Are you a parent?, Just a lengthy idea that I came up with a couple days ago

Those of us that have kids are truly blessed. Those children that have us for parents are also equally blessed for having parents that are not against video games. I remember as a child wishing that my father would understand my intricacies with mario, zelda, and samus. There are so many video game magazines out there that we all subscribe to, have added to our favorites and more. We seasoned gamers have so much of an edge on our children that its a miracle and I wish that my parents had taken to this level of understanding back when I was a child.

This article is not really about us seasoned gamers. This is about the teeming masses, the 9-5ers that dont have the time, or the interest in the games that we do. The parents that focus on their world and just want to get their child whatever they want then move on with their life only to discover that their child has burned down a building, raped a woman in a back seat of a car then murdered her and recovered their financial deposit. Following this discovery, the parent usually returns the game, rips the sales clerk a new one, and storms out of the store without a refund which if they had made an informed decision to begin with would not have even occurred.

The two businesses that Ive worked that Ive had the most fun in are the video game industry, and book stores. Those of you that have read my fanfiction (fall from glory) know that I do have a bit of an imagination once given set boundaries and ideas to feed off of. The following are ideas that Im tossing around and will probably be intialized with an msn community/group since I lack any serious computer knowledge regarding web pages and dont have the finances for a full blown website.

This thought hit me when I was at a local barnes and nobles bookstore and browsing to see what there was out recently. I witnessed a child grabbing a copy of oxm and pointed out a game that he wanted to his parent, the parent did the typical open the magazine, scan the pictures, then put the magazine back. I dont know how long the child had been pushing for the game, nor do I know anything other than the complete dismissal look which a lot of us recieved from our parents or guardians growing up. I feel that the christmas issue really isnt doing parents any justice either since its only once a year. Annabeth and myself were also watching x-play on g4 and today there was an episode regarding childrens games. During my time at gamestop and eb games Ive also noticed that most parents dont even know in sum what the ESRB is or what the ratings even mean.

What Id like to do is to walk you through what Im thinking right now. For starters, my job at gamestop allows me to "rent" new release games a week before they are released to the public for a 24 hour timespan. Granted we only have a 360, an xbox, and a gamecube. This does however, allow me to cover the 360 releases which as we all know right now is the hot system to have and will more than likely be the system that most of the children these days will have.

I do know that Ive got the drive to be able to do something like this when I decide to dig my heels in. My first major project that I did was with mirc scripting and msn chat a few years back. I started out with a mere thought of being fed up with programs that did not work in their entirety and decided to take things into my own hands. Within 3 years, I went from an idiot that knew less than nothing to one of the top 20 programmers in that field for msn chat in the roleplay section.

I feel that even though the video game magazines do keep the gamer informed, they do nothing to promote the parents to be able to step in and take part. Talk of cell chips, blu-ray players, mmorpgs, rpgs, fpss, and digital and analog controllers to the world at large summarize themselves as alphabet soup.

I dont have a name for this project, and havent as yet started it. Im figuring on starting out with a website for about a year, submit the website to a few major magazines, then eventually push off to a subscription based format. Im wanting to do this not only for the money that comes with a business (no mistake made, Im a greedy sob) but also the positive feedback that would be sent to the gaming community in general.

My idea for this would consist of a name that would attract a parent of a gamer rather than a gamer (quite the conundrum) along with a non game related photo at the start (possibly chosen from pictures sent in by subscribers) followed by the usual message from the editor (myself) that would explain the purpose and intent of the magazine. Which would vary month to month based off of whats going on in the industry and families or whatever the topic of discussion might be at the time. Next up would of course be letters in pictures, experiences and more. From here I would move on to what I would feel would be most unique to the magazine itself. Family photos of gamers with their children doing what they do best (spend time together, live normal lives with gaming being a part of the family) and any new additions to their own family.

Next would be the game reviews which I feel are crucial. Rather than going into the technical speak, Id focus more on the content of the game, storyline but rather than the focus being on a gamers point of view, Id give out the facts on the content as the parents need to be concerned about examples being gore, types of violence etc. Every month Id give a family friendly award to the game of the month, and also give reccomendations on the age group for the game. The trick is to put enough details in to tell the parents what they should be aware of the game but not too much that the parent starts to lose interest in the article given the average adults attention span with life, this is going to prove to be the most tricky part of the scenario.

After the reviews, there would be information on websites that have chosen to submit their links as a family based gaming site (sg, 2old2play, geezer gamers, corporate websites and the like) along with links to the esrb and whatever else I can turn up from time to time.

I think that the reviews should be broken up (not in genre) but in age specific groups example 5-10 yrs of age, 10-15 15-20 etc. Most parents I feel dont know the difference between the fps shooter style of halo 2 and the ots view of ghost recon. The age specific format would also allow for quick browsing for the parents to quickly get a glimpse of what their children are for lack of a better phrase, eligible to play. Please note that I wouldnt be TELLING parents what they should be buying for their children. The words and phrases "I feel, I believe, It is my understanding, It is the opinion It is reccomended" would be liberally applied. Granted, thats not to say that it would never be taken out of context and as always you can please some of the people some of the time, but not all of the people all of the time.

Im thinking of starting out on an msn community, and from there get about six months to a year of reviews and thoughts posted, after which dropping a few thoughts to online and monthly established publications to see if theres enough demand to keep pushing to an eventual subscription. Its a grass roots campaign if I start it off, but I was curious as to what sgers thought on this idea or would like to see from something like this or if you thought that it was just a pipedream.

Right now, no action on this has been taken in any direction. This is nothing more than an idea that spawned in my brain during a shopping trip. If I were to do this, it would be a hobby. But I feel that if it were to take off, it would be something that in my opinion would be quite literally a worthwhile cause.

Any feedback/suggestions/input/advice would be appreciated.