Sharing: Kids, Adults, Gaming

I went digging in Techdirt today and stumbled on these two gems:

Lots Of Parents Playing Video Games With Kids… Though, That’s Not What The Headlines Say

from the details,-people,-details dept

In the last few years, we’ve seen a number of studies suggesting that, while most people think of video games as something kids play, that it’s increasingly becoming a family activity involving parents (and even grandparents) playing video games with their kids. This seemed like a good thing. A common activity over which families can bond seems positive. That’s why it was a bit surprising to see a bunch of headlines trumpeting the news that “Many Parents Avoid Video Games With Kids.” So when you get down into the article, you see that the headline is seriously misleading. What the report actually says is 43% of parents with kids who play video games never play with them. That would mean that 57% do play video games with their kids, which seems like quite a large number, especially compared to earlier reports. Yet, that apparently doesn’t support the story line that the headline writer wanted to tell. While it is true that another 30% say they spend less than an hour a week playing video games with kids, that is still some bonding time, and shows that many, many parents are quite aware of what kinds of video games their kids are playing — meaning that perhaps politicians can stop claiming they need to act as parents when it comes to video games.

Techdirt: Lots Of Parents Playing Video Games With Kids… Though, That’s Not What The Headlines Say

and

My Grandma Can Kick Your Ass At Halo

from the don’t-count-out-the-over-fifty-fraggers dept

A couple weeks ago, we pointed to a study that pointed out how widespread video games were in society — and how they weren’t just for teenaged boys any more. That’s not all that surprising, really, and has been reported in the past. Many point out that the generation that first generation that grew up with video games has now reached adulthood — so it’s no surprise they’re still gamers. Also, while there’s been talk about the “bored housewife” market for casual video games, there hasn’t been too much said about older gamers. A new study actually claims that a quarter of gamers are over fifty, though the report does not get into what sorts of games they play. It does, however, point out that many gamer parents play video games with their kids as a family activity. Since the report is from the Entertainment Software Association, and clearly designed to portray gamers as positively as possible, it also includes fun little tidbits about how video gamers exercise quite often (three times as long as they play games!), and also how they read a lot and go to museums and such. Next thing you know, we’ll find out that they’re (gasp!) just normal people.

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20060519/1346212.shtml

LOVE IT!

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The XO laptop and early signs of benefit?

I’m in. This article from Laptop magazine showed me why the One Laptop Per Child XO laptop is worth all the hullabaloo. The magazine sent an XO laptop to a handler in Guinea, who then showed it to grade school-aged kids. The kids, not jaded by megahertz races and touchscreens and format wars, readily took to the XO; built-in features likes its VGA Web cam caused a commotion amongst the youngsters, eager to explore the little green machine. By the end of the first short session, one young girl had managed to learn to write her name for the first time.
It’s things like that that make the XO laptop a worthwhile endeavor. No more “good luck with lolcatz and pr0n” or any other snooty Western attitudes, just the knowledge that, yes, more kids will learn as a result of their interaction with the XO laptop. And what’s so bad about that?

Tested by Guinean schoolchildren, XO laptop makes a difference

I don’t know about you– but the sentence I bolded left me with a rather large grin.  I look forward to stumbling across MORE stories like this!!! 

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Girl Sense goes designer

Real-World Fashion Designers Add Their Style to GirlSense E-boutique Community

With the launch of Designer Boutiques on Girlsense.com, members can now virtually browse, buy, sell and create outfits with the digital fashions of their favorite REAL-world designers and brands.

Wilmington, DE (PRWEB) November 12, 2007 — Hot, exciting clothing designers are opening their very own e-boutiques on www.GirlSense.com to offer sneak peaks of their upcoming collections and inspire Girlsense community members. Boutiques belonging to hip designers including Mudd, Bongo Jeans, Dollhouse, Luxirie by LRG, BB Dakota, Saint Grace and many more are now ‘opening for business’ on Fashion Avenue.
Saint Grace is the first real-world fashion brand to open its doors on the GirlSense Fashion Community and GirlSense members are super excited about the addition of this new feature. Here’s what some of them had to say: “I love SaintGrace. Its so cool there on here,” said xdancer4everx.

“Hi, my biggest dream in life is to become a fashion designer. Got any tips?” asks puppygirl609.

“OMG, this so cool you’re a fashion designer. I wish I could talk to you; I want to be one too,” said Jazzy12695.

“I will (sic) love to be a designer like you one day,” said heavyheartlove.

Two new designers will be featured each week, offering the fashion-conscious members of the GirlSense site the rare opportunity of designing with the ‘big guys’. In addition to collecting designer brands and getting inspired, members will be able to read about the designers they love including their biographies, what inspires them, the brands they like most and more, in this new feature being offered on the GirlSense website.

“The GirlSense community is first and foremost about our members. We are thrilled to be able to give them an opportunity to be inspired by real-world fashion designers and excited about the responses we’ve received from so many well-known fashion brands,” said Starnet Interactive CEO Cathy Glazer.

Girlsense.com is a safe Web 2.0 environment that offers over 11 million registered members a variety of dress up games and tools for designing trendy fashions, creating hip e-boutiques, posting innovative banner ads, interacting with community members, and more.

StarNet Interactive maintains and produces GirlSense, and continues to stress the need for providing kids with on-line experiences that are safe, unique, innovative and fun.

Real-World Fashion Designers Add Their Style to GirlSense E-boutique Community

I love girlsense! Like Stardoll, who jumped into real world fashion a few months back, this offers girls a chance to upgrade their paper doll play pattern experience.

Truly, I prefer the “brand competition within a world” method a hundred times over ads, etc. And yet the buzzards are circling nearby– thanks to OTHER (yet slightly similar) advertisement maneuvers, like profiling, tracking, etc (aka– looks like your days are numbered, dreaded Zwinktopia/Zwinky toolbar of insanity!).

I like the brands within the worlds. Alleviates some of the “sites need to make money to survive” pressure, as well as offers that bit-o-cool factor, and lightens the “this is a bulletin board ad trying to catch your freakin’ attention with flashy scenes that might cause epileptic seizures (or hypnotize you into some sort of weird web funk where you awake hours later 2 miles from home in the middle of the freeway like a stunned rabbit).

I work in this industry, and I know how it would be ultimate utop-a-rama if youth/kids/the world didn’t have subversive branding every virtual-inch. But I keep going back to the same sad argument– Virtual Worlds and game-building are pricey. These environments allow kids reprieve from their every day life in a place where they can still have social experiences (although less interesting than IRL experiences some may argue) and they can learn how to work for what they want, gain tokens, spend wisely, make decisions, control their fate– if only for 45 minutes or so. In Girl Sense’s case (as well as stardoll and cartoondollemporium), this is just another extention of a play pattern. Who DIDN’T grow up with paper dolls? I know they’ve been around for ages because I’ve seen them at those antique shops (< lol, my warped humor gave me the giggles for that ignorant comment). But seriously, this is a bona fide play pattern here… and all the web is doing is bumping it up a notch. So instead of little girls having to cut Gucci out of a magazine and strap it to their make-shift lined paper doll, they can have a bit more fun with the virtualism of it.

Granted all these girls getting to kit out their avatar/dolls will probably flow seamlessly into Laguna Beach-ish chicks, obsessed with brand names, etc, and that in it’s SELF makes me sad… but for the time being, in their tweendom dreams, they can keep it virtual and have fun with it. Besides, those kids who are brand obsessed (clothing wise) tend to get help from mom and dad big-wallets at home. My mom never ever let us get brand names as a kid. I was sooooo clueless. I still am (maybe that’s why I dress like a camp counselor, aka large child).

But really, it’s all about play. So, girlsense, much luck to you. I will watch your mini brand offers with great relish, to see how it plays out. Stardoll seems to be rockin’ it big time (just did competitive analysis with some freeware).

As for the peeps who aren’t so hot on this kind of brand existence… well, all I can say is a kind hearted: Don’t like it? Avoid it. After all, it’s about choice. And if you think your kid is going to go there against your wishes and you want to stop/prevent the site in order to avoid such a confrontation? Well, my dear, you have bigger problems on your hands than the site.

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