Off the computer!

An Open Letter to the Writer (and the Readers) of the Open Letter

Idly reading through my feed while a script was running last week, I saw a tweet from a good friend with a link and the text saying something along the lines of "here's the real letter that inspired today's Penny Arcade comic."

I'm not one to leave something like that lying around, so I went and read the letter and the comments that were then appended to it. Turns out someone on Riot Games' League Of Legends message boards had written an open letter to all parents about teaching their kids to stop quitting in the middle of ranked matches because of what it does to the rest of the team.

First thing I really barked my shins on was in the comments on the letter. Several people were saying that sometimes the reason for the kid going AFK was that the parent needed to check email or Facebook or something on that computer. The concept that people are letting their kids play a game on their computer instead of on the child's is a train-wreck looking for the un-thrown switch as far as I'm concerned. I'd rather share a toothbrush than a computer. It's safer, and more sanitary.

Then I dutifully went and read the comic and its accompanying newspost. The gist of the news post:

"...when you start talking about when I can and cannot set limits on behavior, or withdraw privileges, because of your Statz or because it might attract the ire of a community already legendary for its player abuse, you’re punching above your weight, kid."

Ouch. That seemed a little harsh. But over the next several hours I sat with the text for a while and thought about it. My second reaction is probably not what either the comments or Tycho wanted.

This may sound like a namby-pamby cop-out, but both the letter writer and the annoyed parents have good points. Yes, the writer comes off as a twerp with an insufficient grasp of reality, and that comic is a bit strident and dismissive, but both sides here have a role to play. Every part of this is more complicated than the writer or the derisive respondents are thinking. Let's take a knee and think it through.

Of course, the letter writer doesn't really have any context. Is this is the fifth rule that kid has broken today, and we're past where enough is e-frelling-nuff? You're not their parent. You don't know what their household is like or anything else. You don't even know if they're telling you the truth about why they had to leave. You have no idea of the problem-space on their side, so it's not helpful to throw up judgmental, facile solutions to what you have decided is the base issue.

But let's presume for a moment that the letter's assumptions aren't off the mark. The letter-writer's notion that the parents should be paying attention to what their kids are doing, helping the kid learn to manage their time and uphold the obligations they've chosen to shoulder, is dead on the money. In fact, that notion is very similar to the rules I had in place when my gang was in the tween/teen years. All the gaming parents I know who've read this and commented to me all agree to that, even as they write off the letter (including Tycho).

When my children were growing up, one of the tenets of my household policies for extracurricular activities was that they must finish the obligations they sign up for. Even if that was an unpopular thing to others. I'll never forget the school counselor who had an epic fit at me because I made my daughters finish the block of violin lessons they'd signed up for. Yes, they'd decided they'd gotten what they needed out of it (and it was long after I'd gotten tired of having two 1st-year violinists practicing in the same small apartment every day). But the rest of the ensemble needed them to finish their obligation. This is how I managed everything. If you signed up for an activity, part of that was laying out the commitment level and the term. Then, even if you didn't like it, you finished out what you'd agreed to at the beginning. So the frustration of players (of any age) being left in the lurch by others starting something they couldn't finish resonates with me.

But I'm also the sort of jackbooted fascist who unplugged the system and put a padlock into the holes on the end of the cord to enforce time restrictions, no matter what the kid was doing at the time. (This was Ye Olden Days before game consoles had a Parental Control system with enough teeth to solve this problem). With the four kids and I all trying to manage our gaming habits and real-life obligations on the same set of equipment, I just didn't have the leeway to let things slide like that.

Because I am a gamer myself, I knew that you can't have the same rules for turn-taking and time-management for a JRPG, with an hour of wandering Ivalice between save-points, and a car racing game that lets you switch out every 3 minutes and 20 seconds. So I had that built into the system, and the kids were taught not to start the JRPG 20 minutes before bedtime unless they wanted to lose their progress when bedtime hit and their controller turned into a pumpkin.

I can count the number of times over the years I had to yank the cord on one hand, because we worked out house rules out to help minimize the need for it.

That said, those solutions the letter-writer suggests for when something goes awry are a non-starter. Even if you, as caregiver, assume perfect purity in the kid's choices that brought you to this unfortunate place – even if you assume that kid isn't just pushing your buttons (uh ... yeah) – the idea of just blowing off your rules and punishing later raises a nearly Vulcan eyebrow with any knowledgeable parent, even those of us who play games themselves and understand how important they can be to your life. Proportionate, direct, and immediate consequences to conflicts are a crucial part of teaching the kid those time-management skills that the letter-writer wants them to gain. Indirect, delayed consequences based on non-corporeal harm to someone they cannot even see? Doesn't cut it.

I can think of one time I came close to something like the letter-writer suggests, but it wasn't really that close. I was working on a review with my son, and we needed to be at a certain point for me to write it up. We were behind because we had problems in one stretch, and this was one of those games with a long time between save-points. So I actually asked him to stay up past bedtime and work it out with me. My kids still make sweatshop jokes about "the time I made him stay up and game."

But let's look at the whole parents-booting-the kid-for-the-sake-of-email idea. My above hyperbole for comedic effect aside, League Of Legends does require a non-trivial computer. It's not Crysis, but it's not Fez, either. If the kid regularly uses a stipped-down-for-homework machine, it's probably not going to handle the graphics requirements all that well. Generally speaking, onboard graphics chipsets are fine for typing a book report, but not so much for blasting your enemy. So I can sort of see (barely) the concept that you might have the kid on your work machine to play.

That said, while what they're doing in a LoL match may not be "real," it is an obligation to a lot of real people when they're playing in those ranked matches. And you can read your email/Facebook on practically everything else in the house (down to that toothbrush I mentioned above).

So if we posit that they're within arm's-reach of your house rules about time-in-game, why would you boot the kid? If your smartphone and iPad are both out of battery and you don't have a PS3 or Xbox360 that's sitting fallow in the living room, go use their computer! Just remember to clear the browser history before you log off. (If you were following what I consider to be sensible family computing practices, you'd have your own secure log-in on that machine to use already, as well.)

I could spend several thousand words detailing the awkward algebra of managing my household when the kids were smaller. In the interest of sparing you that, where does all this maundering land us?

Managing time in and around gaming is a problem whether or not they're a kid. To paraphrase an old saying, what's sauce for the gosling is also sauce for the goose and gander. My kids had rules to keep them straight, and the real-world limitations of life and my Daily Planet job put similar limitations on me. It's why I don't play a lot of big MMORPG's: I can't support the time commitments to raid or even manage decent guild responsibilities, so I don't set myself up for that. People must be figuring that puzzle out somehow – according to The Daedalus Gateway, about 50% of MMORPG gamers work full time, 36% are married, and 22% have kids of their own – but avoidance is a good enough kludge for my needs.

My adventures in remembering where that Daedalus link was were a reminder to me that we need to look at some underlying assumptions on both sides. I couldn't get a lot of hard numbers, but according to this infographic put out by Riot Games, 85% of LoL players are aged between 16 and 30, but 60% of all players are enrolled in or have completed some college as of 2012. This puts a question to the assumptions that everyone who goes AFK does so because their mommy is making them take out the trash – the ages don't fall right. Statistically, odds are pretty good that parents may not be the actual source of other player's bailing out on you, because the person isn't under a parent's jurisdiction anymore.

Ultimately, everyone needs to all do what is being said by all parties:

  • Parents need to pay attention and build their house rules in such a way that they take to heart that very helpful advice about game length and quitting's effect on other players.
  • Players of all ages need to remind themselves that pulling out affects more than them, so they need to work to minimize it as best they can.
  • Players affected when it does happen need to keep the perspective of the parents, as voiced by the P-A comic, in perspective.
  • And everyone needs to stop thinking they know what's really going on on the other side of the screen in any direction and making armchair decisions about the others and their motivations.

If everyone does that, there will be a lot fewer AFK's – and when someone does go AFK mid-game for some reason, it will be easier to take in stride.

(edit -- My younger son read this and pointed out he'd shaved the race-time in that example down to 3 minutes and 17.4 seconds and that I should put that in here. :eyeroll: )

Comments

I'm no expert parent but personally my opinion is that so long as my kids know where they need to be and when to meet their family obligations they can make their own decisions as to whether they have the time to start a game. If they have to quit because they misjudged that then the natural consequence of that is they've pissed off some people and maybe got a bit of a reputation for flakeyness.

Managing their own time so as to meet their own obligations is something they need to learn and something that has real world consequences. That's not something I need to arbitrarily reward or punish beyond pointing out that, hey, you knew you had to come for dinner at 6:30 and now you've pissed off a bunch of people. You can factor that into your decisions next time.

I'm sure all the parents of teenagers are now laughing their arses off at me but, hey, it's my theory and I'm going to at least try to apply it.

No you got it right Maq. First couple of times the LOL thing came up in our household we were pretty clear that it was on them to make sure they had the time required to finish what they started. Wasn't easy at first with the middle son as he likes to think he is getting over on us and doesn't seem as concerned about other people as our older son is but at the end of the day it is a game so we had no problem cutting him off. I'm not sure if the impact to other players changed his behavior or if he just got tired of getting grounded for mouthing off when we asked him to turn it off but we haven't had the issue come up in some time.

As much as I love games myself it can be real annoying dealing with the way in which it affects a childs behavior. I came to my own decision years ago that I just don't like playing games online with people I don't know and I just haven't had the time to indulge in anything that I can't put down in a fairly short time frame. So yeah my level of sympathy for my kids and the other players is pretty low in this regard, which may not be fair but I have to give up sleep at times if I want to play a game so cry me a river. Get off my lawn!!

Bravo momgamer! My thoughts exactly when I read The Comic and The Letter last week.

"Homework computer"? I remember growing up in the 90's we only ever had a single computer in the house. I didn't get my own computer until middle of senior year of high school and that was in preparation for college I guess that's no longer the norm?

the kids were taught not to start the JRPG 20 minutes before bedtime unless they wanted to lose their progress when bedtime hit and their controller turned into a pumpkin.

There were a handful of instances where this was a problem between me and my dad. We never had an exact rule but I remember a number of instances where I had to madly rush to the nearest save point or risk getting in trouble or losing progress. My dad isn't a gamer so the whole idea of "save points" was pretty much lost on him.

Even nowadays I won't start an RPG unless I have at least a full 30 minutes of free time. Unless it's on a device with a sleep mode.

What I really like about being videogame-literate is that not only can I understand about save points, but I can also understand when game design doesn't respect the player's external scheduling pressures.

I get that sometimes the inability to quit is wrapped up in good design choices, like synchronous (rather than turn-based play-by-email style) multiplayer or difficulty in saving as a way to heighten the tension for the player (a platformer with save states is a fundamentally different thing). But it's useful for me to be able to recognize that a game's demands taking larger bites out of my day.

Maq wrote:

If they have to quit because they misjudged that then the natural consequence of that is they've pissed off some people and maybe got a bit of a reputation for flakeyness.

Doed LoL handle reputation well?

shoptroll wrote:

"Homework computer"? I remember growing up in the 90's we only ever had a single computer in the house. I didn't get my own computer until middle of senior year of high school and that was in preparation for college I guess that's no longer the norm?

That was my recollection, too. I honestly thought about this in editing, but ultimately remembered that we slowly built up older computers that were no longer useful for gaming, but that could still run MS Word. It was a bit like how my younger siblings wore the older siblings' clothes after we grew out of them.

That and I absolutely agree that I don't want my siblings or parents touching my computer. Once I got my own machine (Win ME. Woo.), I didn't want anyone gunking it up except for me – at least that way I would know what I did to it.

I'm not a parent but imo real life trumps games always. Go do what you have to do no worries. Been on both sides of the fence of quitting and being quit on. Both situations are solved by eventual starting of a new game.

Easy solution is to play with people you know and have set aside time. The public pool of gaming is a largely disappointing crapshoot.

There are likely a lot of families that only have one computer (or no computer all all; which is one of the factors driving smartphone adoption). I mean, we never had less than three or so for the bulk of my childhood, but my father was an early adopter and I learned to build computers at a young age. So my family was probably an outlier.

Which meant that we had lots of negotiation about computer usage. (It turns out that one of the most effective ways to police time spent on the computer is to have a younger sibling who is waiting for their turn and is willing to tattle on you.)

I think there's been a trend in recognizing that even adults can't always sit down and have a predictable chunk of time to spend on a game, so there are more games now that acknowledge that and are designed to be played in short interruptible bursts. Unfortunately that trend overlaps with the free-to-play trend, so the market is oversaturated with exploitive casual games.

I'd like to see more games truly embrace asynchronous multiplayer and apply it to all sorts of genres. Imagine a giant asynchronous strategy game designed to be played over the long haul, like a Crusader Kings MMO, or a SimCity-in-the-cloud.

Thanks for this perspective, Momgamer. It really made me think. I am a gamer but my "default" setting is that games are just games and that they don't matter overly much. But this article made me realize I am just applying a double standard.

As a parent, my son understands that if he wants to do an activity we will support him, but he needs to try his best and stay with it until his obligation is over. This has applied to things like sports, chess club, science club, and karate (which I guess is also a sport). But I never before thought of applying that thought process to video games.

Granted, my son doesn't particate in any sort of league or organized play (yet), but I'm not sure that I would've given gaming the same thoughts towards obligation that I would have for a real-life activity. I guess my world just got a little bigger.

LoL takes it a little farther than reputation. You're manking up the stats for your team, and also that of your opponents. It takes it seriously enough that going AFK in the middle of a match too egregiously (like more than once) can result in the player being banned. See stuff like this: http://forums.na.leagueoflegends.com...

However, like most automated systems, it's not perfect, nor is it instantaneous. And enough of these guys doing this to you in a row, and you get the kind of frustration that spawned that letter. I considered putting this in the article, but it just got too long as it was.

I'm a child of the 80's and I need to shake my cane at you. All you whippersnappers need to remember that the 90's were, at their most charitable interpretation, 15 years ago. Computers have invaded the schools. Nowadays, many school districts require students to turn in their homework online and have email/chat systems to have their teachers interact with their students. They give out either access in a lab, or even hand out computers to the students. And it's not just the ritzy school-districts, either. Computer companies vie to donate systems to the lower income areas. It's not a 100%, but it's far from uncommon.

And there are a lot of wives out there rawkin' the work hand-me-down. Why do you think the kids aren't going to be?

Maybe I'm weird in that when I play a game, it's just that, a game. Online rankings are nice, but if real life happens, it's priority one.

That being said, I totally agree with Maq that the kids should eventually learn the natural consequences for trying to flout the rules is looking like a flake to your fellow gamers, and eventually, not being able to get into as many PUGs because you have a rep for Mommy pulling the plug.

Someone noticed that the majority of my GOTY list was DS games. That's on purpose; DS and Vita easier to put in sleep mode, so I can easily attend to my kid or other household duties. Kids would do well to adopt the same if it's getting close to bedtime/homework/chore time.

I admit I am ignorant when it comes to LoL. I think that automated ban system is another reason the kids need to learn to take their families' rules seriously! You might be able to get your team to forgive you, but the system, not so much!

Wonderful article, Momgamer, thank you so much. I'm very much in agreement with you, Maq (parents of teenagers, please don't laugh at us for our blissful ignorance). Like a lot of you, I believe in teaching time management: your chores and homework first, then game time, and if I tell you it's dinner time in 20 min then you better be ready and have set the table and helped out beforehand. Of course, my boys are 11 months and 3 years, so this is all theory at this stage. But that's how I was brought up.

As for sharing computers. We used to share back in the 80s and 90s. But when I got to college, I had my own laptop and then built my own rig. I'm fiercely protective of it, and absolutely hate letting other people use it.

I had no idea the LoL ranking system was so unforgiving. Another reason for me not to go anywhere near that game. Like Dee, I like to have the option to jump in and out of games. And RL always trumps gaming in my book.

Heard a bit about this last week, maybe a summary on Kotaku. But I was like many others, when I saw there was an open letter about LoL to parents, I naturally assumed it was about teaching your kid respect for others, not to be such a jerk, maybe cleaning up the toxic community, which is probably even worse than the worst XBL stories. But no, instead it's about "leavers" and protecting ranked games.

The backward mindset of most of the LoL community is probably why I haven't even played a match this year, and probably played less than 20 full games in all of 2014. It's just not worth dealing with those people. The game is fun, but not that fun.

Plus yeah, the time management is a problem, even more than most other online games. Some games last 30 min, some last 60. You never know exactly what you're getting into when you start. My wife doesn't understand the "I'm gaming with people online, can't pause, can't save and play later" excuse any better than the target parents for the letter. So really it's better just not to play.

Eleima wrote:

As for sharing computers. We used to share back in the 80s and 90s. But when I got to college, I had my own laptop and then built my own rig. I'm fiercely protective of it, and absolutely hate letting other people use it.

Right there with you. My wife gets sent to the iPad or the laptop unless absolutely necessary. To paraphrase a certain creed: "This is my PC. There are many like it, but this one is mine."

Stele wrote:

You never know exactly what you're getting into when you start. My wife doesn't understand the "I'm gaming with people online, can't pause, can't save and play later" excuse any better than the target parents for the letter. So really it's better just not to play.

I'm in a similar spot. With multiple small kids in the house, interruptions can come at any time. I guess it's no wonder my gameplay these days is mostly focused around iOS gaming (generally designed to be able to handle interruptions and resume), 3DS (sleep mode), and turn-based PC games (can walk away at a moment's notice).

momgamer wrote:

But I'm also the sort of jackbooted fascist who unplugged the system and put a padlock into the holes on the end of the cord to enforce time restrictions, no matter what the kid was doing at the time. (This was Ye Olden Days before game consoles had a Parental Control system with enough teeth to solve this problem). With the four kids and I all trying to manage our gaming habits and real-life obligations on the same set of equipment, I just didn't have the leeway to let things slide like that.

We've managed this for the most part, but the one thing that we haven't been able to crack is the puzzle of enforcing time restrictions on an iPod. Both of our older boys have iPod Touch devices and play a ton of free iOS games on them. The XBox is easy, we can turn that off any time. The only way to regulate their time on an iPod is to a) watch them constantly to monitor what they're doing, or b) physically take them away when not in use. Option a) isn't reasonable, option b) seems rather draconian. But, left to their own devices (literally) they will secret themselves in out of the way corners of the house and play for hours.

There is also something vaguely unsettling with the way they will flit from game to game seemingly at random, giving up at the slightest frustration and moving on to something else. We control their Apple accounts, so only we can download apps, and I've been asked to download five different games in an afternoon. When the games are free though, it's hard to come up with a logical reason why I don't want to do that.

Stele wrote:

Right there with you. My wife gets sent to the iPad or the laptop unless absolutely necessary. To paraphrase a certain creed: "This is my PC. There are many like it, but this one is mine." :D

I wish I could get this to stick in our household. My wife and I share one PC, and while she does occasionally use it for writing/publishing/email, a large chunk of her PC time is just browsing Facebook/Pinterest. I bought her an iPad a few years ago as a mobile yet still larger-screen option, to no avail. Now she uses the iPad for recipes and reading books, but still prefers the PC for Facebooking and whatnot. I feel somewhat unjustified kicking her off just so I can play a game. With kids getting older and higher up in the school ranks though, I'm seeing a definite need for a 2nd PC, so maybe this is a problem with an end in sight.

Boudreaux, taking it away is not Draconian in my eyes. If they can't follow your time limits and start sneaking around to play more, that's a natural consequence until they learn how to manage themselves.

I solved that problem by the simple expedient of owning all the hardware in the house, but I do realize that's it's not that easy these days.

And yeah, I can (and have) waxed rhapsodic on my feelings about S/O's and computers.

When my kids get older, and this particular train looms closer to our station, I will open my Parenting Advice scrapbook, and this article will be there.

It contains a good parenting approach, is what I'm trying to say.

Thanks, Momgamer.

EDIT: capitalisation edit.

You could probably just hire momgamer as a full-time nanny to your kids and they'd turn out alright.

I don't know about that. We're a lot more like the Adams Family than the Waltons.

Stele wrote:

You could probably just hire momgamer as a full-time nanny to your kids and they'd turn out alright. ;)

No doubt! Her commute might be a stretch ...

momgamer wrote:

I don't know about that. We're a lot more like the Adams Family than the Waltons. ;)

You're hired! Look how awesome Wednesday turned out!

(Video is NSFW for language)

Stele wrote:

Heard a bit about this last week, maybe a summary on Kotaku. But I was like many others, when I saw there was an open letter about LoL to parents, I naturally assumed it was about teaching your kid respect for others, not to be such a jerk, maybe cleaning up the toxic community, which is probably even worse than the worst XBL stories. But no, instead it's about "leavers" and protecting ranked games. :?

Don't know if it says more about me or the "Intarbuttz" culture that this thought didn't even cross my mind when I heard about a letter addressed to parents from vidjeo game playerz, much less "younger" players. I didn't bother to read said letter, the well had been poisoned (also because I read the PA stuff in lieu of the actual letter). At any rate, my own story about parental "controls":

My brother and I were serious vegetables growing up. Every summer, odds are you'd find one or both of us in the basement, playing the one decent PC in the house and/or N64/Gamecube/PS2 with the TV on. We'd regularly jockey for possession of the PC, such that we had to declare "still playing" if we wanted to use the freaking bathroom, that's how aggressive we were. We were flat out forbidden to have PCs of our own, let alone to have them in our rooms (with Internet), until I was in 10th grade or so. My mom tried everything in her power to get us not to veg out so much and to limit the hogging: time limits, deals that we could game all we wanted if we went outside to play for an hour a day, outright banning the consoles, etc. etc. etc. Problem is, these arrangements were mostly "honor system", and they'd last maybe a month, until we got pissed at mom and decided we didn't care, so back to square one. She couldn't punish us either for violating the agreement without "collateral damage", i.e. - can't take away the console without upsetting the child who's following the rules, or shut down the PC because everyone uses it. One time, when I was in 11th grade (so we had our own computers), my mom tried to shut down the Internet in our house to get us off the computers... until she realized she couldn't access her email (and legitimate school uses for the computer were completely disregarded, of course). It may have been equal parts the vegging out and our behavior during said vegging out, the monopolizing the computer and our my behavior once we were on the computer.

You may recall there was a device marketed to enforce time limits on consoles: enter your code, the timer starts. Biggest problem: the device operated by manipulating the power to the console, which I think everyone here can understand is unwise at every level.

I actually had similar issues when I played online poker during the "boom years" of 2005-06 (yes, I was underage, but it was the free sites), I'd enter a tournament not expecting to do well, and the next thing I know, dinner's ready and I'm 5th in chips, what do I do? My mom's church taught her this annoying maxim: "late obedience is disobedience." Can't tell you how many times I heard that phrase uttered from 7th grade through high school. Of course, I at least can say with hindsight that it was my own damn fault, no one else's. You could even chalk this up to "teenage angst" if you wanted to, the desire for independence versus parental authority/force.

I feel like I'm rambling a little, and others have probably said what I'm trying to say more eloquently, so let me try to wrap up and shut up: I empathize with the plight of the teenage gamer, seeing as I was there. I had a techno-ignorant parent who flat out did not appreciate the concept of "save points" and the finer subtleties of gaming, and frankly didn't seem interested in learning about them, only seemed interested in enforcing the letter of the law. I realize this is an unfair profile of my loving mother, who always did the best that she could, hence I wanted to include the commentary at the beginning as to how this arose: we were freaking zombies, as far as she was concerned, she loathed what video games did to us, and I'll own up to that, doesn't change how I felt back then but it's the truth. I was particularly bad because of my explosive temper, but that's a work in progress. It's a very frustrating, powerless feeling to be told blindly "my house, my rules" and to feel like you aren't being listened to or respected as a person (for whatever definition of "person" a teenager falls under, which I suppose is one of the fundamental sources of "teenage angst"). However, trying to tell parents that you think you know better than them on how to do their job is bratty at best and arrogant at worst.

Disclaimer: I am 27 years old, a "young'un" around these parts. I do not play LoL and have zero desire to. I loathe MOBAs as a whole (except Awesomenauts) precisely because of the cliff-like learning curve and the toxic player bases. The existence of this letter does not change my feelings towards LoL and MOBAs at all. I am not a parent, and I don't plan to be a parent any time soon. I do not claim to know more about parenting than actual parents. Still, I have decided to share my thoughts here in the hopes that they are enlightening in some form, seeing as I'm probably still a kid in some respects and can possibly relate more closely to the feelings that the letter author was experiencing when said letter was drafted. I think this is an issue that transcends gaming, the author is dealing with something with his parents. It just so happened to manifest itself in an open letter on the LoL forums, and that's why we're talking about it.

And it's not a bad thing that we're talking about it.

momgamer wrote:

Boudreaux, taking it away is not Draconian in my eyes. If they can't follow your time limits and start sneaking around to play more, that's a natural consequence until they learn how to manage themselves.

So far it really hasn't been an issue - there's been little or no interference with schoolwork, chores, etc. We've kind of taken the approach that as long as they're managing their responsibilities, their free time is theirs to do with as they wish. It's always worse in the winter because they can't go outside as easily, and the experiences they get playing video games are probably more mentally challenging, stimulating, and exciting than a lot of the other things they could be doing around the house. I sympathize, and there are plenty of times that I'm right there with them. But I also spend a lot of my free time doing the things that adults and parents have to do - keeping an orderly house, preparing meals, doing my taxes, finishing the basement - and when I see them lazing around an entire Sunday playing video games, part of me thinks "that's not right". I just can't decide if I genuinely think they're spending too much time playing video games at the expense of other pursuits, or if I'm just jealous that they still have the freedom to do that which I don't.

Boudreaux wrote:

There is also something vaguely unsettling with the way they will flit from game to game seemingly at random, giving up at the slightest frustration and moving on to something else. We control their Apple accounts, so only we can download apps, and I've been asked to download five different games in an afternoon. When the games are free though, it's hard to come up with a logical reason why I don't want to do that.

This describes the situation with my two oldest kids as well (ages 6 and 9). It's an interesting contrast:

When I was a grade-school-age kid, in the days of the NES, there's no way I ever had more than one new game to play at a time, so any new game that I got my hands on, I played the heck out of.

Now, for my kids, with the rise of free-to-play tablet games, if a given free game is annoying or difficult, there's nothing stopping them from instantly moving on to one of the other 1000 free-to-play games you have at your fingertips. (Other than them pestering me to enter my password to enable the download.)

sometimesdee wrote:

You're hired! Look how awesome Wednesday turned out!

Excellent clip.

Also, I had the same thought as Gremlin:

Gremlin wrote:

There are likely a lot of families that only have one computer (or no computer all all; which is one of the factors driving smartphone adoption).

It's a mistake to make assumptions about other families - it's easy for middle class people to forget just how many people aren't middle class. Heck, I'm surprised by how the front-page GWJers seem to have multiple current-gen consoles, handhelds, smartphones, AND gaming rigs. There's no way I could afford to have all that... and I consider myself quite well off compared to median incomes.

Heck, I'm surprised by how the front-page GWJers seem to have multiple current-gen consoles, handhelds, smartphones, AND gaming rigs. There's no way I could afford to have all that... and I consider myself quite well off compared to median incomes.

This is why I read all the spoilers and mostly just edit other people. It keeps me from having to drop cash for the new gen.

I'm not calling you guys out, but you're making assumptions, too. I'm not even close to "middle class" for my area. Heck, I'm not even middle class for back home in Alaska. (yes, I am severely underpaid, but I took this job because it gave me the flexibility when I needed it for raising my kids on my own). My main consoles are a launch XboxOne and a MGS4-pack PS3, which are both over six years old. I saved for over two years for them, back when they first were announced. Everything else (including my smartphone) are used and I do most of my repair/maintenance my work myself or with the help of a good friend.

Yes, I am aware that not everyone has computers and me living where I am and working in my field skews things. Which is why I did some research about computer penetration rates in the schools and people's homes before I wrote this. Start here. There are programs like this across the country, on top of what the equipment manufacturers are doing.

And just think about it, in order for the kid to be playing LoL at all, there has to be a certain amount of technical capacity in the home.

(edit -- maybe I should try to write an article about being a left-behind gamer? )

momgamer wrote:

(edit -- maybe I should try to write an article about being a left-behind gamer? )

Only if the bad guy in the story drives an inefficient, overpowered machine in a way that makes me want one.

Let me see if I can introduce you to my "boys", Lazarus and Rinzler.