Parenting is good!

Welcome to buttonmashing.com, a weblog were we talk about video games. If you're new here or you arrived from a Google search, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed and keep up with our site. While you're visiting, why not visit My MiniCity, Joystickland! Thanks for visiting! You can reach the homepage here.

I should start a running tally of bad vs. good portrayals of gaming in the media. Sure, the ratio would be 20 to 1 but it sure seems like the good ones are really good ones. The latest to go on the “Good Pile” is from the Washington Post, by Sebastian Mallaby, titled, “My son and I, Game to Learn.” (hat tip to BM reader Bobster).

The article starts off with everything we’ve heard before - studies can’t prove a link between violence and video games (even though they’re trying their darndest!) and all the benefits of playing games - better problem solving, you know the drill. But there’s more to it than that. It gets good when he starts talking about his son’s passion for RuneScape. I’ve never played RuneScape, but after reading this article, I’m intrigued. A little clip:

But the game’s main attraction lies in its business challenge. My son has been buying logs, making longbows and selling them at a profit; he says the margins in the bow business fluctuate around 10 percent. Lately he’s moved into buying magic herbs in bulk and retailing them individually. This is a dicier business, but the risk is balanced by reward. Herb-trading margins can be 100 percent or fatter.

Sounds fun. As a big fan of crafting, this sounds right up my alley. But the article is more than just the fluctuating markets of RuneScape. It’s about history and Age of Empires 3 and medicine and America’s Army.

All this coming from a confessed non-gamer. Keep the good publicity rolling!

Update: Joystiq has linked buttonmashing.com with this story. Thanks! Even with the wonky feed issue, I still dig the Joystiq crew.

December 27, 2005 | Tony | Filed Under Video Games 

Comments

One Response to “Parenting is good!”

  1. Bobster on December 27th, 2005 7:31 pm

    I love reading articles about the good effects of kids playing video games but I can’t help but feel like they are spitting into the wind.

    Nether the less. Spit on fellow gamer’s, spit on!!

Leave a Reply




Bad Behavior has blocked 2273 access attempts in the last 7 days.