Making the gamers of the future

I'm the (proud, natch) father of an 8-year old daughter, who has spent those 8 (nearly 9) years surrounded by gaming paraphernalia. My wife and I have plenty of baby photos where the backdrop to the gurgling youngster is a stack of Dreamcast games, a PS1 mouse & mat, or assorted wired controllers (before she started crawling - and chewing - obviously). On occasion when she was very small, she would rest, sleeping, on my lap as I played on my Gameboy Advance over her head. And the less said about the time I put her in a bouncy chair and showed her the bullet insanity of Bangai-O on Dreamcast the better.

Her subsequent interest in gaming was unavoidable and, in any event, encouraged by me. Pretty much as soon as she was able to hold a controller and understand the basic concept of 'press button, something moves on TV' she has been gaming. A lot of console software for very young children looks simple in the extreme to an adult but to a 2 or 3-year old, who isn't familiar with gaming conventions such as an action button or collecting objects to further progress through a level, the games act as an introductory course for gaming. The first game my daughter completed, aged 3, was Dora the Explorer: Journey to the Purple Planet, wherein Nick Jr's finest has to return some space-shipwrecked aliens (Inky, Blinky and Clyde, from memory - a nod to retro-gaming mums and dads. Maybe). It is a pretty game, with far better animation than in the TV show but, gaming-wise simplistic in the extreme, being a linear collectathon (training the Rare gamers of the future, perhaps). Between 3-5 my daughter probably completed this game 5 or 6 times, each time quicker (and with less assistance from me) than the last.

Fast forward a few years and my daughter is a gamer in her own right. When we play games now, particularly in co-op, we have the discussions that I would have with an adult co-op partner (with less swearing, admittedly). We are currently co-oping through the superb Dragon Quest IX* on DS and Lego Harry Potter: Years 1-4 on 360 and, particularly with the more complex former, we are discussing tactics as equals, rather than me walking her through something as an adult teaching a child. For example, we might discuss whether a particular sword is better than another on offer, whether a magical might attribute bonus from an item is better for a mage than one giving a magical defence bonus - geek central, basically. In fact, we find that we often discuss tactics outside of the game - in Waitrose, for example - if we're stuck on a boss or wondering where to go in the game world next. As a gaming dad, this is fantastic, though whether my wife thinks this is a good thing when I should be looking for tinned tomatoes is another thing entirely (to be fair, my wife is also a gamer and, if we had a third DS, I'm sure would also be a member of our DQIX party).

This progression, from watching me play, through playing pre-school games, to now being an active gamer in her own right, has been interesting to witness and I think (and hope) that gaming is an interest that will stay with her for many years to come.


*I appreciate that this game is a PEGI '12' but I don't consider that the content is any more mature or scary than in the 'magical girl' anime that my daughter likes to watch on children's TV. So there.