Today is Dreamcast’s 13th birthday. Time sure flies! Only 7 more shopping days till Nakamas!!!

What’s more appalling is the comments. Though there are a few voices of reason essentially saying “parent your damn kids,” there are just as many people saying “freemium” games – games which are free to play but then have microtransactions – should be made illegal. The temptation to steal a parent’s credit card or lie about your age should be removed, so that parents don’t have to worry about teaching their children not to do these things.

Sigh. This prompted me to share an anecdote:

Awhile ago I was at the grocery store, and I asked my daughter to help me pick out some cereal. She said “How about this one?” and then I realized that all the sugary cereal was at child-eye-level, while the healthier stuff was at adult-eye-level. I didn’t sue, I didn’t say there should be a law against that, I didn’t even complain to the store; I thought “what a great marketing tactic!” and said to my daughter, “All the cereal down here is very sugary. They put those down here so kids will see them. Let’s read these boxes up here and find something a little healthier.” Then I put back the cereal I didn’t want my child purchasing, and helped her pick out something else. The next time we went to the cereal isle, she at first started to go for the sugary cereal, but then said “Oh yeah, we have to look higher and read the boxes!”

If I had not been paying attention and had not taught my daughter to ask before doing so, she could have grabbed some of the cereal I didn’t want and put it in the cart. If I had left her to just pick out the cereal herself, she would have picked that first sugary cereal. But I parented. First, I taught her to ask before purchasing something (and I don’t leave my credit card info saved in situations where my kids – or myself, because I’ve done that before, due to not reading fully – could accidentally purchase something). I paid attention to what she was doing, and was involved. I said no, and I taught her why, so that she can make good purchasing decisions in the future; that will help her when she’s shopping for herself one day.

The point of this is not “sugary cereal is bad, mmmkay?” Adults that want to eat the sugary cereal and adults that are fine with their children choosing the sugary cereal should be able to purchase the sugary cereal. I like games that let you play for free and then have microtransactions. I like games that appeal to kids but are fun for adults too; I like playing those with my kids. So I should be able to pay for those, and I should be able to give my kids permission to pay for those. (Let’s not even get into the fact that facebook games aren’t focused toward children anyway.)

As I said when someone bought up drugs (with “No good parent would allow their kids to interact with a drug pusher – so I guess that doesn’t need to be illegal either.”) -  Think about alcohol; it’s legal for adults to buy, and legal for a parent to choose to give it to their child in most states, it’s only illegal for someone under 18 to buy it. If the child has access to alcohol (it is in their house, in their friend’s house, etc.) and their parents don’t want the child having any, it is up to the parent to prevent that. If a child has access to facebook games and their parents don’t want them paying for them, it is up to the parents to prevent that.

Yeah, that should have been 21, not 18, but you get what I’m saying. We, as a country, decided that adults – and children with permission – should be able to enjoy alcohol. That even though it may be in the homes of children or their friends, it’s up to the parents to ensure the children drink a moderate amount or none at all. That it’s up to parents to teach their children to ask permission first, and that saying yes the child can have a sip or a glass does not mean the child can empty the whole bottle. Why can so many people not use those same parenting skills when addressing things like facebook credits?

People bring up the argument that “parents don’t understand these games.” But just like anything else, if they don’t understand, they should either educate themselves or not allow their child to participate. You don’t buy a bottle of vodka and then let your child drink it all because you didn’t understand the whole alcohol content thing. Just like anything else, you involve yourself in what your child is doing, and educate your child. You don’t drop your child off at the grocery store with your credit card and no prior grocery shopping education and then be surprised if they come back with $200 worth of sugary cereal and candy. Just like any other situation in the world, YOU PARENT.

Facebook is not (and should not be made into) a babysitter, not even when combined with laws. And if you still need a babysitter to ensure your teenager does not make unauthorized purchases with your credit card, you’re doing something wrong.

Then I thought about it again. I’m always saying that the only real way to decide if a game is worth your money is to play it yourself. There are two reasons for this, and they are why, until recently, I focused only on book reviews. With games (at  least modern day games), pretty everything is handed to you – the sounds, the visuals, etc. in addition to the story. Everyone experiences those in the same way, the difference is how the player feels about these things. Those feelings are unique to every individual person. While a review can tell you how the reviewer felt about the game, and how you may feel if your tastes are similar to the reviewer, it can not truly tell you how you will feel.

Books are different. With books you are handed only the story and a description of the characters, and your brain is left to fill in the rest. If I describe a character as “beautiful with almond shaped eyes,” you’re going to envision those eyes almond shaped as little or as much as possible to make the character beautiful in your mind. If we both read “Jenny pressed the ‘random’ button on the radio, pausing briefly to listen to each song, before finally settling on a romantic melody,” you’re going to imagine a song that sounds romantic to you. You may be envisioning My Heart Will Go on while I’m envisioning My Neck, My Back.

With books you basically need to be told if it is written well, if the characters are fleshed out and realistic (or at least in some way relatable if they aren’t meant to be realistic), if the story is composed appropriately, and the basic premise. Your brain will fill in the rest; with games, that isn’t the case.

The second reason is that reading reviews and watching videos of a game is a very different form of interaction than playing a game. When you read a book review, you’re doing exactly what you’re doing with a book, and it can invoke similar reactions. With game reviews and even videos, the feelings are completly different. Even though a good review or video displays the emotions of the player, again, those feelings are going to vary from player to player.

For what, then, do I use game reviews? I don’t care about proving that I was right to buy a game when I read a review of a game I already own. I’m extremely unlikely to buy another copy of something Darkstarmatryx reviewed and therefore already possesses. But one of my hobbies aside from gaming is reading. At some point it clicked in my mind; I use game reviews as a form of entertainment separate from gaming and separate from reading books but at the same time connected. I’m reading, but it’s still about video games. Game reviews – and journalistic opinions about game news, for that matter – are opinions about games and gaming related stuff, turned into an entertaining read.

I’m on a journey; I’m working my way toward a goal. That goal is to be able to say “I play games for a living.” Originally, my plan was to chronicle this journey on a blog separate from my gaming blog. When I thought about it, though, I realized that it would be kind of going against my belief that knowledge should be free and easily accessible. I also realized that the game blogging and the gaming as a career would be so intertwined that it would be difficult to decide which posts go where, and I’d end up writing many posts twice and/or separating things that shouldn’t be separated.

So I decided to combine everything – my ramblings, my game reviews, the chronicle of my journey, the tools I use on the journey, etc. – on one, easy to say out loud (“s0nicfreak.net, the 0 is a zero, no it’s .net” just doesn’t roll off the tongue in quite the same way), descriptive domain.

So here it is! IPlayGamesForALiving.com is my gaming blog, where you can come to read my opinions on games and the gaming world, and also read about how I am making the journey to say “I play games for a living” (and ultimately, how I’m able to say that, and what life is like for someone that says that). Whether you’re here for the entertainment factor, you want to say “I play games for a living” yourself and are here for tips, or a combination of both, iplaygamesforaliving.com needs to be in your favorites/bookmarks.

I hate to sound cliche, but; this book changed my life. My view on reviewing games and blogging about games has been changed. My view on playing games for a living has been changed. I have been enlightened.

Before I read this book, I saw professional game reviewing as something that happened when people who lived near game magazine publishers spend long hours in an office. While this book does go over that sort of life, it reveals that this is not the only way professional game reviewing happens. My eyes were opened to the fact that there is a such thing as freelance game reviewers; that people can review from home, email in their reviews, and have them put into a magazine or on a big-name game site.

Hold on – before you go firing off those long-ready emails to EGM, OXM and IGN, read this book. While it made me aware that professional game reviewing can be more in line with the type of lifestyle I want (being at home to raise my kids, setting my own daily schedules, etc.), it also informed me on how that sort of thing really works. (Hint: spamming the places you want your reviews to appear ain’t the way.)

Whether your ultimate career goal is to work in a game magazine office, freelance from home, or even if you just want to write online reviews for the fun of it, this book has a lot of wonderful tips on how to write good game reviews. You’re not just writing to get hired; you’re writing to inform your fellow players, to share how you were moved (or not moved) by a game, to help them make wise choices with not only their money but with their more precious commodity, their time. This book helps you do that, and helps you do that well. If you want to make money doing that, this book tells you how to do that too.

The sample alone entranced me enough to get me to plunk down $9.99 for the Kindle version this book; well over my usual $2.99 personal limit I set for myself (and usually even that is a stretch, as I mostly stick to the .99 ebooks). But the insight it gave me into game reviewing and writing about games in general made it well worth the price. It’s the reason I moved my blog over here and decided to combine my already established ability to write with my love of gaming. It helped me realized that was possible.

This book touched me. Let it touch you too. And I don’t mean in a show-us-on-the-doll-where type of way.