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Avoiding the Video Game Time Wasters (Part 1)

“My child spends too much time on the computer!”

“I wish video games weren’t so addicting for my kids!”

“My kids are texting instead of practicing piano!”

I’m sure every parent has thought at least some variation of these battle cries, and likely has uttered them in frustrated moments.  We live in a technology-saturated world, where it has become literally impossible to read every worthy e-book, watch every poignant movie, or play every worthwhile video game in a lifetime, much less in one’s free time.

This creates quite the parenting dilemma.  It is easy to become paranoid that far stricter parents are making their children learn more and do more than our children, such that they will compete more favorably for seats at university and for jobs, but children can’t spend all their time studying.  They need some leisure time to be emotionally healthy.  But how should that time be broken up?  In my generation, the TV was my babysitter for the most part.  For today’s youth, it is largely video gaming.

This is not all bad.  Video gaming is a more active process than watching movies. Unfortunately, there are so many video game choices out there that there is a competition amongst game developers to attract and keep players, and this competition often forces companies to sacrifice the well-being of their users in favor of their bottom lines.  Many of these sacrifices generally can be rolled up into one major category:  Time Wasters.

Some might say that all video games fall under the category of Time Wasters, and that may be true of many.  However, I would suggest that there are three major divisions of Time Wasters that are insidious for children.  While these are usually cleverly hidden inside of an otherwise acceptable game, they are easy to spot when you know what you’re looking for:

o    Time Waster #1:  Skill-less repetitive tasks
o    Time Waster #2:  Gambling
o    Time Waster #3:  Part-time jobs

The common thread between these three Time Wasters is that they do not have any intrinsic value, and do not serve any altruistic purpose.  Allow me to use some examples to illustrate what these entail.  In deference to my fellow developers I won’t use any names or titles, although most savvy gamers will recognize them immediately.

Time Waster #1:  Skill-less time-intensive tasks
There are many games that people might debate as being skill-less.  “How does playing on a fake plastic guitar do you any good?”  Certainly playing a plastic instrument does not translate directly to playing a real instrument.  But I would argue that it does develop a skill, improving rhythm at the very least, and many of the upcoming generation will likely cite these games as a reason they got interested in learning how to play music for real.  In moderation, even many twitchy arcade-style games can be a boon to cognitive development and eye-hand coordination.

What I mean by skill-less time-intensive tasks are the games/tasks that are inflated in time for no other reason than to use more time, and have absolutely no real-world benefit.  There is a suite of very popular “games” on a major social network that perfectly embodies this concept.  It is very difficult to explain why it is necessary to click to water crops individually on a farm when no actual farmer does it this way (many homes have timed sprinkler systems to avoid even having to think about watering their lawns), but millions of people do it.

There is no skill to this kind of virtual plant care, nor do any of the lessons in the game actually carry over to real life except the knowledge that plants grow when they’re planted and watered.  I might suggest that it’s just only slightly harder to learn that particular lesson by actually growing a plant, and possibly even less time intensive than nurturing a virtual farm.

I can see exactly why the developers of these games create these kinds of tasks.  The more time you put into a game, the more invested you are into finishing it and the more likely you are to open your wallet to purchase something that will speed the process, although in many cases there IS no end.  It makes perfect economic sense despite its questionable morality.  The true end is the one honest feeling that people have after they finally quit these games: regret over lost time.

Time Waster #2:  Meaningless gambling
One feature that makes me sad when visiting kids virtual worlds in particular is gambling halls.  I don’t personally have anything against gambling for adults, but I vehemently oppose gambling for children.  I don’t mean playing poker with one’s family for beans or pennies, but specifically gambling with currency or goods on the line, whether real or virtual.

Part of this relates to Time Waster #1, where such activities are at best a waste of time.  I recently purchased downloadable content for a popular role playing game, and was quite disappointed to find that after several hours of slot machines and card games, it was over with just a single (albeit cool) prize to show for it.  The only reason I managed to come out of it so quickly is that I could save and load my game at will, such that I just bet the maximum amount every time and reloaded whenever it didn’t go my way.  In a persistent virtual world and in the real world, that is not possible.

During my last trip to Las Vegas, I was amazed that I could see someone playing the slots when I went to lunch, and after filling up on mounds of food, I’d come out to find the same person slinging the machine arm, albeit with fewer coins in the bucket.  Again, I don’t have an issue with adults spending their time this way, but for children, that amount of time doing something that has a good chance of sending you home with less than you started with is not a good proposition.  Understanding the contradiction between “There’s no such thing as something for nothing” amidst the glitter of lottery winners and high rollers is difficult and takes maturity.

To be fair, I learned never to gamble in real life by indulging in non-persistent gambling games as a child, and proved very quickly that my bad luck far outweighs any skill I might have.  But for every child like me, there is another who will end up wasting significant time and money in the future because real gambling was introduced before he/she was able to make a rational decision about it.  There’s a reason why real gambling requires you to be over 18 in the United States!

Time Waster #3:  Part-time jobs
The particular member of the suite of games I mentioned in Time Waster #1 also embodies what I mean by part-time jobs.  In most jobs, there is a time that you to arrive and a time that you are able to leave.  If you don’t abide by those rules, there are penalties, including the possibility of being fired.  My humble opinion is that no game should be like that.  I have no problem with having a scheduled event or game that people can attend virtually, but there should never be a penalty attached to prioritizing your life over those things.

This is a much worse phenomenon for kids, because virtual things are much more vivid and real to them than they are to us adults.  I have seen children cry over the death of a virtual pet, who had been lost and neglected in the couch cushions for several months.  I have heard kids talk about role-playing game characters as if they were literally best friends.  By putting a scheduled time restraint on kids with threat of penalty (ie. your crops will die if you don’t water them today), it stops becoming a game and in a way enslaves them to face the same threat of penalties that a part-time job would entail, but without any actual benefit to go along with it.

It is extremely difficult to create a virtual world that can compete for the attention of kids in this media-saturated world without employing the common methods to attract and addict children, but as the CTO and lead developer of Woogi World from the start, I believe it is not only possible to do it right, but that we are leading the charge for the right reasons.  We are not content in being a babysitter; we strive to do every user good for every moment they are online with us.  In part 2 of this blog article, I will illustrate the design principles we’ve employed in making Woogi World the safest and best virtual world out there for kids, and we hope those principles will help you make more informed evaluations of the games your kids play outside of it.

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Jonathan Chan is the Chief Technical Officer of Woogi Inc, creator of Woogi World. Image Credit: Sean Dreilinger and Clover_1 via Flickr.

Categories: Balance, Parenting

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