[waxpancake]

Hi, I wrote the article! Thanks for your commentary, snidely passing judgement on me and my family. Much appreciated.

The article was intended to be a little provocative, more than a little tongue-in-cheek, but suffice it to say, I never would've continued playing videogames with him if he didn't show interest.

He was nothing less than absurdly enthusiastic about it, and it was a way for us to kill time together, but I never pushed games on him for a moment. Eliot, like many of his friends, loves the creativity and collaboration that comes with the medium of games, and the social aspects of playing them with his friends and family.

He's turning 13 this week, and has taken classes on making games himself in GameMaker, and is now modding the games that he loves. I'm happy he's found a hobby he loves, and I'm proud of him.

[jawon]

You're right. Expressing my disagreement did not have to be so over the top. Or even expressed. Apologies for internet assholism.

[randlet]

I had a similarly negative view about your article and "passed judgment on you" for making the choices you made for your kid. In particular I have a very negative view about e.g. 6 year olds using guns to kill enemies in video games. If the article was about what I would consider to be more constructive video games I probably wouldn't have given it a second thought (eh I probably would still judge but not so negatively!). Did you ever worry about a game like Contra having a negative effect on Eliot? Thanks for chiming in :)

[waxpancake]

Have you played Contra? The weapons are about as realistic as Mega Man's.

It looks more like using bubbles to pop an endless stream of bad guys, Bubble Bobble-style.

https://media.giphy.com/media/DpXqHdILXRRDi/giphy.gif

So, no, I never worried about anything in an NES game having a negative effect on him.