I grew up hearing all the talking heads (media), religious groups and parents strongly criticizing video games. You’ve, probably, heard some of this. For example, video games involving any type of violence causing people to become more violent, etc. As far as I know, the academic community has failed to produce any negative relationship between video games and real life.
At the age of 8 my son began playing Elden Ring with me. We were both new to Souls-like games. I, quickly, became disheartened by the difficulty of Elden Ring and stopped playing altogether. On the other hand, my son continued to play Elden Ring. He had several meltdowns, over the next two years, trying so desperately to advance in this game. One of his most recent meltdowns was so traumatic for him, that he smashed the PS5 controller into our brand new TV screen which caused a square inch of it to be irreparably damaged. He was punished severely for doing this.
Two weeks later, he continued his quest to overcome Elden Ring. I remember hearing him say to himself, his mother and brother “I am not going to give up until I beat this game”.
Three weeks, and many more meltdowns later, my 10 year old son beat Elden Ring. I remember hearing him scream “YES! YES! FINALLY!”.
I ran into the room and found him sobbing with tears of joy. I hugged and congratulated him. I ran outside to tell his older brother and he ran in to congratulate him. His mother was overjoyed with his accomplishment.
For someone so young to persevere, spending over 300 hours, trying to overcome a tough game like Elden Ring is a huge accomplishment.
I am so proud of my son to have learned such a valuable lesson, on his own, at such a young age.
Ouch… I am happy you were able to share such a defining moment of happiness with your kiddo.
this game. One of his most recent meltdowns
I try to help my kids understand it’s a game for fun. If you’re no longer having fun, you stop playing.
I’ve expressed this many many times to him over the years. I’ve said something like “I want to play games to have fun. If the game isn’t fun for me, then I will not play it anymore”.
I believe that he understands this. However, he just wanted so much to understand Elden Ring and beat it.
Personally, Elden Ring is NOT fun to play and that’s why I don’t play it.
I’m just astounded that my 8-10 year old son persevered so much to beat it.
Elden Ring and Dark Souls games are not fun to play per se, but it’s very rewarding due to the difficulty and skill required. That sense of accomplishment is why a lot of people play, even if it’s not explicitly fun to keep dying and restarting. Not everyone’s cup of tea for sure but many good lessons and skills to be learned playing it
I’m in my 30s. I’m gradually getting calmer. But seriously, if a game doesn’t induce the urge to throw objects around the room from time to time, it probably won’t make my list of favourites.
He chooses to beat Elden Ring in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of his energies and skills, because that challenge is one that he is willing to accept, one he is unwilling to postpone, and one he intends to win, and the others, too.
Lmao! We definitely need AI JFK to read this now
“It’s okay to fail” seems like it would have been a more valuable life lesson than “it feels good to beat a really hard video game” and it concerns me that you’re so okay with the amount of trauma this entertainment product caused him.
The fact that you’re sharing this story of years of repeated meltdowns caused by a video game and calling it an example of games being beneficial is pretty surreal.
You have made a mountain out of a molehill. Neither of my two sons have ever experienced trauma.
Go through and read the other comments in this thread. Has anyone else raised alarm bells? The answer is no.
Please, don’t make accusations here at Beehaw. It isn’t nice.
These are your words, quoted from your post:
One of his most recent meltdowns was so traumatic for him,
‘Traumatic’ just means emotionally distressing. He was disappointed. He wasn’t harmed.
My point is that I described the same distress you’re describing using the same terminology you did. I didn’t accuse you of anything, I just strongly disagreed with your takeaway that this story describes something positive.
I’m glad you can recognize how important this is to a kid. So many wow raiders in the 00s were ostracized by society for being this dedicated to a team of other humans and a shared goal. It really is something we need to learn to embrace and harness. I love the unique emotional responses that video games are capable of eliciting in people that movies and tv never could.
WOW is proof that human beings are biologically programmed to work together to achieve goals. It’s a shame capitalism suppresses this desire in people and forces them to only let it out in games. Imagine if we had a society where people’s work was properly valued, where they could self organise to accomplish great things.
In theory, capitalism is supposed to create exactly that environment. The problem is we have a society that doesn’t believe in proper regulation to prioritize the wellbeing of the society over that of the achievements and desires of individuals.
So much like how modern WoW has transformed into this uninteresting, solved meta that requires weakauras to do your thinking, gold buying to have gear and reagents, and no interesting competition for loot, our society is now an uninteresting solved meta where the wealthy nullify any possibility of competition, everyone is employed as wageslaves with a corporate handbook doing their thinking for them, and there’s no safety net to allow anyone take a chance at working together on interesting projects to actually compete.
The problem isn’t that we have capitalism, it’s that capitalism is synonymous with patriotism.
It sounds like you don’t want capitalism. It sounds like you want market anarchism. Look up mutualism some time.
Seems orthogonal. I don’t care how regulation is accomplished, just that it is. I feel like the tax levels and safety nets we had in place ~70 years ago were fine, until red scare propaganda convinced everyone to vote against their own interests.
Also I feel a bit like you’ve hijacked this discussion about the importance of video games in child development.
I agree so much. Compared to the highs and lows of a good game, TV series and movies feel like background noise at times.
Boop beep I got delete. .
Honestly beating that game at such a young age shows a lot of problem solving capability. However getting angry at games is a habit you want to nip in the butt asap.
Getting angry isn’t the problem. It’s how you deal with it. Smashing your game system and or TV ain’t the best way to go about it.
That’s incredible. Your son has far, far, more patience than I ever did. I still haven’t managed to clock most of the games I grew up with, such as Dangerous Dave, Prince of Persia 1 & 2, Wolf3D, Doom 1 & 2, Crystal Caves, Aladdin, Lion King, Jazz Jackrabbit, Mario (NES), Pokemon Red (GBA), Crash Bandicoot (PS1)…
Every now and then I try to clock one of those old games, but then I get stuck and/or lose interest, and move on to something else. Even among recent games, I spent over 400 hours playing BotW and only managed to do two of the divine beasts. I also have over 200 hours in TotK and still haven’t gotten to the first major spirit quest. Similarly, got several hundreds of hours in Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim, but never actually completed any of those games.
I think the only game that I recall beating would be the Bio Menace trilogy - which I finally managed to complete as an adult, and that too thanks to DOSBox’s save states. Oh, and Diablo II too, it someone had the perfect mix of action + story + game length, to keep me interested till the end.
Honestly I’ve no idea how people manage to stick to one thing for so long and see it thru till the end, without losing interest or getting distracted by something else.
Next up he could learn to ask for help. I bet Let Me Solo Her is still out there
Unfortunately, Let Me Solo Her has retired