Ten Ton Hamster - Your Games. Your Friends. Your Worlds.

Wizard 101 is a new MMO game from Kings Isle Entertainment that is designed especially for kids and their families. These days it seems like new kids online game's are a dime a dozen. Some companies throw together a game for kids just to get it on the profits. After my experience with Wizard 101 I know that this is definitely not one of those games. In fact Wizard 101 is in a league of it's own when it comes to kid-friendly MMO's.

In the quickly growing world of video games, you can hardly turn around and every child you see is playing some sort of game..on some sort of electronic device. It might be a computer, a console, a hand held console, or even their cell phones. Let's face it...games are here to stay. The big question lately has been: What kind of effect does/will this have on my child. Well Pew/Internet did a small 1,102 kids ages 12-17) survey that yielded some very interesting results.

Here are a few snippets of the article that we found interesting:

UB Funkeys is an online kids game with some very unique aspects. First of all you can't just sign up and download the game online. In order to play UB Funkeys your child needs to buy a starter pack at the store. Which should cost you about $19.95. The starter kit comes with one big UB Funkey and two little ones. It also comes with a cd you use to download the game.

Ten Ton Hamster happened upon a very interesting article today. Twenty four middle schools in Broward County Florida have decided to add Tabula Digita's DimensionM video games as part of their curriculum to teach Algebra to students. Interesting isn't it? The truth is, our kids are immersed in a world of video games and it was bound to happen that we start using this very powerful tool to get them to learn the subjects they otherwise find 'boring'.

Read all about it below:

Ten Ton Hamster found an interesting interview today about a kids immersive online learning environment that is aimed at childeren ages 3 to 6. It is going to be a 'virtual world' called Kids Play on PBS. We thought parents with children this age might be interested in hearing about this game aimed at preschoolers who cannot read quite yet.

Article provided by Virtual World News

Ten Ton Hamster has found this very interesting article about computer games age ratings. We thought other parents, like us, would find it interesting how they make these decisions and why. Please read the article below:

MapleStory is a free-to-play online game that is aimed towards a younger crowd. When kids play MapleStory they enter the wondrous Maple World. Their job is to protect this world from all the monsters that are trying to destroy it. One unique thing about MapleStory that I think makes it so popular with kids is that hunting and engaging in battles are not the only things you can do in the Maple World.

La Tale is an online game with cute and colorful graphics. It has a fantastical story line with a clear distinction of good vs evil. All of the players are a part of that story and join together together to fight evil.

The first thing we were definitely impressed with was that although the game has anime inspired graphics, the characters are very cute and modest looking. As a matter of fact players themselves look like just like kids!

If parents were to join together and create the perfect MMO for their children to play, I think it would look a lot like Emerald Island. Not only is the game safe and educational but it encourages imagination by showing kids that they can make an impact in the real world too!

Ten Ton Hamster staff found a very interesting article about women gamers and how they are quickly moving into the video game genre. The amount of women playing games is growing and fast! Surprisingly, they are not the young teenagers everyone would expect. They are, on average, 35 years old. We found this article fascinating and wanted to share it with you.

Here are a few snippets: