If your house is anything like mine, online games for kids have simply taken off in the last year or so. It seems like a rampant spreading disease quickly consuming new users on a daily basis. Granted, I’ve set up two old computers in the game room for the kids and I encourage them to use them, but there is a new business model aimed at young kids – “free” online games that then offer subscriptions or require an initial purchase.
I decided to post what I know after seeing a post after seeing a blog review the top MMOs and seeing some of the numbers and thinking that this information might help out a few parents. From my perspective I think it is very interesting to see these evolving so quickly and it seems like the bigger MMORPGs like LOTRO should be evolving towards this audience and certainly paying attention to this competitor.
First things first, I have 5-8 yr old children. In the last year or so Webkinz seemed to take over our house. Webkinz is a pretty unique model in that you purchase little “pet” animals in toy stores or even airport shops and with the animal comes a unique code – so Benie Baby + a unique web code. Entering that code into the website allows the child an account with an avatar (the “character” they are online) matching their doll. So your child goes out and gets a Webkinz white dog and gets a code to start an account. In Webkinz world, they will be a little white dog. It is a unique hook type model and it is a really a pretty nice concept.
Within the world, the game is geared towards little kids. From what I have seen, all chat is selected from pre-generated lists. A quick comment on this: Obviously when you are online you have to watch what you say and what information you give out, but the second part of the equation is what will the other people online with you do and is it appropriate. To fix this, Webkinz and Club Penguin (which I’ll cover next) allow users to select text from a drop down list of options. So you can say “hi” or “bye” or “dance” etc. Think of it as not much more than a box of smilies that you can have your character say.
That is really the foundation. Within Webkinz, you have a room and can decorate it (I’m pretty sure) and you can visit other people’s rooms or get / send messages. It is honestly a bit weird when “Penguin546″ invites you “to their room”, but all it does it allow you to see their room and they can do anything more than float a smiley face on their little character so whatever fears you might have about going into a strangers room are really handled in a kid safe fashion in my opinion (IMO) even if the initial concept seems a bit odd for anyone older than 10.
The next game is Club Penguin. It is a step up in complexity and freedom. It “feels” much more like a dumbed down town in a classic MMORPG than a kids game. As you enter, you are in town with a number of penguins, say 50 or so standing and moving and occasionally speaking. If you are a parent, I’d encourage you to read the introduction and sign-up sheets pretty closely. There are multiple levels of freedom that you can grant for your child based on age which basically go back to limiting the chat options as I covered earlier.
Once in the game, it is a bit more like a social oriented MMORPG. There are mini-games to earn points and with those you can decorate your room or change your avatar appearance. It is, again, pretty well done. It lacks the high end graphics and it lacks the combat with “classic” MMORPGs but it is a pretty impressive operation. Characters can move from server to server and my kids are often calling friends to coordinate where they will meet up in the world. Really pretty funny. My kids are on the most structured account (for the youngest kids with the same limits on chat to pre-generated only) and I haven’t seen anything close to a PG movie.
The newest site that my son has found is a bit different and really seems like a single player experience: Adventure Quest. This is new in the last 2 weeks or so, so I have less experience. I’ve watched this one and basically it is like a single player game from about 15 years ago except online and free. Think the old battle interface from Might and Magic with less options and you have it. If not think, lightening bolt vs. sword attack vs. arrow attack. It is very simple and there is no chat interface so there is essentially no risk from a parent standpoint. There is “violence” but really not much more than a cartoon and certainly no where close to a PG movie IMO. The site claims to have some multi-player goals (without any chat) but my son hasn’t found that portion of the game as of yet. Basically it ends up being two kids in the game room playing side by side without much interaction in the actual game – more of just doing there own thing and glancing back and forth at what each other are doing. That said, they like it and they are on free accounts.
Those are the big ones that my kids are into. They are fun and have pulled my kids off of the Xbox and online so they are entertaining and IMO they are safe and appropriate if you provide just a little bit of oversight. All in all, I’d recommend looking into Webkinz for girls and littler children. If they like that initial step, then I think these other two are very good places to look for variety.
A quick note on LOTRO and how these stack up. First off, LOTRO is NOT geared for little pre-teen children. I don’t think anyone would say that is. That said, basic gameplay for AAA MMORPG titles is amazingly straightforward and streamlined – so easy a child could do it. So I’ve let my 8 yr old make a character and then I went in and disabled all the chat interfaces and it works nicely and it is pretty kid-friendly IF you know how to turn off chat options and IF you are around and are MMORPG savvy.
For comparison, I think LOTRO is much more violent appearing because the graphics are better. They are still cartoonish say next to the Pirates of Caribbean game on X-Box 360, but they are more realistic than the online games and therefore one step up the maturity ladder. But after that LOTRO is decent kid experience. In reality the gameplay is a little bit more complicated (even at super low levels and that complexity increases greatly as you level up). But that isn’t the biggest detraction. The biggest detraction is 1) the initial costs and requirement of the actual game and 2) the simple fact that computer comfortable parents are few and far between and 3) there are not any parental controls on MMORPG accounts. All of these really make the multi-friend social component of the game fall waaay short of the prior 3 true kid-oriented pieces of software discussed previously.
From my perspective, LOTRO and other mainstream MMORPGs should be aggressively looking at parental controls and sub-accounts if they hope to maintain their current hold on computer games. Great controls would really address two of the three issues above and only leave the initial purchase of software for a far more robust product.
Anyway, if your kids are looking for online entertainment there is plenty of free, really pretty quality stuff available if you look around. If you have two computers where kids can play next to each other – these are huge hits. One computer and it still goes head to head for my children’s time on gaming systems and it wins easily with the girl who has never been interested in gaming systems.
If you have questions, post and I can try to get answers or if you see something incorrect, post so that other people can see good information.
