Welcome to GamerDad: Gaming with Children. My name is Andrew S. Bub - the GamerDad - and I've been writing about videogames, movies, and children for over 15 years now. After working as a magazine journalist, I switched gears to write about how media violence affects children, educating parents about them, and working closely with magazines, newspapers, major retailers and even politicians. GamerDad is an internationally recognized expert in this field. Games, movies and media are fun, kids and families love them, they aren't going away. So join me in cutting through the hype and lets have a real conversation about the things that matter: Video Games, Violent Media, and their supposed effect on children and families.
Welcome to GamerDad: Gaming with Children. My name is Andrew S. Bub - the GamerDad - and I've been writing about videogames, movies, and children for over 15 years now. After working as a magazine journalist, I switched gears to write about how media violence affects children, educating parents about them, and working closely with magazines, newspapers, major retailers and even politicians. GamerDad is an internationally recognized expert in this field. Games, movies and media are fun, kids and families love them, they aren't going away. So join me in cutting through the hype and lets have a real conversation about the things that matter: Video Games, Violent Media, and their supposed effect on children and families.
One Giant Leap
3 Comments
Posted on October 28th, 2007 by
I had the opportunity to visit the Leap Frog company last Monday. If you don’t know what Leap is, or what they make, then I wonder if you’re really a parent. This is the company behind the Leap Pad early reading tools, the Leapster handheld system, and the new Fly pen. Cool stuff. At GamerDad I’ve never covered Leap before for a simple reason: They don’t carry ESRB ratings and frankly, there are enough platforms that we DO cover. Don’t need the extra workload, thanks. But I’m starting to have a change of heart. For one thing, Leapster is my recommendation of choice for the tricky 3-7 age group ill-served by text heavy GBA titles and tricky/challenging Nintendo DS games. Give a kid a Leapster game and the parent is pretty much guaranteed that the child will be able to get started, keep playing, without help. Sounds like lazy parenting, right? Wrong. It’s wonderful for a kid’s self-esteem to be able to pick something up and use it without help. So, that’s why when Leap invited me out to San Francisco for their first “Blogger Day” – I took them up on it. And why not? After all, when I told my kids, they both looked up from their Leapsters and said: “Cool!”
For the Gamer who has everything….
Posted on October 26th, 2007 by
‘Tis the Season of budget killing here soon, and if you’re trying to figure out what to get your gamer that he doesn’t already have, you can try taking a look at this:
A Portal-themed Birthday
Posted on October 23rd, 2007 by
I’m a year older today. No wiser at last check, but older. I’m not THAT old, but let’s just say if I want to keep up appearances I have to start lying about my age next year. We’re a gaming household, and the hotly anticipated Orange Box’s arrival ended up getting woven into the annual string of birthday festivities that launches with mine.
There ARE better trade options than the leeches at GameStop
Posted on October 22nd, 2007 by
By popular demand (or one well placed request) I am turning around my ‘GameStop Blues’ and looking at the available options for getting some value out of those old games you don’t play anymore. Sure, you can bring it back to GameStop for a few dollars – it is quick and convenient. But once you start dealing with more than a couple of games, the ‘loss factor’ starts to figure into the equation. So let’s take a quick look at what is out there …
What’s Going On Here?
Posted on October 22nd, 2007 by
Um… notice anything different? Hint: Look at the URL. Yeah, I changed it. We’re changing focus is the short of it. The long of it? Well, to be blunt it happened because I had quadruple bypass surgery. Prior to that I decided what we oughta do here is reach out to all gamers, try to be cool and maybe even try to turn my career back toward my ultra-hardcore roots (hey, I wrote for Online Gaming Review and freakin’ GamePen back in the day). It just so happened I gave a one hour speech at the Penny Arcade Expo in August called “GameSanity”, and the success of that speech made me think that what I wanted to do was run a blog called “GameSanity” – silly, huh?
Cary Loves Katamari
Posted on October 20th, 2007 by
With the release of the new Katamari Damacy game last week on the Xbox 360, I thought I’d make a little tribute blog to all the games in the Katamari Damacy series. Let’s roll:
Better read that fine print …
Posted on October 20th, 2007 by
Looking forward to the Halloween release of HellGate: London? Me too. But my enthusiasm – already dampened by the business model for multiplayer – took a significant plunge based on something being discussed in various forums that appeared in the EULA for the recent demo: more…
Been Playing: 10-19-07
Posted on October 19th, 2007 by
GamerDad is recuperating from quadruple bypass surgery and he’s using games to do it! Here’s
how he’s coping!
Okay, so yesterday we talked about the Xbox 360 and Nintendo DS. I love all my systems equally – I try not to play favorites (well, except the PlayStation 3, it’s just so big and menacing and … there are no games for it! I want to play with it but I can’t. So I mainly use it for movies.) I’ll have you know that I’m not just recuperating in the privacy of my own basement! Oh no! I’m upstairs too. Find out what’s on my Wii and PS2! more…
Been Playing: 10-18-07
Posted on October 18th, 2007 by
GamerDad is recuperating from quadruple bypass surgery and he’s using games to do it! Here’s how he’s coping!
What a wonderful time to be sick. Seriously, football is on TV, the weather outside is more conducive to leaves and walks than sports and sweat, people are baking a lot, and the Holiday video games start rolling out – like a juggernaut. Normally I’m buried this time of year and while I’m still very busy, with both kids finally in school (7 years of waiting for that) I have time to really sink my teeth into what’s out there. Here goes, on with the teeth sinking! more…
Happy Ongoing Zelda and Orange Box Party!
Posted on October 18th, 2007 by
So did you buy The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass and Valve’s Orange box over the last couple of weeks? I sure did. I pre-ordered in order to make sure that my GameStop would have it in stock and ready to go as soon as possible. I also ordered Orange Box online in time to get the discount and got everything preloaded so it was much shorter until I got to play those excellent games. That isn’t news – what is news is that people are still talking about these games so ‘long’ after release.
