Monday, July 30, 2012

Neat article on playing skyrim...with a 4 year old?

I try to avoid these sorts of plug posts, but this article was just too good to pass up.


While most of the time I write for parents who don't know much about games and have kids who do, it's always really encouraging to read about parents who not only game as well as their kids, but really share playing the games together, as both parent and friend.




It's especially encouraging when the parent not only takes the time to look over what the child will be playing, but also looks for positive things in a game universe most parents would simply write off as "too loose at telling them what's good and bad".

I'm not saying Skyrim is for everyone, I still stand by it's M rating for sure.

What I am saying is that, like this article shows, sometimes with a bit of effort there is a happy medium between "too violent and dark" and "fun", as well as a border that the kids can understand between what is in the game and what is in reality.

It's very healthy and good to see someone take the time to find all the fun stuff that younger kids could still understand.  It's a meaningful rarity that Skyrim manages to offer not only enough world and choice for a player this age to find stuff to do, but also that a parent takes the time to see it and show it to their child piece by piece instead of taking the easy way out of saying "You're not old enough, says so on the box, end of story".

In short, if all parents had the time, I think this is probably how every parent and child would game.  Together.