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03
Feb

Call for Comments: How Do Games Help You Connect With Others?

Posted by Elizabeth Howard
Being a mom and all,  thoughts of my job and gaming often travel back to how gaming applies in my own life.  We have a few methods of gaming consumption at home and with the recent addition of the Kinect®, the 360 is now beyond just the adults.  Seeing my husband and son play Super Hero Squad® on the Xbox 360 recently I got to thinkin’ – will I see this same scene in 20 years?  Will husband and son play multiplayer games from different homes some day, utilizing voice chat and probably some iteration of Face Time?  Will gaming be a way that we “spend” time together, even over long distances, even when the kids are all grown up? Thinking down this path I realized that the day has probably arrived for some of you out there.  Those of us in our 30′s and 40′s “grew up” on video games.  Being grown ups means we likely have kids, some of them maybe old enough to have flown the nest but still play video games. Are you a cross generational gamer?  Do you use gaming to connect with your children?  What are your favorite games to play with your kids?  Has gaming helped (or hurt) any of your family relationships?

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  • http://korpil.net/ Korpil

    Well, my recently turned 5-year old daughter loves to play games with me, we play a lot of Wii games, mainly the Lego ones, and our favorite is the first Indiana Jones Lego game. Oddly enough, she hasn’t seen the Indy movies and I will probably not let her watch them until she turns at least 6…

    She also plays with my Mac, although the only non-Flash game she’s ever played is Valve’s Portal where she’s able to reach level 14 on her own before having to ask for help.

    I had never thought of this, but it would be cool for me to play games with her for the rest of our lives, the question is, will she accept a game invitation from her father when she’s at college? Or will it be the equivalent of a father trying to kiss an adolescent daughter in front of her friends?

  • Jason Kenney

    My family plays more card games and board games like A Game of Thrones or Arkham Horror.

    Though me and some coworkers had a christmas party and played Mario 3 on the Wii (The Aniversery Ed.)… and for some reason one of them (Jon) pulled out a guitar and we started just going “Mario Luigi Mario Lugi”…

    I made a friend randomly on the T by commenting on tetris.

    I got a first date out of a girl by making a joke : “Mario is the ultimate afrodisiac” (We were at a club watching an anime with some characters trying to score with an afrodisiac).

    My Sega Dreamcast shirt does occasion a random comment. And I made a friend out of a coworker due to the metroid posters in my cubicle.

  • http://www.gameagent.com Russ Looney

    @Korpil: It’s really amazing how well kids are able to pick up and learn various game designs and control schemes. I’ve heard stories from our own executive vp Ted Staloch about how his similarly-aged son will breeze through a level of Cut The Rope (iOS) that has had Ted stumped for days.

    @Jason: Isn’t A Game of Thrones a book series? Also, absolutely love the story of your pick up line. Probably not many people that can pick up a girl with that line!

    As for my own stories, I have no kids of my own, though I have introduced my parents to several different games. My dad fell in love with the Guitar Hero series, and now my mom is constantly attached to her iPhone, playing any assortment of games (though, like many, she’s partial to Words With Friends).

  • jason kenney

    There is a board game and a card game based off the books.

  • Rachel Burger

    Fact: I play WoW with my mom.

  • http://www.gameagent.com BlogLady

    @ Rachel. Do you play in the same house or do you live apart?

  • Rachel Burger

    @BlogLady We live in two entirely different cities, but when we first started playing together I was still in high school and living with her :) .