Online game helps family bond but brings out undesirable traits in children

Online game helps family bond but brings out undesirable traits in children

SINGAPORE - Online game Growtopia helped my family to bond but then my child started to display undesirable traits.

My family stripped naked for a family photo recently. It was a rare moment of impulse and we did it for fun.

All four of us - me, my wife, our 17-year-old son Daniel and nine-year-old daughter Deborah - took off our clothes for a photo.

Thankfully, our act of abandonment happened in the online game Growtopia, not real life. It was our characters in the online game that stripped naked, not us.

Growtopia is a quirky online game where players grow and trade items to build worlds.

The game does not have a clear goal, except the competition to build a world that is so attractive that it draws the most visitors in a day to be crowned "world of the day".

Played mostly on smartphones and tablets, it has graphics that are hilariously cartoonish, appealing primarily to players under the age of 12.

Growtopia was launched two years ago. My daughter started playing it last year after her friends in school introduced her to it.

After she started playing, she coaxed the family to join her.

"It is very fun, trust me," she said.

Daniel was the first to join his sister, after completing his O-level exams last December.

I yielded partly to get Deborah off my back, but ended up playing the game with her during weekends. We even created our own world called "DadAndDeb".

My wife was the last to join the game last month. "Now the whole family is complete," Deborah remarked.

The game mirrors real life. All characters start the game naked and have to collect items. Clothes are obviously the first priority.

And how we dressed reflected our personalities. I wore a simple brown shirt and red shorts, my wife a cheerful purple dress, my son a silly rooster hat and my daughter's clothes were completely mismatched.

After getting clothes, we each built a house and started exploring other worlds. We also traded items with other players online - extra clothes for seeds in order to grow new things.

The game bonded my family. We laughed over silly moments like the naked family photo.

When Daniel and I were in Bangkok for a short holiday last month, we even logged in and played the game as a family. It did not matter that we were in two different countries.

But the game is not all harmless fun. There were plenty of scams going on.

Deborah told me as soon as I came home one day in December that she had been cheated. Someone had tricked her into handing over her possessions on the pretext of wanting to see what she had to trade and she was left with nothing when the person bolted with her items without honouring the trade.

I felt sorry for her.

"There are dishonest people everywhere," I said, hoping that she would learn something from the encounter.

The scams are so common that the game moderators warn players about them through broadcast messages.

I also grounded Deborah three times by restricting her game time.

The first instance was when she wanted to deceive other players into thinking that she was a new player - a "noob" - by stripping away her clothes to look like one and asking for donations. "It is dishonest," I said. "You are behaving like a beggar!"

The second time was when she played the game without adult supervision after coming home from school and started talking to strangers online.

Someone apparently asked her whether she watched pornography. Thankfully my sharp-eyed maid saw what happened and took the iPad away from Deborah.

We wanted to warn the game moderators about the sexual predator, but Deborah could not remember the player's identity. Still, we were freaked out by the thought of perverts lurking in the shadows.

And the final straw was when we saw the impact the game had on Deborah. She started wanting more and more items, almost lusting after what other players had.

"My friend has a pink car," she said.

She would throw her homework aside and stay glued to her iPad when she came back from school. Like an addict.

It was then that we decided enough was enough and restricted her playing hours to no more than a couple of hours during weekends.

We play the game less now and we don't miss it.

Online games such as Growtopia are not all that bad. These games are good for family bonding.

And above all, parents need to supervise their children, not just to protect them from online perverts, but also to stop them when they do not know how to stop by themselves.

tohyc@sph.com.sg


This article was first published on Feb 08 2015.
Get a copy of The Straits Times or go to straitstimes.com for more stories.

This website is best viewed using the latest versions of web browsers.