The Daily Grind: MMOs for Newbies?

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The Daily Grind: MMOs for Newbies?

by Michael Zenke Sep 3rd 2008 at 8:00AM

Filed under: MMO industry, Opinion, The Daily Grind, Kids

Wizard101 launched just yesterday, and it's enough to get us thinking about the growing field of youth-oriented MMOs. Despite their intentions, these 'kiddie' games are actually great on a number of levels. Not only do they fulfill the obvious demographic needs (games for young kids, games for teens, games parents can play with their kids) many of them are quality enough to be worth playing by adults.

So we wanted to ask today: what 'kiddie' games are you playing? Do you think the new crop of kid and teen-oriented MMOs is a good thing, or a bad thing? Looking forward to SOE's Free Realms as much as the Massively crew is? And most of all, what MMOs would you suggest for folks looking to get their kids into games?

Tags: club-penguin, featured, free-realms, kid-games, kids, neopets, opinion, tdg, the-daily-grind, wizard101

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

9-03-2008 @ 8:53AM

ryaneford said...

Outside.

9-03-2008 @ 9:07AM

thedge said...

My kids and I really miss Mythos! :( It was a great game and was going to be free to play.

Right now we have been playing castle crashers together. Beyond that I am a little nervous about getting them too involved with mmo's.

9-03-2008 @ 11:21AM

Roma said...

I would never let my kid play an MMO...she's addicted enough to the Ninetndo DS.

9-03-2008 @ 11:42AM

Thunderkor said...

I'm also looking forward to Free Realms. I was in the Wizard101 Beta and played it a little bit with my son. It was nice to play something with him that felt "safe" but was still actually fun to play. Free Realms looks to be much the same way, and I was really impressed by that video preview that was posted a while back.

I understand the concerns about getting a kid addicted to an MMO. My kids get limited, supervised play time, so it's not really a problem for us.

9-03-2008 @ 4:37PM

Bob said...

My daughter is playing GONG! (which apparently stands for goal or no goal). It's an online soccer game that you can find at www.gongonline.com.

While not really an mmo, she does play with other players from around the globe and likes it quite a bit.

As far as the addiction thing goes... I guess it's different b/c this game is more casual and doesn't require the grind sessions that the games I play require (EQ2, AOC, etc...).

Not sure if i'd let her play those types of games just yet. And if I did, there would definitely be a time restriction.

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