Hi Pixelkiners! We’ve all heard the lazy gamer stereotype. And some of us live the lazy gamer stereotype. But it doesn’t have to be that way! The International eSports Federation is collaborating with the International Association of Athletics Federations (bleh!) to encourage fitness for gamers, saying that competitive gaming has a lot in common with athletic sports. Cool!
Google is helping parents find the best apps for their kids, by introducing a program called “Designed for Families.” Developers who submit to the Android Marketplace can opt in to give their games the family-friendly gold star. One of the cool requirements these games have to meet is that if they have ads, they all have to comply with legal standards for advertising to children—and no deceptive pop-ups allowed.
Minecraft players rejoice, as the extremely popular sandbox game now has its first official female character. Named Alex, she joins Minecraft Steve as a playable avatar in the game. As of Wednesday, Xbox, PlayStation, and PC Minecraft players can download Alex for free.
What do you think kids are learning when they look up game walkthroughs? It might surprise you, but finding walkthroughs can actually hone research skills. You’re identifying a problem and figuring out what tools you need to solve it. Find out more about the learning benefits of game walkthroughs in Keezy Young’s article about how walkthroughs aren’t cheating—quite the opposite.
A couple weeks ago I told you about our event at the EMP Museum in Seattle. Well, now you can see it for yourself, on YouTube! Power Up was an event that gave kids a chance to get hands-on with Roblox and hear advice from working game developers. Stay tuned for full videos of both of our panels on game design.
That’s all for now! We’ll see you next week, and to make things easy on you, subscribe to this channel right now so you can stay up to date on all your family gaming news.
