A Parents Guide to Online Gaming, Part 1

The internet touches every aspect of your children's lives. Where you might look up an unknown word in a dictionary, your kids are more likely to use dictionary.com. Where you use the telephone, they use instant messenger. An even greater difference can be found in how they play games. Where the games of their parent's generation may have involved a board, cards, or at their most sophisticated a console system, the games your children play on the net can be far more complex. They mine gold, spread empires, fight dragons and aliens alone or with tens, hundreds, even thousands of their fellow gamers. All of this makes for a confusing mish mash of names, places, jargon and lingo that can leave you with no idea what your kids are actually doing and a vague feeling of uneasiness that some part of it might not be good for them.

What's appropriate for your kids is a decision only you can make. How much violence they are exposed to, how much time they spend in front of a screen and how much contact they have with the faceless strangers so common to the net are all questions you must grapple with and, in the end, decide for your family. While we can't help you make these rough decisions, we can certainly help you get the information you need to understand your children's hobbies better, both to make informed judgments about what they should and should not be doing, and to help you reach into another part of their lives that may have previously seemed like something of a puzzle box.

The Easy Stuff

The simplest type of online game is the sort of Flash or Java driven game that you generally see running inside your web browser. This type of game tends to be relatively simple compared to the stand alone games discussed later. Common examples include Bejeweled, Zuma, and Diner Dash. These games are almost universally single player and have none of the sort of violent or mature content that keeps parents up at night. Were they movies, they would be G Rated, with perhaps the occasional game stretching to PG. If this is the type of game your kids are into then first, be relieved. Then, try the game out. Many of these games can be very enjoyable for even the most casual of players. Some, such as Bookworm, even have genuine educational content. These games can be as much an opportunity for bonding and learning as throwing around a baseball in the backyard, and have the added bonus of being much easier to get your kids to sit down with you and play.

FPSs: Finding Something to Shoot.

FPS stands for First Person Shooter. They are First Person in the same since that a story might be. That is, the player sees the world through the eyes of a single character and interacts with the game environment as though he were that character. Shooter comes from the primary goal of most such games, the shooting of whatever happens to be the bad guy. FPS games are among some of the most popular online. Common examples include Doom, Battlefield:1942, and the X-Box game Halo. From a parental perspective, these games can be cause for concern. They vary widely in the amount of realism, degree of violence, language, and general attitude. The only way to get a good idea of the content issues is to watch the particular game. If your kids don't want you watching while they play, then fire up the game yourself sometime when they aren't around. There is a sizeable variation in how violent and how personal FPS content can be from game to game. The single player portion of Halo, for example, has players fighting against alien invaders with largely energy weapons and a minimum of realistic human suffering. In contrast, WWII themed games tend to go out of their way to show realistic violence. Given the subject matter, this is appropriate for the game, but may not be for your kids. Online play presents a potentially greater concern. The goal of online FPS games is almost always killing other players.

While some games do have various modes where this is a secondary goal, all of them give the player a gun and encourage him to use it on characters representing other people. Simulated gore and the use of violence against others to achieve goals may be things you don't want your kids exposed to. Again, these are your decisions to make, but we encourage you to make them with as much information as possible. Talk to your kids. Find out what they think, in their words, is going on in the game. Make sure they see the line between what happens in the game and what happens in the real world, between what it's okay to simulate and what it's okay to do. The answers may surprise you. If your children understand the differences, see real violence as deplorable and simulated violence as part of the game then FPS games, even online ones, can be a perfectly healthy way to have fun and let off steam. In the end, it falls on you to make sure that what your child gets out of the game is good for him or her.

Next time, we'll talk about RTS and MMORPG, the two other common types of commercial online game and touch on the twin demons of addiction and predation.

Steve is a member of the GrandMatrix team. They provide a broad range of games and puzzle articles and reviews. Read more articles and play the latest PC games for free plus thousands of user submitted puzzles, quizzes and word games at: http://www.grandmatrix.com

---

Sony PSP

The period of the greatest portable console has finally arrived.... Read More

$20 Buys a Lot of Game These Days

Watching the evolution of sports games has been like watching... Read More

A Comparison Of the Next Generation Gaming Consoles (Part 2)

Arguably Microsoft can attribute a great deal of its success... Read More

The Game Tester

It's not easy to be a hardcore gamer. It's hard.... Read More

Why We Play Games, Part 2

Last week we started to get into the motivation of... Read More

Counter Strike, The Beginner of Broad Band PC Gaming

This is the world of 21st century, the century of... Read More

How To Save Time, Energy, and Money by Renting Your DVDs and Games Online

As a bit of a movie buff I recently discovered... Read More

A Parents Guide to Online Gaming, Part 2

In part 1 we talked about online gaming and your... Read More

Theories Behind Magic Trinkets in Video Game and Virtual Reality

In Gaming we deal between Simulation, Augmented Reality, Fantasy and... Read More

Laying Smart Dust With Smart Munitions

We believe that we need to make the Smart Munitions... Read More

Mind Boggling Information About The Popular Bingo Game!

Have you ever considered mind boggling statistics of a BINGO... Read More

Rome Total War: Battle Strategy Guide

A. FormationsIt's pretty much common sense to come up with... Read More

PC Gaming Video: Meeting the Demands

If you have an interest in playing PC games that... Read More

Go Digital and Groovy... and Save Trees!

Have you inherited your Dad's trading card collection - ie.... Read More

SMS Gaming - Text Paging Games that can be Played by Anyone

Using the Physical World as a Game Board: This is... Read More

Increasing Rates of Climb in Fighter Aircraft Like the New Joint force Strike Fighter

We know from studying aircraft like the F-8 Crusader, in... Read More

Blast From The Past - Retro Games Are Hot Again

Miss the brainlessly simple and extremely addictive games from the... Read More

Directional Afterburners for Tighter Turns, Vertical Flight and Agility

Directional Thrusters can increase the maneuverability of just about any... Read More

A Look at the Sony PlayStation 3

At the recent E3 gaming Convention, Sony gave the world... Read More

Rent Games Online for the Kids

It's risky business allowing your children to play games online.... Read More

UAV GeoBat Balloon Radar Decoy Strategies

A GeoBat small UAV might be the perfect platform for... Read More

Computer Traumas

It has happened! Computer games have started to control my... Read More

Guns Dont Kill People - Videogames Do!

"Ban these evil games", "Videogame violence corrupting our nation's youth",... Read More

Another Title by Atari Released on StarForce Protected DVDs

"Atari has selected StarForce to protect their brand-new game called... Read More

Rent Games Online

Renting video games online has exploded in recent months! I... Read More

Popular Electronic Games - They Are Not Just For Kids Anymore

Superheroes battle monsters and space invaders in fast action games.... Read More

Classic Fragfest: Quake III Arena

As graphics technology improves in leaps and bounds for the... Read More

The Future of Submarine Games

In the last six months, the demise of sims has... Read More

7 Simple Steps to Avoid Being a Newbie in Online Games

It doesn't matter if you are new to online roleplaying... Read More

Codename Revolution - Nintendos Next Generation Gaming System

Over the past year or so plenty of hype, mystery... Read More

Securing Your Accounts With Well-Crafted Passwords

In the past I've never really paid much attention to... Read More

Improving Spelling with Games

You got it! You can do just about any type... Read More

Play a Cool Jeep Game Online

If there were anything that could excite a Jeep enthusiast... Read More