"Children bring a lot to their play that for them is imaginative and sociable. I asked Sonia Livingstone, lead researcher and report author, whether there were many games that already met this criteria. Be age-appropriate: Respect the needs of children of different ages by providing age-appropriate opportunities for play, while also allowing for safe intergenerational play.Allow for experimentation: Recognise that exploration, invention and a degree of risk taking is important in children’s play and that the burden should not fall on them always to be cautious or anxious, or to follow rules set by others.Ensure safety: Ensure children’s play in online spaces is safe, including by giving them control over who can contact them and supplying help when needed.No commercial exploitation: Reduce compulsive features designed to prolong user engagement or cultivate dependency on games, apps or platforms, so children’s immersive play is intrinsically motivated and freely chosen.Enable Open-Ended Play: Provide and enhance features that offer easy-to use pathways, flexibility and variety as these support children’s agency and encourage their imaginative, stimulating and open-ended play.Enhance Imagination: Prioritise creative resources and imaginative, open ended play over pre-determined pathways built on popularity metrics or driven by advertising or other commercial pressures.Be Welcoming: Prioritise digital features that are inclusive, sociable and welcoming to all, reducing hateful communication and forms of exclusion and reflecting multiple identities.To claim the label ‘Playful by Design’, digital products and services should adopt seven principles: The team from 5 Rights Foundation and Digital Futures LSE set out ambitious expectations for children’s free play in all contexts. The Digital Futures Commission's A Vision of Free Play in a Digital World report that outlines the key qualities of "free play" for what "good" looks like in a digital world. These aren't all child friendly, but are fascinating examples of play transgressing intended rules. The Let's Game It Out YouTube channel is a great example of games you can play in ways (very) unexpected by the developers. But how children stretch and reinvent (or refuse to partake in) this usually frowned on behaviour opens unexpected possibilities. Misbehave in games like Untitled Goose Game, Donut County, Carrion, Fable, Scribblenauts and Beholder is expected. Purposeless Exploration in games like, Proteus and Ynglet can be used as a way to waste time, not progress and refuse direction. Undirected play can lead to unintended scenarios in games like Pok Pok Playroom, Kids, A Short Hike or Townscaper where play isn’t directed or capitalised upon, but left alone to be an end in its own right. Then there's games like and Please Touch The Artwork and Sloppy Forgeries that invite usually discouraged behaviour. Children often invent their own rules and ways to play not instigated by the developer.Ĭitizenship their own way in games like Alba, Cozy Grove or Unpacking where children have agency to influence and contribute (or not) to public spaces. Metaverse rule making and breaking in games like Roblox and Fortnite, where the context offers more than competition. These games can be places where children push back at the powers-that-be and take ownership of these digital public spheres in unexpected ways. We’re excited about games in this list as they are not only digital spaces where these things meet, but that children use them in ways they weren’t intended. “Games serve as the sites of complex negotiations of power between children, parents, developers, politicians, and other actors with a stake in determining what, how, and where children’s play unfolds.” It comes down to something at the heart of our database: seeing games more than mere sources of fun and diversion. Sara describes this as an embrace of the complexity of children’s online playgrounds, virtual worlds, and connected games. It’s about understanding digital play in a holistic sense so it can be all it needs to be in the life of a child. This is more than decrying big business muscling in on childhood. The politics of children’s play aren’t something we often talk about. Her book, Digital Playgrounds explores the key developments, trends, debates, and controversies that have shaped children’s commercial digital play spaces over the past two decades. We worked with Sara Grimes on this list of games that offer new and emergent ways to provide play possibilities to children. How do we empower children to play, break the rules and self-determination in light of other pressures and owners of these digital spaces? However, they are also contested spaces often created with profit as well as play in mind. Video games are a great way for children to play.
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