Yesterday, Kotaku ran a post about a mom in Orange County, California who doesn't want video games in her home. She doesn't think games would enrich her kids' lives.

I asked parents to weigh in in our comments section. If you have kids, what do you want, think or hope they get out of games?

Here are some of the responses.

This comment was from a parent of a child who is learning from games ranging from Lego Star Wars to the M-rated Modern Warfare:

I have a 4yo, he's been playing xbox since 3 and wii since 3 1/2. first we were amazed at his ability to use the controller, it taught him some colors and the associated letters. then we were surprized at his ability to associate controls to the display to solve puzzles in lego starwars/batman/jones. Now he is intently learning to read to play games with stories, also he has learned to lengthen his attention span knowing he cant skip the mission briefings, he's also learned teamwork and humility when playing with a 6yo, who is not so willing to work together and share. He stays at his grandpas on sundays where he has been playing MW2 [Modern Warfare 2], he killed 6 guys in a round last sunday. Now he started playing the H3 [Halo 3] campaign and is moving right along. if he asks for help we make it a puzzle or a math problem or a spelling bee for him to move on to the next mission. oh and hes also learning how to use various maps. He wants to be an astronaut like the master chief. Hell Ya!

This one (quoted only partially here) was from another parent of a four-year old, whose gaming has apparently taught him some ideas about physics and morals:

We discussed the nature of bravery and cowardice while witnessing the interaction between Amaterasu and Susano in Okami.

We have discussed the nature of good, evil, power and greed while explaining how Anakin Skywalker is both a good guy and a bad guy in Lego Star Wars The Complete Saga.

I watched him discover that not all in the world is as it seems (and I emphasized the fact through conversation) after he discovered his first invisible block in Super Mario Bros.

This comment (quoted only partially here) has a parent extolling the virtues of reading via video games:

My youngest boy has been struggling with dyslexia his entire educational life. Playing games where (like the above father mentioned) there are complex menus and a requirement for understanding of context (as in Mass Effect's conversation trees) has improved his reading ability significantly. Now, he isn't the top of his class, but he no longer needs the "special help" he once did in order to get A's and B's in school.

I'm not sure if this comment was from a parent, but this reader provided some counter-argument:

Lets be honest most "Popular Games" don't require analytical thinking or planning or creativity. Sure you might find the one game out of 30 that require you to use the grey matter, but for the most part, they will not. MW2, probably the most popular game in recent history was just basically a rail shooter. Even the competitive component favors twitch reflexes over actual planning and tactics. WoW, the most successful game to date does not require analytical thinking or analysis.

...

My parents never bought me video games and I was allowed to watch TV only 2 hours a day during the school week. But I was allowed to play outside as much as I wanted provided I did all my school work. Did I hate it? Yes. It sucked never having any of the good games and only getting to play them when my friends got bored with theirs and would lend it to me. It sucked only watching cartoons for 2 hours a day. My parents motto was they would not waste money on useless things, so if I wanted them I would have to buy them myself. So I started working as soon as I could so I could have enough money to buy my own toys/games. The only game I had through all of High school was Starcraft, cause I couldn't afford a computer faster than 133 megahertz. So I played it almost religiously for 4 years.

And here's one more counter-argument, suggesting that, hey, maybe games aren't that enriching:

I'm extremely conflicted here because I love video games and always have. However, I do think that these arguments hold some weight. Many of you claim that video games have done good in your life because you are interested in history or science after having played a related game. But how many of you have truly become great or given back to the world in a major way that you could attribute to your video game playing? If you look at all the highly successful people of the world (the great scientists, novelists, entrepreneurs, artists, etc.), how many of them are hardcore gamers? Probably not many.

Sure, you may have a college degree and a decent salary, but really, I don't think that's very difficult. I went to Georgia Tech, #5 engineering school in the country, and now have my Mechanical Engineering degree. I've got an apartment on the beach and a decent job. But I honestly don't think I've reached my full potential partially because after a long day of work, I just love dominating people in MW2 too much. I'd rather do that than come home from work only to continue working towards my other ambitions.

Finally, I got this e-mail from parent Jamey Tisdale, who gave me permission to reprint it here:

I've got a 9 year old and two 7 year olds. All boys. They are allowed to play Xbox about once a week, sometimes more and DS on occasion. What do they get out of it?

Well they get to think creatively, whether building their own levels and environments (working with each other to build a level in Lego Indiana Jones for a few hours, or a track in Trials HD) that they then get to test. They have to learn/work on communication skills in dealing with each other and negotiating not only what they are going to play next but what they are going to do in a particular game. They've beaten Castle Crashers a few times and absolutely dig all the Lego games.

They've all been introduced a bit more to music through Rock Band, danced silly to DDR and love to sing (quite on pitch) to Lips. They also get that there are games they can't play just as there are movies they can't watch yet. (Comparing things to the negative reaction they had on Splash Mountain at Disneyland puts things into context about when you're old enough for some things).

I'm not a parent. I'm married. No kids. I'm not sure what I'd expect my kids to get from games. Amusement alone wouldn't be such a bad thing. But are there more positive things to get from them? And negatives too? Thanks to all who had their say.

As gamers get older and have more children this is a top that will only become increasingly more relevant. What do we who play pass on to the next generation, for better or worse?

On Thursday, BioWare's Chris Priestly wrote the following:

If players start a New Game + after beating the game they will be able to re-use the same character import file they did for their first playthrough. Yes New Game + is making a return to Mass Effect 2!

But on June 27, Preston Watamaniuk, the lead designer for the original Mass Effect, said "New Game Plus" was too problematic to be included:

The reason is progression. We have been working very hard to make sure we design the abilities system to offer smooth progression into ME3 from ME2. Allowing double progression on characters makes that almost impossible. We replaced that feature with playing after you were done because it preserves progression and allows for smoother downloading of PRC.

This is hard to reconcile having not played Mass Effect 2, of course, and myself having not completed the original (I've also not finished Catch-22, The Great Gatsby and other significant works of literature. It happens, you know.) Watamaniuk's statement did not preclude "playing after you were done," but that is a completely different thing. I'd be inclined to say Priestly misspoke, but he clearly says "New Game + is making a return to Mass Effect 2." I've reached out to him for a clarification.

Let's not minimize the info contained in the rest of Priestly's post, which discusses how characters imported from the first Mass Effect will work in the sequel. Priestly reminds that the import will "carry over all your decisions and plot decisions from ME1 into ME2." That means the story path you face in Mass Effect 2 will conform to what you did in the first game. "We don't want to list everything out and spoil the surprises we have in store for you, but rest assured you will be pleased when you see just how much carries over into Mass Effect 2," he writes.

From a gameplay standpoint, while you won't be playing at the same level as you finished Mass Effect 1, you will see perks and bonuses commensurate with where you finished the first game. "Ex, if you finished ME1 as a level 35 character, you will receive a bonus, but if you finished ME1 as a level 50 character, your bonus will be larger. That being said these bonuses will not put new playthrough characters at a severe disadvantage."

Saved Games, Importing Information, Bonuses and New Game + [Mass Effect Forums]

Shacknews reports that Casey Hudson, the series' project director, told a press event in Edmonton that, "'Mass Effect 3' will be easier because we don't have to worry about the continuity into the next one."

There's no way BioWare will walk away from a money-printing IP like this, even after three titles, so it invites speculation on just what exactly they'll do with this universe they've built after Mass Effect 3. A prequel might be enticing, but you'd also have the whole "in what order do I play these" debate for people just coming to the series.

So anyway, enjoy Shepard and all the others while you've got him, which is for the next two games. Tops.

BioWare Already Looking Forward to Mass Effect 3 [Shacknews via MTV Multiplayer]

Half the stuff is dedicated to changes made to the game's "adept" class mode. The other half? To the return of Tali, a character so forgettable I forget she was even in the first game til I saw this trailer.

Jay Watamaniuk, the community manager involved, posted the following yesterday afternoon in the BioWare forums:

There is a report circulating today based on an appearance I made in Poland yesterday. Seems there was a misunderstanding about ME2 coming to PS3.

Let me clarify today: ME2 is coming to PC and X360 only. Look for them both on Jan 26 in NA and Jan 29 in Europe.

Sorry for the confusion.

Watamaniuk's misstatement might not have generated much buzz had it not been preceded by listings on Electronic Arts' own Russian Web site, and an Australian retailer's, showing Mass Effect 2 as available for the PS3. EA told Kotaku that the listings were "both mistakes and they're being corrected."

BioWare: Mass Effect 2 Only On Xbox 360 and PC [IGN via Hot Blooded Gaming]

The book is co-written by BioWare's Mac Walters with John Jackson Miller. The art is by Omar Francia. The story covers events leading up to Mass Effect 2. Also due for release in January is a Dragon Age: Origins, by IDW Publishing. It will be written by science fiction writer Orson Scott Card, noted for Ender's Game in 1985, among many other published works.

Preview: Mass Effect Redemption #1 [Comic Book Resources via VG247]

In Seattle, last month, I talked to Mac Walters about this. He's writing next year's Mass Effect 2 from BioWare. The studio he works for is known for telling long, detailed stories through its video games. The Mass Effect and Jade Empire, to name a pair of recent releases, are crammed with optional, explanatory text. The games' characters are often ready to provide richer detail about their lives, their tribes, or their home planets than the plot requires.

"A lot of the reason that stuff is in there is because we have players who want to know everything and love that," Walters said. He believes that the details BioWare provide bring some of their players back to "the days they picked up their Dungeons and Dragons [source]books and read about every character in there."

That deep level of extra narrative detail may be a BioWare signature, but it's not a BioWare exclusive.

Consider this sampling of late 2009 games: If you find hidden treasures in Naughty Dog's Uncharted 2, you'll be prompted to press a button to learn background information about them. Snoop through the spaceship Ishimura in EA's Dead Space Extraction and you can find text and audio logs that elaborate on the events that preceded your arrival. Rocksteady's Batman: Arkham Asylum overflows with dozens of discoverable recordings of its colorful secondary characters revealing their deranged states of mind.

It is so common for games to provide all these extra details that I had begun to look at Fumito Ueda as the most unusual of game creators.

The Sony developer's games, Ico and Shadow of the Colossus, explain almost nothing. Their heroes are ciphers, their side-characters almost mute. They include no scrolls, no tablets and no scannable objects.

They let you wonder. Or, to put it another way, Ueda's games seldom explain anything.

I talked to Ueda about the propensity of other developers to include a lot of background detail. They do it differently than you, I said. They explain the backgrounds of every character and every sword.

"But I think what it's trying to achieve is the same goal [as me,]" Ueda said. "I think having information about the sword or the character history is trying to add realism to the game as much as possible. And that's just one method of doing it, to have text and characters speaking. But that's not the way I chose to go with my games. I'm focusing on realism of the image itself." His realism, as he put in the context of developing his team's next game, The Last Guardian, comes from a style of graphics and animation that can convey emotion and a sense of presence in an imaginary world.

Back in Seattle earlier in the month, Walters from BioWare had advocated a sense of mystery but explained the challenges of not explaining things. "It's always a balancing act between what can be mysterious and what can't be," he said. "If it's something the player has to know, we need to find a way to make sure a player knows it. Sometimes that even involves repetition because, if the player misses it, then they're just confused and frustrated. But there are things we can sort of leave hanging. That's something I'm personally a fan of. If I see it in my work or the writer's work, I'm fine with leaving it in there. As long as we resolve it at some point or there's a plan to resolve it at some point."

Explain the key stuff, he said. Leave the rest of it optional.

Not that my friends don't look amazing right now, with their steampunk outfits and little remote-controlled toys and all that. I just think they'd look much snazzier decked out in full body armor with a helmet. Unfortunately that look will run you 480 Microsoft points, but can you really pay too much for fashion?

Probably.

New Mass Effect Avatar items [Major Nelson]

[via GameSpot]

Knights of the Old Republic was a four-star achievement in role playing games, but I do agree with Richard Naik at GameCritics. The choices you faced - even in the dialogue - lacked a lot of subtlety as to what they said about your character. It might have been a lot to ask of a game at the time, but you were still presented with a binary good/evil character, and games still have not evolved much more into shades of gray since then.

Naik brings inFamous, KOTOR, BioShock Mass Effect and Fallout 3, all of them acclaimed games, in for some criticism. The choices in inFamous were simply about power acquisition, he argues. Mass Effect let you be either a paragon of virtue or a belligerent jerk. And he even says the choice outcomes in BioShock "barely change the game at all," although I disagree with that. Fallout 3 is the most open ended, but it leaves Naik wondering when, or if, a game will allow true open-ended decision making, and then react to that. Or has one already?

Decisions, Decisions [GameCritics, Sept. 16, 2009.]

The original Knights of the Old Republic is, as of the time of this writing, my favorite product of the Star Wars franchise. And its choice system generally serves the game well, but even a well-done implementation of choices such as this still leaves a somewhat odd aftertaste. To go down the evil path I have to make many choices throughout the game that lead me to the dark side, eventually leading to me becoming a cold, cruel, and calculating Sith Lord. But here's the thing-would such an intelligent Sith Lord (as dictated by the game) really waste his/her time with senseless acts of brutality such as common mugging? I would imagine that an up-and-coming Sith Lord would try to use his victims to their fullest extent, then dispose of them when they no longer had value. Instead I found myself being a run-of-the-mill asshole, and that somehow led to me conquering the galaxy. The moral extremes of sainthood and belligerent sadism were extremely stark and awkward despite the quality of the story, leaving me to wonder how the ideal choice system would actually work.

Mass Effect (which has been getting lots of discussion time on this site lately) does a better job here, but the problem of moral extremes is still evident. Most of the time the evil choice is represented by a simple act of aggression instead of a more subtle cruelty or self-serving action. Now to be fair, such acts are more believably associated with the character of Commander Shepard rather than my character in Knights of the Old Republic. However, the basic problem still exists-I can't be the scoundrel with a golden heart, only a universally loved hero. I can't be the insidious mastermind, only an arrogant bully. While Mass Effect does present a better moral middle ground than many of its ilk, that path is largely dull and uninteresting. In order to access more conversation options I have to go towards one extreme or the other, meaning I have no real reason to toe the line in the middle. So now that we have an area between the two extremes, what next?

[...]Where does the evolution of player choices go from here? Someday I'd like to see a game where I can make virtually any choice in any situation within the bounds of the game world's reason, and be rewarded or punished appropriately for it. Am I being too greedy? Is this impossible with currently existing technology?
- Richard Naik

Weekend Reader is Kotaku's look at the critical thinking in, and of video games. It appears Saturdays at noon. Please take the time to read the full article cited before getting involved in the debate here.

I wound down my coverage this week in preparation for going to Tokyo tomorrow. On Thursday I had my first day of not posting any original stories on Kotaku since I started. Today, I'm only doing two posts... well, plus my Halo 3: ODST review, which will run while I'm away. There's not been as much from me on the site as there usually is, to say nothing of there being less in my notebook.

But there is some stuff I didn't get to and didn't think merited a post. Not surprisingly, it mostly comes from the two interviews that I pulled a number of stories from this week: My PAX chats with BioWare's Greg Zeshuk and Ubisoft's Patrice Desilets. You can learn a lot from 20-minute interviews with game developers, but too much info can clog a story. Because of that I didn't think either of the following needed to run anywhere but here:

Future Mass Effect 1 Expansions Unlikely: Some things just seem too obvious, like BioWare co-founder Zeschuk telling me the following when I asked if we'd get any more downloadable content for the original Mass Effect: "We're getting close to Mass Effect 2, so I would say it's highly unlikely." I had to ask, and had he said yes, that'd be a post. But this answer's not that surprising.

AC2's Short Scenes: Assassin's Creed II creative director Desilets and I spoke about a lot of things, including his series' cut-scenes. In the first game, the real-time cut-scenes permitted the player to move their hero Altair through the scene as they played. In the new game, however, there will also be non-interactive cut-scenes. Desilets didn't want them to be long. So the longest one, he told me, runs just two minutes.

No Cakes: Last Sunday I went to the Nintendo World Store in Rockefeller Center where Warner Brothers Interactive Entertainment was hosting a Scribblenauts launch event. There was a cake there, and I took pictures. Then I remembered, we don't do cakes at Kotaku like we used to. So I skipped it. But you can see the cake (and me) in this thread. That's the cake in message #997.

The video at the top of this post is self-explanatory, but in case you're wondering why that's here now, well... I ran a lot of other stuff from my visit to Microsoft. This thing wasn't very video gamey. So I thought it'd be best to put in a Dump. So here you go.

I'm off to Japan tomorrow. I'm packing a bunch of portable games for the long NYC-Tokyo flight: Scribblenauts as well as the new Drawn to Life and Mario and Luigi games for the DS. If my bags aren't getting too heavy, NBA 09 and who knows what else for my PSP.

Thanks for reading this week, and please be extra nice to the weekend crew!

Massachusetts Governor Deval L. Patrick has proclaimed today, September 9th 2009, to be Video Game Innovation Day, celebrating the state's long history of gaming innovation. The official proclamation cites both Spacewar! and Harmonix, as well as companies and universities currently working on technology that will support the growth of the industry.

Now, Therefore, I, Deval L. Patrick, Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, do hereby proclaim September 9th, 2009 to be, Video Game Innovation Day And urge all the citizens of the Commonwealth to take cognizance of this event and participate fittingly in its observance.

How does one fittingly observe Video Game Innovation Day? Perhaps the answer to that explains why the governor didn't proclaim this yesterday.

Governor Declares 09.09.09 Video Game Innovation Day in Massachusetts [Mass.gov]

Video games, on the whole, perpetuate a transactional model of sex, argues Alex Raymond at GameCritics.com. When you think about it, pursuing sex with an NPC in Mass Effect, however tastefully it was shown, is fundamentally no different from C.J. bedding women in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. Sex is presented as a reward, a result only, something won only by making correct choices attenuated to a woman's shallow preferences, and it's certainly not shown to be part of the process of a relationship.

The "Ladies Man" achievement in the upcoming Alpha Protocol spy action game - have sex with every woman in the game - really set Raymond's teeth on edge. This essay focuses not on sex objects, but on sex as an object - a goal only, a commodity, and the damage done by video games reinforcing such concepts.

Update: The first two paragraphs, while based in my analysis, were edited so as not to misrepresent the author's opinion of Mass Effect.

Women Aren't Vending Machines: How Video Games Perpetuate the Commodity Model of Sex [GameCritics.com, Aug. 26, 2009]

This design approach is extremely simplistic and perpetuates the commodity model of sex-the player wants sex, they go through certain motions, and they are "rewarded" with what they wanted (like a vending machine). Furthermore, when sex is included in a game, it is generally framed as the end result-the reward-of romance, rather than one aspect of an ongoing relationship/partnership. For example, one gamer commented that the romance in Mass Effect seemed like the romantic interest was really saying, "Keep talking to me and eventually we'll have sex". The relationship is not the goal; the goal is the tasteful PG-13 sex scene. The NPC's thoughts and desires aren't relevant; what matters is the tactics you use to get what you want. This is a boring mechanic in games and dangerously dehumanizing behavior in real life.

Where the simplistic relationship mechanics really get problematic is when someone makes a game where your protagonist is a James Bond-wannabe and there's an achievement for sleeping with every woman in the game. I am talking, of course, about Alpha Protocol. The quotes in the linked MTV Multiplayer article are infuriatingly sexist (as well as displaying insultingly limiting definitions of masculinity), but the relevant part is the bit about the "Ladies' Man" achievement.

It is seriously problematic to have a game where the male player/avatar can have sex with any and every woman in the game. On top of reinforcing the commodity model of sex, it is desperately heteronormative. For all the player's "choice" of with whom to engage, there's no possibility that the player might want to have a relationship with another man. It also shows that lesbians just don't exist in this world, if every single woman is open to a sexual encounter with a man. In addition, it perpetuates the narrative of the Nice Guy (described in Millar's essay, and elsewhere): that men are entitled to sex from women if they follow the rules and do the right things, or in the case of Alpha Protocol, "select your responses wisely."

- Alex Raymond

Weekend Reader is Kotaku's look at the critical thinking in, and of video games. It appears Saturdays at noon. Please take the time to read the full article cited before getting involved in the debate here.

Mass Effect: Pinnacle Station is the barely-hyped second downloadable expansion for BioWare's 2007 sci-fi game, a brief, belated and broken extra for a game already bursting with content.

It's an expansion about which I have more negative things to say than positive.

But I like it. Odd? Yes, well so is the content, which is a hint at, of all things, the multiplayer potential of Mass Effect.

Loved
Little and Late Yes, I like that this is a small oddity. I like that this is a drip of an expansion that got me playing Mass Effect, for just three more hours, 14 months after I last touched the sci-fi game. We can have our DLCs that meaningfully add new satisfying adventures to our favorite titles, that offer new modes of play or new maps to explore. But I'm happy to plunk five bucks down on what feels like an experiment. All Pinnacle Station entails is a trip to a space station in an asteroid belt and, in that station, 13 combat missions set up in a holo-deck-style simulator. Missions are set in five geologically distinct, walled levels and require the player to do one of the following: Kill a set number of enemies in a time trial; kill as many enemies as possible with each kill adding seconds to a countdown clock; gain control of a set number of checkpoints; or survive waves of enemy attacks as long as possible. These are the standard tasks not of the sprawling single-player role-playing game adventure that we knew to be Mass Effect but of many a multiplayer mode in other games. Play it. Imagine your AI squadmates are controlled by people and you too will be able to answer the question: Hmm, would I like Mass Effect as a multiplayer game?

Hated

Kobayashi Maru: I think I'm on to some meta joke that BioWare is pulling. Star Trek lore includes the Kobayashi Maru, an impossible computer-simulation scenario that only a cheater can win. I could describe Pinnacle Station the same way. The DLC requires that the player place first in each of its simulator challenges in order to complete this mini-adventure, but the missions are tuned in strange ways. Some missions are a cinch at the default difficulty. A few required me to drop the combat challenge to "novice" and then breeze through. I was using a Level 50 character for this, and, glancing around the Internet, I am not the only one doubting this DLC was properly balanced.

An Advertisement For The Future: Bring on early 2010 and Mass Effect 2, so I don't have to relive anymore the original game's awkward texture pop-in, un-interruptible dialogue, slow loading, awkward pause-based combat, and cumbersome inventory system. All being fixed for ME2, right? Please? This DLC doesn't fix Mass Effect's annoyances, not that I expected it to.

Pinnacle Station is similar to Fable II's See The Future pack in that it's kind of crazy. It is not a satisfying addendum to a beloved adventure but rather an unneeded appendix some bizarro-surgeon decided to put back into the organism.

That's why I liked it. And, yes, I'd take some Mass Effect multiplayer if there's any to be had.

(Mass Effect: Pinnacle Station was developed by BioWare and published by EA for the Xbox 360 and PC on August 25. Retails for 400 Microsoft points ($5). Played through on my Xbox 360 to the odd reward at its conclusion, over the course of three hours and two minutes. Read this note before you buy it, and don't hate me for writing it.)

The good news is for PC users. Bioware expects a reasonably fast fix for some CD key rejection issues. A BioWare QA lead said that an installer had been sent out as of Wednesday evening, but had no ETA for its approval. "We haven't been able to talk to the people who are processing it though so we're not sure what the status is. I'm hoping it will be on the store soonish."

The bad news is for 360 gamers. The problem seems to be with the Platinum Hits version of the game. Owners of that are asked to reroll their character to play - which shouldn't happen. Some reported that buying the Bring Down the Sky DLC - again - resolved the problem, and they're super pissed and demanding refunds. The BioWare QA guy popped in to say they were aware of the problem but had no ETA for any fixes.

Charging money to make your avatar a walking advertisement? Sigh.

Anyway, just in case that doesn't bother you - or you have some leftover MS Points lying around - Microsoft have today released some Mass Effect clothing options for the 360's avatars, ranging from Mass Effect-themed t-shirts right through to full suits of in-game armour.