Playing with your kids makes games less scary

An interesting report released not long ago from the BBFC (British Board of Film Classification) looks at what players (children and adults), parents, and game professionals think about games. (PDF here; summary here) Among the interesting findings (from the summary):

Non-game playing parents are concerned about the amount of time their children, particularly boys, spend playing games and would prefer that they were outside in the fresh air. However, they are more concerned about the ‘stranger-danger’ of internet chat rooms. While the violence in games surprises them and concerns some of them, they are confident that their children are well balanced enough to not be influenced by playing violent games.

Which, of course, suggests why massively multiplayer online games are so potentially troubling for parents.

Coincidentally, I had a conversation just this morning with a parent whose elementary and middle school children are playing World of Warcraft.

She was concerned about the violence, but said she was pleased that they are not “getting into guilds” (which are in some ways a central element of the game) because it meant that they weren’t interacting with strangers online.

But she was comfortable with game overall because she had spent some time playing the game with her kids, and talking with them about it. When she knew that they were playing thoughtfully and reasonably and safely, the otherwise problematic aspects of the game became less of an issue.

As I suggest in How Computer Games Help Children Learn, there’s a lot to be gained from playing games with your kids.

Some other findings from these interviews confirm things that many of us see anecdotally:

children begin playing games at an increasingly early age, but that the overall age of games players is getting older;

female games players tend to prefer ‘strategic life simulation’ games like The Sims and puzzle games and spend less time playing than their male counterparts;

male players favour first ‘person shooter’ and sports games and are much more likely to become deeply absorbed in the play;

games provide a sense of achievement and are active;

games are better at developing action than building character and as such gamers tend to care less about the storyline than making progress in the game;

gamers are aware that violence in games is an issue and younger players find some of the violence upsetting, particularly in games rated for adults, however, most gamers are not seriously concerned about violence in games because they think that the violence on television and in films is more upsetting and more real;

gamers are virtually unanimous in rejecting the suggestion that video games encourage people to be violent in real life or that they have become desensitised because they see no evidence in themselves or their friends who play games that they have become more violent in real life.