Good Gaming : A Parents Perspective

I have been a Gamer for as long as I can remember. As a young kid I loved Board Games then in my teens I got into Role Playing Games and then Computer Games when my family got it’s first home computer in the 80s. The internet came along in the late 90s and as a young adult I was heavily involved in Networked Games, not just organizing parties but I ran a business that had Gaming events as a focus. Now I’m a parent and my kids are interested in gaming too but I have discovered over the years that games are not always good…

I always got criticism from my own parents about my gaming and I defended games as being good for exercise and development. Whether it be sharpening reflexes and being able to think on your feet and make decisions on the fly. To deep thinking, strategy, planning, negotiation, dealing with setbacks or even loss in a harmless way where it's ok to fail and learn from mistakes. I’ve always believed that art imitates life and games are a form of art. You can learn a lot about life and build valuable life skills with the right sort of games. But what are those exactly? It's worth asking that question...

My #1 rule as a parent is that games need to be FUN. If my kids are getting upset and/or fighting over the game then the game is over. A big deciding factor for whether this is likely in a game is an element I am coining the “Potential for Fuckery”. Basically I ask : ”Is the game mechanics designed in such a way that players can screw each other over in a nasty way to win?”. The best, most common example of this is the game of Monopoly. The objective of that game is to grind everyone into bankruptcy. Nasty stuff, and anyone who has played as a kid would have probably experienced the board being flipped in anger at some point. So, Monopoly is out.

However, a big issue that my wife and I are now coming to terms with is the open platform internet games with little-to-no content control or protections when it comes to dealing with child predators. The best example of this is a game like Roblox. I gave this game a chance with my kids and they had some friends they would play with online, but there was some toxic behaviors developing, some questionable content that my kids were being exposed to and more randoms drifting in and out of their games than we were comfortable with. A little bit of research and we discovered Roblox’s Pedophile Problem so it got banned from the house.

What we look for now is games that have some of the good bits that I mentioned above without too much Potential for Fuckery or getting exposed to dangerous content or random people. We recently picked up a board game Ticket to Ride and it’s a great example of a good game. The whole family can play, it has good learning, planning and skill building elements. So I am still a gamer and my kids are becoming gamers too but I have learnt that it’s definitely important to do some research into games for your kids so that they can still have fun and get the good (not nasty) outcomes.