SOB, they need to gang up on me), or sometimes I will play a game and they will watch (it's funny how the kids and wife would ask me to play Dragon Quest VIII, and sit there watching for hours!)... Lately we've been arguing over the Nintendo DS, only 2 of them in a house with 5 people. I am buying three more with some good multiplayer games for Christmas!
Hopefully they will look back and remember these times when they get older, and keep up the tradition with kids of their own. Their "real" dad pretty much ignores them whenever they are together. I'd hate for them to grow up to be like him.
Urge to post... fading... fading... RISING!... fading... fading... gone.
No offense, but... you underestimate adults, and seem to have forgotten your childhood days already too.
1. I've actually tried teaching grandma to play a Sierra empire building game, more for experiment sake than anything else. Bear in mind that she's not just old (as in, she's a great-grandma by now), but had been pretty much a luddite to that point. No computer, no email, no nothing. Closest she's been to doing anything with a computer was when she washed my old 486 and monitor in the bathtub. (Well, they were getting a bit stained by cigarette smoke.)
I'll admit, I wasn't expecting much.
To my surprise, though, she (A) was learning very fast for (what I expected about) her age, and (B) she was actually having fun. Sure, she did need a bit of coaching, but not half as much as you'd expect. She did seem to have a recurring problem with the left and right mouse buttons, though, so I guess Apple has a point. Still, we're talking about someone who, until an hour before, had never even touched a mouse. Ever.
Even console controllers aren't much harder to learn. I gave my parents an N64 and a Playstation when they were well in their 50's, and they took to them like a duck to water. Next thing I knew, they were only talking about Mario 64 for the next two months straight.
Plus, just a few months later dad handed both me and my brother our arses to us in Dead Or Alive. Not much to complain about the old man's use of controller buttons. And he seems to aim very well with a lightgun too in gun games.
2. Getting embarassed by your parents only comes _much_ later. Until puberty hits, kids are still wired in the standard cub mode of all mammals. Meaning that being near mommy and daddy and getting attention from them counts as good times by itself. Trust me, at that age, you won't mind it that horribly much if daddy is doing less than flawlessly.
3. Not all games are competitive, so you might not need to give the kid a challenge. There are a ton of cooperative games, and in fact I'd even recommend going the coop route instead of the cut-throat competitive ones.
In a lot of them, well, basically you've lost nothing by having an extra character with you, no matter how bad they play. E.g., try making a character and tagging along in NWN2. The game doesn't give any extra enemies or anything for it, so even if you're just arrow bait, you've still contributed something. E.g., in COH a force-field defender can turn someone else into almost god mode by just hanging around and remembering to re-cast the buffs occasionally. You don't even need to attack or anything.
4. About split screen... well, console games did often have that problem, but PC's have network play. And most consoles are going that route too nowadays.
5. _If_ your kid is that focused on what you're doing wrong... well, it _could_ be that you've given him a bad example. I'm not saying that that's necessarily the case, but you might want to at least re-evaluate the past approaches just in case.
Thing is, focusing on what someone did wrong and never on what they did right, is just a way to turn them into a neurotic and/or someone who never tries anything for fear of getting berated again.
I've actually had the mis-fortune of growing up with this kind of feedback on almost anything I ever did, and I can tell you first hand that the results are _exactly_ those stated in the comic. I still have to roll for will power to even chuck the laundry into the washing machine. There's a circuit somewhere in the back of my brain that goes "ya know, mom wouldn
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
25 hours is A LOT. And yes, most parents would be extremely bothered by 25 hours a week of TV. I actually think that parents are probably a little more linient on games than TV. Games at least have some kind of interactive involvement, where hour after hour of TV watching is thought of as some sort of "zombieism". But I still come back to the fact that 25 hours a week is A LOT of hours to be doing anything TV/Game related. I'd deffinitely try to get my kid to do other things.
Multiplayer Gaming (defined): Sitting around, discussing single-player games with my friends, at the bar.
Why does gaming always mean video games? I have a family legacy of being hardcore gamers. We were hardcore gamers before pong was popular. Road hockey, baseball, golf, cards, board games anything as long as there was somebody to beat. Let's face it a hard core gamer needs an opponent. Playing a solo video game alone for hours is to hardcore gaming what masturbation is to sex. You get the reward but really have nothing to brag about.
Consequently I played games with my kids and still do (they are now 18 and 21). All kinds of games, video games included. My son owned me at Quake and Star Craft. I owned him at road hockey, just like my old man would own me and my friends.
Funny thing is that my parents seemed unique for parents among my peers. I can't recall any of my friends parents grabbing their ball glove to came out and play with us. My guess is this non-gaming with kids extends well beyond just video games.
My old man is still a hardcore gamer. He may be close to seventy but can still shoot in the low eighties which makes him tough to beat on the golf course.
It started with Pokemon on an old Gameboy. I wanted him to start reading more and thought one of the ways would be to simply get him interested in playing a game that he could relate to because he was watching Pokemon on TV all the time. That's all it took. Soon, he was kicking my ass in Quake2 and Quake3, owning me in Unreal Tournament, and by the time he was 11 he was playing tournament grade Counterstrike. Then came WoW, Halo, Halo2, Halo3, etc. We play a lot of the same games together and his skill and understanding of game dynamics is far beyond mine. Now if I could only get him interested in hot rodding...
-Phil
To avoid corruption, one must remain dishonest.
Just the other night I played HALO 3 campaign with my five year old son. He's surprisingly good for his age. My nine year old reads all my instruction books forwards and backwards. He's the one who explains to me all the stuff I was too stupid to read about. Both boys will play HALO together or anything with co-op (Marvel Alliance, Lego Star Wars). They've developed as a team during these times. Gaming is very entrenched in my family. My wife plays Explorers, Puzzle Quest, etc. As a family we also play Catan, Killer Bunnies and various card games. We enjoy gaming so much we include our children. We don't use gaming to babysit our kids because we're busy doing adult things. Gaming brings us closer together.
When I'd whoop his ass and do my "You just got fucking owned dance!" srsly he's super weaksauce. Tore him up hardcore, Little guy needs to practice more before he runs with the big dogs.
I've tried to game with my son, I really have. ... run around like a madman shooting everything and pushing every button you see without giving it any thought.
My play style... play through things with careful consideration of my next move.
His play style
Neither of us really enjoys gaming with the other.
I play like a grownup and he plays like a kid.
We both end up frustrating each other.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
Passive, fat-ass mediums such as T.V., movies, etc. don't generate enough new experiences to contribute to a relationship.
I see you don't own any Wii sports games.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
My kids were exiled from Azeroth about 3 weeks ago because their first quarter grades weren't so hot. I hope their next report card is better so we can gank Horde together. Azeroth is lonely without them. :-(
I have a 3-year-old boy who has been playing games on Noggin.com and fischer-price.com for about a year now. I stay nearby, and make sure he's not doing anything inappropriate. Sometimes, I have to help him drag the little duckies to their Mama duck.
Several months ago, we got him a game called "Candy Land Adventures" or something like that. I helped him play through it once -- so that I was aware of the game contents. Its about 6 puzzles that are extremely easy and takes about 20 minutes for an adult to complete a game. The 3 year old can work on it for over an hour without finishing.
What's my point? Any sane adult would go bonkers trying to spend any sizable amount of time playing these toddler games. The child, however, has a blast playing them over and over. So, for very young children, at least, its not surprising that msot parents dont spend much time playing the games with the kids.
More recently, I've been introducing my son to some XBox games. We play Burnout Revenge in racing mode. I complete the race in 2 minutes and he's still cutting donuts near the starting line. I get up and walk away and 10 minutes later he finally finds the finish line. We tried playing "Bust A Move" and he would shoot the balls in the wrong place, ending the match in under 15 seconds....over and over and over. So, I let him play single player and I go play WoW on my PC nearby.
"Teach your son to play" you are saying. I am, and he's improving. But his goals are different than mine. "Winning" is not what he's after. Making pretty balls sparkle and seeing cars crash entertain him way more than crossing a finish line or completing a board.
I'm wondering if I can utilize his tolerance for repetitive gaming actions. I really need to get my Troll Shaman's fishing skill up.
...as prevailing factors (whether true on not) in youth violence. the kids want mom and dad to pay attention to them and do something together, like play Super Mario! it's a cry for attention!
My dad played video games with me for quite a long time. I was 4 when Super Mario Bros. came out, and most evenings we'd take turns playing single player games like Mario and Zelda, or play together on multiplayer games like Contra and Mario Kart. We kept this going all the way up to Zelda: Ocarina of Time in early 1999, at which point he said new games were too complicated for him.
Our tastes differed a little. He especially liked gimicky stuff like Gyromite, Pilotwings and Myst, whereas I could handle RPGs like Final Fantasy that he called "too much like work" (he was a radar scientist/engineer who spent his week in front of spreadsheets).
Dad told me that one of my first memories was of a video game (though I've forgotten, ironically): When I was 6 months old and we were on vacation, he took me to a convenience store where he played a Pacman cabinet with one hand and held me up with the other. A year later we vacationed to that town again, and while he was rolling me past that store again in a stroller, I pointed to the building and said "Bamans", which he interpreted to mean Pacman. He was so impressed by this that when we got home he wrote a whole Pacman-ish game on his Commodore 64 that he named "Bamans" after my memory.
Today, dad has one of those miniature pirate 50-games-and-a-NES inside a controller, and just about every evening he plays a bit of Mario Bros, Contra and Tetris. Mom gets annoyed because its the same three damn games every night, but anything else would require too much research and/or learning curve on his part. However, I'm getting a Wii this Christmas, which he thinks is a neat concept for a console. We're getting together for the holidays, so maybe when he sees Wii Sports, Mario Galaxy and a few Virtual Console games, maybe he'll break and buy one for himself? One can only hope...
Please, please don't make me play one more song in Battle Mode on GH3....
It's bad enough to loose my manhood to my 11yr old, now, even my 8yr old daughter is starting to kick my butt!
I can't wait until Starcraft II comes out and I can reclaim the top rung of the gaming food chain in my house again!
"Creativity is allowing ones self to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep" - Scott Adams
....25 hours?
WOW people don't do 25 in a week, they can probably do that in two days. I would know. two of my roommates at college are WOW freaks.
Me? I'm a gamer, but not that big on games. I like the Halo series; give me a dual weld and I'm good along side of a ghost and you'll find me good and able.
My parents are both old farmhands, (Old in that they're in their fifties) they don't game at all. though we do play a lot of board games and whatnot. so during my growing up years, the only gaming stuff I had was the few games that I bought: Sim Series, Arcade Pack, Jazz Jackrabbit, Flight Simulator. Later on, when I got my own laptop, those were still what I played.
So entering college, I was not surprised to find people with various consoles, sometimes two or three, or four. my hallmates last year, collectivly had a PS2, Xbox, Xbox 360, gamecube, Wii, nintendo 64 and gameboy. I also started getting into the gaming side of life as well. so I just happened to purchase my first system this past summer, a Play Station, original series. two controllers, I had to buy a memory card off of Ebay, I got the whole thing (minus the mem card) at a church garage sale for five dollars. during the summer term, one of my housemates had a gamecube, and I bought that from him, along with a few games. I'm also soon to be buying a PS2 from a guy who I knew who went to my school last year, and at xmas I get a 360. But overall, I have not touched my gamecube. just because I'm not really interested, probably during the summer.
But still, occasionally I go to a friends place on campus and play Halo, or something. my house collectivley that I'm on campus this year has a 360, wii, my gamecube, and PS. overall. I'd say that weekly, I spend 10 hours or less gaming, and that's usually on X-box playing ere Halo 2 or something else when the guy i play isn't there usually.
I've been gaming all my life (I'm 29), but I'd never played a game with my parents. Then I got a Wii and showed them Wii sports. They both loved tennis, and we all had fun playing together. I was amazed how into it they were getting. They didn't quite ge that you only needed to move the wiimote, so they were taking a step toward the ball every time. It was great.
Then my mom kicked my ass at Wii golf. That sucked.
I think many kids do not play with their parents because they are violent, or the parents would drive them insane. For example imagine explaining WoW to your mom. (It's a bad example but you get the point)
I absolutely love my job and it definitely is fun. Not everyone can have a job they enjoy, but its a good idea to try for it because life is much more enjoyable that way. We spend so many hours at work that I'm really grateful I get paid to spend all those hours doing something I love doing and would want to do anyway.
...but I play Enemy Territory and Day of Defeat with my son quite a bit.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
Since when is 43% most? I learned what 'most' meant in kindergarten.