AC Podiatry
With restrictions easing around Covid-19 and the Coronavirus, we are finding ourselves moving slowly back into our old lives. In my home state of South Australia, we are looking at cinemas and gyms being open, restaurants and pubs open to patrons, beauty salons providing services to get people ready for their much-anticipated trip out to have the traditional date of dinner and a movie, and sporting clubs preparing for the commencement of the competitive season. All of this being greeted with much fanfare by the far majority of people I know. There is, however, one person that isn’t so enthused and it is my son, Master 13.
Why I hear you ask? Well Master 13 is a gamer. So, what exactly do I mean when I call me son a gamer? In the past a gamer has been described as a person who enjoys playing games (and was once extended to people who play board games as well as video games). However, in this modern age it has become a little more nuanced than just saying a gamer is someone who plays games.
Newzoo, a company for games market analysis, have done some research and have begun segmenting gamers into 6 distinct groups. The list of these different gamers and a summary of what it means can be found here. They have gone one step further and have actually developed a quiz which will help you to determine which of the 6 types of gamer you or your child is. If interested you can find the quiz by following this link.
From a personal perspective I would strongly encourage you and your child to take the quiz. For me I believe that it provides a basis for understanding where my child sits on the gaming spectrum and how important gaming actually is to them. For example, is your child a “Pop-corn Gamer” where they would rather spend their time watching other people play games via YouTube or streaming mediums such as Twitch rather than actually play, or are they, like my son, “The Ultimate Gamer”, where they basically live, breathe, sleep and eat gaming. I personally found the exercise really eye opening and it is my belief that this understanding will make it easier for us, as parents, to communicate with our kids around what can be quite a vexing topic. And for you mums and dads out there who are married to gamer dads or gamer girls, I reckon this would be very helpful for you as well, especially if you aren’t into gaming yourself, to better understand your other (better?) half.
So as an “Ultimate Gamer”, and someone who spends a significant portion of his free time playing games, the Covid-19 restrictions were a god send. No football training, no visiting or socialising, no unnecessary shopping (and let’s be honest, how many 13 year old boys enjoy shopping), in effect, outside of school work, piano lesson via Zoom, and chores, he had no other real commitments, which meant increased amounts of time to play games, stream, and socialise with his online community. And therein lied the catch. Being socially isolated from peer groups due to restrictions, his main social outlet (outside family) had become chatting and playing with friends online. And whilst I have no doubt that this definitely helped protect his mental health during the more intense periods of the restrictions, it also had the effect of drawing him into gaming in a very big way, almost to the exclusion of family let alone other elements of his “Pre-Covid” existence.
During the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, he had started to play games competitively, established an account from which he streams (provides for other people to watch him play) with a view to begin deriving an income (very entrepreneurial), and through these means had really grown his online friendship group. In effect, Master 13 was in his element!!
With these developments however, comes an expectation that you will be available and online on a regular basis, whether to play competitively (as many online games require groups to play together) or stream (generally speaking the more content you create and the more often you are online the greater your following and audience). Something which is not too difficult in the midst of a Pandemic.
Fast forward to now, with the loosening of restrictions, and all of his previous commitments have returned. He now has to travel to and from school, go to football training, restart his job at the football club, visit friends and family and, worst of all, go shopping among. And with these rapid changes he has struggled somewhat with the return to “normality”. Speaking with other gamers and streamers around the world on social media and the parents I know of gamer kids, this is not an uncommon scenario. One analogy that was put to me and I really liked was
“The ending of restrictions for gaming kids is like most of returning from a relaxing tropical holiday. We know what we have to do, but we’d rather be back on that tropical island”.
So, to that end, if your child is anything like my Master 13, be patient. Keep the communication lines open and maybe cut them a little slack. Try and phase them back into normality and out of that intense gaming slowly. For any of us coming back to reality after an extended break of enjoying ourselves it can be difficult. These kids are no different. Keep that in mind the next time you need to talk with them about their “Post-Covid” gaming. You might be surprised with how the conversation turns out!
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