Article - The argument for playing video games with our kids

This is a refreshingly positive article: The argument for playing video games with our kids, by Elissa Strauss.  The author definitely hits upon a few things that I wholeheartedly believe in, namely about this being a huge part of our kids lives; we shouldn't abandon them to make their way in it all by themselves.  There are a lot of opportunities for learning, like social skills (such as teamwork and conversation), psychological aspects (resilience, and so on) and with games like Minecraft you can tackle science stuff as well as things like ethics (the author points out it gives you an opportunity to talk about why you've killed something in the game - I know for ages Seb was very against killing the animals in Minecraft!).  Definitely worth a read.  And the book she's advertising (Raising Kids to Thrive in a Digital World by Jordan Shapiro) sounds interesting, too...

Ramble - YouTube & money money money

This year has so far been a bit rubbish for those of us who watch YouTube a lot in this house.  Which is all of us, since we watch things together on the telly.  Stampy and Sqaishey have disappeared - apparently they're getting married this year, which is nice, but I miss them on YouTube...  Then there's Squiddy, who seems to have gone a bit haywire.  He was very strangely hyper in the last video of his we tried to watch, plus he's blaspheming a lot... he doesn't feel safe for kids to watch any more.  I suspect he's deliberately trying to attract an audience who can give him money on Twitch etc, rather than the kids he was getting before.  It makes me sad though.  Having to unsubscribe from one of your (previously) favourite YouTubers is like cutting off a friend who has let you down.  Boo.

Squiddy has made me feel like this...  :-(

I've been trying, largely in vain, to find some new family friendly YouTubers to watch.  Seb's been watching Tewtiy playing Plants vs Zombies, since he's gotten back into that in a big way.  We're still watching Zebra Gamer, Dan TDM, Paul Soares Jr and ThinkNoodles.  But a lot of the old gang aren't playing things that we're finding all that appealing.  Somehow it feels like YouTube isn't as easy to watch.  It's certainly not easy to try and find new family friendly YouTubers.  Discoverability is poor.  And I get fed up of watching loads of YouTubers to find out whether or not a) they swear and b) they're really annoying.

Perhaps YouTube's becoming a little outdated.  The main problem seems to be that people aren't making videos for fun any more, which might have been how it worked a while back.  Now they're desperately trying to make some money.  YouTube ad revenue clearly isn't paying enough.  A lot of people stream these days, with subscribers paying a monthly fee, and donating money as they play.  You can also have subscribers on YouTube, for instance ThinkNoodles and Dan TDM charge £4.99 a month to get perks such as custom emojis and money off merchandise.  Paul Soares Jr has a Patreon thingummy where if you give £5 a month you get access to his private Discord server, so you can chat with him and other fans.  Various people are trying money making ventures.  I don't know what works best.  I'm not sure I like anyone enough to give them £5 a month though...

I was going to recommend something, but I'm not sure what we've enjoyed enough lately to give a glowing review.  I like that Paul Soares Jr has started a new Minecraft series.  But to be honest, I'm feeling a bit down on YouTube at the moment!  So... here's an amazing Planet Coaster rollercoaster, on Channel5 Gaming.

A-MAZE-ING...!!!  

Edit - I just realised one solution (der!!).  Watch some old videos!  This never seems like an option when you log into YouTube on the telly and it just tells you the latest videos by your subscribers, but it could be a solution.  I mean, there are 649 videos in Stampy's Lovely World playlist!