Take Your Kids to a New Level
GameStudy.org, a site dedicated to examining Korean gaming culture, has a look at a recent phenomenon: parents leveling up for their kids in role-playing games, particularly online games. Working from a Korean-language news article, GameStudy.org describes the bizarre progression that has resulted in some parents taking over grinding duties for their progeny. In the past, arcade games and console games were seen as a waste of time by parents, but they were not so time consuming as to be widely detrimental. However, online games, especially those with a social slant, are "universal communicative tools among kids." They have become ubiquitous among Korean youth, and can get to the point where they significantly interfere with eduction. The somewhat surprising result is that many parents, in an attempt to keep their children from ditching school to go play games at an internet cafe or somewhere else where the parents can't keep tabs on them, offer to take over grinding duties for their children's characters, ensuring that their characters can stay compeitive without cutting into school time. Of course, this can lead to the parents becoming deeply engrossed in online games as well. Thanks to this sacrifice, their daughters and sons can enjoy respectable status in the virtual world without sacrificing their schooling advancement. You should remember that parents' concern for education in Korea is really excessive. Children are generally busy in attending after-school private academy. It is almost impossible for them to devote 3 or 4 hours a day to play games. Any side effect? There is no exception in irresistible charms of online games. In doing power-leveling, sometimes, parents themselves unconsciously slided into games too deep. Above news article reported that a mother who did a game for her kid had a big trouble with her husband for full engrossment in game.
That's a pretty vicious cycle there.
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