Crossplay Mailbag: It's OK to Get Frustrated While Playing Games With Your Kids
They aren't going to play the way you do! They aren't going to care about secrets! They're going to steal all of your loot, and you should give it to them!

Welcome back to the Crossplay mailbag, and welcome to the whole audience, because this one is available to everyone! The mailbag is normally only for paying subscribers, but at the end of the month, we’re being generous! Crossplay does not exist without the support of its subscribers, paid and unpaid. Know I appreciate every one of you.
Next week will be a little quieter than usual with the July 4th holiday. I’ll be away from my computer, meaning there won’t be anything on Crossplay until later in the week. I’ve already got a great feature in the can, and I’ll also be rolling out the details on our first live Q&A session with the Crossplay community. (I’m still figuring out the specifics on where and how to host, but paid subscribers will hear everything soon.)
Expect an email soon about the first month of Crossplay soon, too, where I’ll be soliciting feedback on the articles I’m writing, the balance between paid and free, and more. I’m still new to this, and remain very excited about what the future holds.
One last note: Crossplay is going to PAX! More details to share about that soon.
You can write in at mailbag@crossplay.news. I'll also be answering questions when I've got free time, aka the moments when my children are either asleep or on a device, alongside dropping into the Crossplay community on the subscriber Discord channel.
My child is only 2, so I'm just curious what the best age to introduce him to gaming is, and what that game or genre should be?
Patrick: Speaking strictly as someone who does not have a background in child psychology or media studies, you gotta trust your gut on this one!!! I do not know if there is a “best” age for games to enter the equation, because so much of that hinges on what your child responds to while their brain flips on. We did not introduce video games to my children insomuch as video games were being played in the house and by their friends, and eventually, my oldest became interested in knowing what they were, how they could interact with them, and which ones lined up with their own interests.
In reality, it’s no different than any other “when can my kid do X?” question. Like, my oldest was, for a moment, really interested in the Jurassic Park movies. They were clearly “too scary” for her if we’re talking about “children” generally, but she watched a few minutes when it was on in the background, she did not have any nightmares or other adverse effects because of her time with it, and then she quickly shotgunned every single one of the movies as fast as possible. Naturally, what she ended up watching the most was the Netflix animated show that is very much made for kids.
Is this where I can go on a mini rant about the frustrating ways we, as a society, gate kids for different activities where parents don’t get explicit sign-off? My oldest is pretty short, and every year, she gets frustrated at attending festivals or indoor play spaces that determine whether a child is able to participate in an activity based on height, not age. That makes sense for some activities, like a rollercoaster that has safety features that wouldn’t work and be dangerous, but it’s really upsetting to tell my child “you are mature enough for this, but for some reason, the world has decided to punish you because you aren’t growing as fast as other six year olds.” Frustrating.

How do you balance wanting to let them play and figure things out while also wanting to play for yourself? Do you play the same game at the same time or just separate it out completely?
Patrick: One of the first games my oldest became interested in was Super Mario 3D World. It’s a rare game I’ve played all the way through twice, once on Wii U and again on Switch. It’s easy enough to add a second player, and great shock, my daughter wanted to play as Peach. This was pre-Roblox, and thus before she’d figured out how to operate a 3D space, and so despite 3D World being less complex to navigate than, say, Super Mario Odyssey, it was daunting enough that she was often having a bad time.
That us until she discovered how funny it was to toss Peach off a ledge and kill her. She tossed Peach off a ledge several dozen times, giggling the entire time. I’m not sure if causing digital Peach endless death was how I envisioned my child spending 30 minutes learning how to pilot an analog stick, but you…take what you can get?
You’re also going to get frustrated with your kid at times, especially if you’re someone who’s been playing video games for decades and have personal habits and playstyles. I remember when we played through a decent chunk of Kirby and the Forgotten Land, and how often my child would often blaze through a level, ignoring all the possible (and seemingly obvious!) collectibles and secrets. Look, she’s not old enough to even care about nabbing collectibles and secrets, but I’d see the shiny object off the side, ask her to be patient for a moment, and find that she was unwilling and simply moved on.
[deep sigh and resignation]
Another version of this was while playing Minecraft Dungeons, aka Diablo lite. It’s a cool game, but it has loot, and sometimes my kid would like my loot instead of their loot. Just as I was getting psyched to equip this sick sword, my child would determine it was now a sword they would like. I’d always hand over the equipment and again let out a deep sigh, but these are the normal friction points common with kids and games.

Hi Patrick. First off, I just wanted to say that I'll definitely be following this substack once it's fully up and running. I've followed your work since the Kotaku days, and I plan on continuing to support your work going forward, especially with this interesting new bent. My question revolves around how to introduce video games to children when one parent has a long history with video games, while the other has no history or interest in video games at all. My wife does not like video games because she finds them both too enervating and also rightly sees it as an expensive hobby. If my daughter ever shows interest in video games, I wonder how to include both my daughter and my wife in a way that brings the family closer together. How do you avoid a dynamic where one parent can take part in the world that the child is playing in, while the other parent could instead feel left out.
Patrick: Oh, that’s an interesting one. (And thank you for the support!)
My wife has no interest in video games. For a time, we were playing through the Telltale games. I’d hold the controller, but she’d make the major decisions. Once, she was compelled by the prospect of zombies in Left 4 Dead and made a genuine effort to understand navigating with two analog sticks, but once she tried (and failed) to climb a ladder, it was all over. It’s OK. Games are mainstream now, and most people play games, but that doesn’t mean everyone plays games. It just means they’re normalized.
But you find yourself in a pretty similar situation to me! A big difference, obviously, is that gaming is not a hobby for me—it’s a career. We were able to buy a house because of them, so it’s clear to my wife why games have been worth keeping around. It sounds like your wife is okay with your hobby but concerned about what impact it might have on your children, a reasonable fear if you don’t know the hobby yourself.
I don’t know what your relationship is like with your daughter. Is she more closely attached to you or your wife? My oldest, for example, is extremely close with me. My youngest, though, is often inseparable from my wife. Everyone loves each other and gets along swimmingly, but kids sometimes have preferences due to a variety of factors, like extra time spent with one parent or another, hobbies, etc. So it’s not shocking that my oldest, then, is following in my footsteps when it comes to games.
I also think it’s great when kids can have something they exclusively share with one parent. It can make them both sides feel special in the process. But that can go too far, and make the other parent (or another child) feel excluded. My wife has made a genuine effort to goof around in Minecraft or Roblox, but she usually comes out of the experiences going “you know what, lol, I’m okay if that remains your thing with her.”
And hey, there are a lot of family-friendly games that everyone can participate in. Maybe the way forward with your family is finding ways for your wife to join in?
You can send questions for future Crossplay mailbags by writing to mailbag@crossplay.news.
Also:
I’m going to bring my PS5 on the holiday, and probably never play it. But I want to convince myself I’ll play some Final Fantasy XVI, even though I won’t.
It’s far more likely I’ll end up playing Sludge Life 1 & 2. I didn’t play the first game, but the sequel’s demo was so much on a recent stream I was part of.
Pink eye sucks. That’s all.