I find starting a conversation with the kid when the opportunity presents itself organically and listen to what they think about the content / subject matter and bringing different perspectives to the subject can teach them critically thinking about what they're hearing.

The same goes for young adult books with questionable relationship examples. Making it a conversation, hearing what they think about certain aspects and bringing different perspectives to the subject works better than taking a stance against something they love.

We all love flawed stuff, we love them while (hopefully) separating wrongs from rights in our minds because we have some degree of critical thinking. We just need to teach/guide the kids the same way. It's ok to like something while still being able to point out the wrongs of that thing.

Veilguard is far from success, and it's because it's the worst-written DA game to date. And that is on EA. They had every chance to make it a good game (as the art book they published shows just what a good story it was shaping up to be before EA forced them to start over for a live service version) but they chose to waste everyone's time for 10 years by changing their mind mid development multiple times, firing the veteran team members right in the middle of development....

I was thinking of Stardew Valley and Rimworld while reading your post, sure enough SDW was mentioned at the end :D

If the leaks to be trusted, they expected to sell 10 million copies but now they're talking about they maybe can sell 3 million copies for the lifetime of the game.

What doesn't sell are the games that don't have a well written story or well-written characters. Or the games that their developers themselves don't have any passion or interest in, games just made to please shareholders.... Or games that get preachy on issues without proper care...

Sorry for adding comment after comment, I've been in a position to talk to teenagers and experienced when they tune you out, when they're interested in what you have to say.

I find it works best if you start with the positive. As adults, we should challenge ourselves to find the positive at times, since we tend to slide into correction mode without realizing.

Sometimes, we'll start with positive and then talk about the part that's problematic and why. Sometimes, we should just mention the positives, good examples, well thought out arguments, a good word choice etc. In fact, noticing and mentioning good examples will be the real game changers.

And be genuine, I cannot state the importance of this at all. Consider what your friend would think of the tone you're about to use. If your friends would think you're trying to preach, your kid will feel the same.

It was very telling EA announced almost right after the launch that they won't release any DLC's and they're moving the team to ME5 already. If that was not the sign EA left DA:V for dead, I don't know what was.

Keeping the tone casual and at their level should work better. If it sounds like an exam question or job interview, kids would find it difficult to engage. It's a learning process for adults, too.

Thinking about our own childhood and how we would react to the critical thinking questions should help. Instead of a pop quiz sounding questions, we would prefer the adults talking to us to be genuine and not trying to lecture us, or test us.

You wouldn't talk to your friend in a way "what's the streamer's motivations?" but you'd make a conversation out of it. "I was there with them right until they said this..." And you'd state your reasoning. Think of it talking to your friend, but keep it 12 yo. level.

+1 to RimWorld suggestion.

All I want is the DnD cantrip Prestidigitation. I don't aim high.

I think the title of the article is misleading a bit. According to the article, the game has been in development since 2018 and they've been having issues they cannot seem to be able to fix to their satisfaction and it sounds like it's more viable for the studio to abandon the project than try to fix it by throwing more money and time at it. And it's a console game, so that limits their market, too.To me, reading the article, "narrative driven games don't sell anymore" is not the main problem.

To me, the most useful trick was to set my wristwatch 5 mins ahead of the local time. These days, I only use my phone as a watch but the same principle applies. Catching up bus times was my biggest problem, especially when I needed to use more than one bus line.

You'd think it wouldn't work since I know I technically have 5 more minutes but reading the time as 07:00 instead of 06:55 was pretty effective for me.

Modded Minecraft for sure. But there are a handful of games I keep going back to and common theme for those games that I can listen to a podcast or audiobook while I'm playing them, like Rimworld, No Man's Sky, Stardew Valley, Skyrim.

Or maybe something like "Language is such a funny thing. Did you notice they use X word to describe group A, but then use Y word while talking about group B. The media does that all the time, too. If you notice, you'll find some very interesting extra stories they're conveying" .

Bit of a gameplay, making the kids notice neutral words, judgement words.This may come back to bite the adult in the back when it turns on you, but hey, we want kids to be able to point out when we miss the spot, too.

Thank you, I was on mobile and didn't pay attention. I edited my comment without the tracking, too. No need to have that garbage in there

+1 for Syncthing, been using it to sync a tablet, a phone and a pc without much problem. Obsidian usually makes a separate note when there is a synch issue, so at least you don't need to worry about losing your data.

I don't see Bioware titles on the list. Dragon Age series for fantasy, Mass Effect for sci fi. Since BG3 is on the list, I wanted to mention in case you haven't gotten to them yet.

It's interesting. I always get a pop-up asking about opting in for sending telemetry when installing Firefox. It was never hidden or the option selected for me. I opt out and it stays opted out.

And modpacks....all the modpacks! All of them turn the game into a whole new game.

For games specifically, I have to binge or I'll never go back to it and next time I wanna play, I have to start over. Books or TV shows etc. don't have the same problem as they are more passive consumption than a game.