Families who Game together Stay Together

My dad enjoys hunting and fishing as well as fighting fires. I love reading, thinking and not pushing myself too often. While we may not have much in common however, we play a lot of games together. Shooters from the military, in particular, as he gets bored easily by the slow-moving, story heavy games I prefer to play by myself. I never thought I'd follow his footsteps in the fire department, and he was never going to read Kant with me. Instead, we've formed bonds over virtual battlefields.

This isn't something that's is unique to me and my family. Steven struggles to find an agreement with his children, much as my father. One of his daughters is a professional dancer. cubpack88 The other is in band. As the girls get older and more independent, video games have brought the family closer together.

He said, "I've been a gamer since college and my daughters are the ones who just started to pick it up." "About six to seven years ago, I purchased my oldest daughter an electronic device. She and I began playing games against one another and also with each other. "I met Steven at QuakeCon in Dallas, TX, where he and his daughters Nicole and Maya were getting ready to hop into a game of Torchlight 2. "We had one room in our home where all computers were," Steven told me when I asked whether they played a variety of games together as a family. "We would just sit there and play for hours."

They play a variety of games together, including Borderlands and The Secret World, though Steven said to me that they and Maya who is 11 years old, have a fascination with Minecraft. The evidence suggests that Minecraft is like a modern day Lego set they work together and create together. "I actually am a fan of Minecraft. We'll log on to an online server and create things together and stuff."

It's not just about the games. The house is also a place of technology. Nicole's family members arranged to buy Nicole an item for a brand new computer. Her father also built it together. They've learned to put in hardware the same way as youngsters learn to change a flat tire on an automobile. "I try to show them that this is what you have to do when building a computer, in order that they can do things on their own," Steven said. "I tried to make them as self-sufficient as is possible."

Of course, having things you love doing at home isn't always a guarantee of quality family time. Sometimes life gets in the way and you need a vacation in order to bond. But where do you go when exploring magic kingdoms (albeit in a virtual way) is part of your regular family bonding?

For Steven's family, the answer was QuakeCon which is held in their home state. Marketed as the world's largest free LAN party, the Bethesda-hosted convention draws thousands of people to Dallas. "It makes us focus on being together," Steven said. "And it's kind of fun to go out and go out and look and see what others are doing and to see what new games are coming out ... It's something that we all enjoy doing, and I decided to do it locally and it's not too expensive to travel and do it, so why not?"

They don't travel alone. Just as some families go camping with friends, QuakeCon tends to be a group activity. Steven and his daughters went with a group of friends including Nicole's friend Sean. "His dad and I have become good friends," Steven said. "I would invite him and Sean over to our house to have mini LAN parties at the house, and I would invite around three or four of my friends, and my daughters would also join in and we'd enjoy a good time at home." In the last couple of years, QuakeCon has been another activity to do with the family.

"I don't know whether it was the family sitting down to dinner saying, "We should go!" Sean, who is 17 told me. He was still playing games in the Bring Your Own Computer (BYOC) section of QuakeCon while his mother, father and little brother seven-year-old Reid, were elsewhere. "It was my dad and I saying, 'This is kick A,' and the other two kinda were carried along. Particularly with Steven's family being there, we're very close to them and we play together and they suggested, 'You guys should come,' and it just kind of took place."

For those people, booking a hotel room for a weekend of video games seems like one of the most natural activities in the world. It ought to be. Anyone under the age of 18 today is born into a society where video games are already an everyday pastime for millions of people. It's been a long time since video games were something parents understood. Instead, they're something that adults love with their children.

Steven's oldest daughter, who is going to school near her home, is going to college. But he hopes that QuakeCon will be an excuse for the entire family to gather together and play games over the duration of the weekend. "I've got at least six or seven more years with my youngest daughter," Steven said. "But yes, we'll continue for as long as is possible," he said.

What matters for now is they're enjoying their time together right now. cubpack88 "The principal reason we're here for is a bit of a vacation. To just sit and play video games and sort of hang out. "Daddy daughter time." Britton Peele is a writer for hire based in Texas. His work has been featured on GameSpot, GamesRadar and The Dallas Morning News. Follow him on Twitter @BrittonPeele