Someone asked me recently, “So, is your daughter a gamer?”
It’s a reasonable question. I’ve worked in the video game industry since 1995, and if you’ve ever heard of me it’s because of my eight year stint as Trixie360, community manager, website editor, and video hostess at Xbox.
Eighteen years in the games business, eh? You must be a hardcore gamer!
Nope. I’ve never really considered myself a gamer. I’ve made a career of writing and talking about video games, but I’ve always been more interested in gamers than games. As for playing them? Meh, I can take it or leave it. The last game I played was Panda Jam on Facebook, and I haven’t turned on my Xbox 360 in about 18 months.
As for my youngest child? My nearly-four-year-old, Allison? Is she a gamer? I had to stop and think about it.
She started playing games on my iPad when she was eleven months old. She’ll play on her DS XL until it runs out of battery and then move on to my DS Lite. There’s always a DS charging in this house. Around Christmas time we dusted off the Wii and set it up for her. One Dora Saves the Snow Princess game later she had her first ragequit. Then, about two weeks ago, she was so busy playing Diego’s Dinosaur Rescue that she peed her pants.
I had to admit it. The kid’s a gamer.
In this column I’ll write about what Allison is playing, games and game-related products she enjoys, and my adventures in attempting to raise a gamer that plays fair, stays dry, and doesn’t throw the Wiimote.
She’s cute!
Thank you, Jee! -Trixie
Adorable and I am really looking forward to your column!
Thanks, Doc!
Stay dry, little Allie! Ahh poor kid.. forever the Internets shall remember those words and her.
Luckily she will do so many more awesome things that will most likely fall to the wayside.
I look forward to seeing what you write about Allie’s adventures in gaming!
Grazie mille, bella.
Well this is just an adorably great idea!
Thanks Jax!
Super cute. And love this idea. Can’t wait to read it.
Thanks so much!! <3
On behalf of my pint-size gamer girl: Bring on the game ideas! If you have recommendations for where to find old, used games, too, that would be much appreciated. I find they’re surprisingly overpriced on Ebay.
Oh great idea Angela!
Sounds great; I look forward to reading this column because I have a young one too. So far he mostly watches me play games.
I hope you will cover things such as balance between gaming and the rest of life, discuss/review age appropriate games (I overheard a 8yo describing CoD: BlOps II in a restaurant, I was a little shocked.), etc.
Great feedback, Bryan, thanks! 8 yo playing BlOps is pretty horrifying…but then again I (accidentally) let my son watch Jaws when he was 3.
I’m definitely planning a ‘screentime’ column in the near future. Thanks for reading!
Great idea for a column. Keep it comming.
Thanks, Tim!