Written by Lan Xu 2022 Cohort
“It clearly says ‘To the Guardians’ … and yet you chose to read it … but since you’ve read it all, just read it to the end.”
This heartfelt remark comes from a letter that few players have ever opened – there is a brief introduction to the “Parental Control” feature in the Nintendo Switch News Center called “To Guardians.”
In the letter, Nintendo, who thoughtfully reminded parents to use the “Parental Monitoring” feature, also anticipated the behaviour of children deleting letters for more game time, trying to guide them to communicate with their parents.
When the Nintendo Switch was first released, Nintendo launched a promotional video to promote “parental monitoring”. In the video, finding little Kuba addicted to “Mario Racing 8”. The father was angry at first and then quickly thought of using the “parental control” app to manage the playtime of his son. After little Kuba played overtime on the weekend, his dad did not rudely use the app to interrupt his game, but adjusted the game time on Saturday for him.
“Parental Monitoring” sends monthly statistics to parents. It provides detailed statistics on the child’s use of Nintendo Switch every day of the month to help parents summarize; moreover, the report also allows parents to count the time spent by the child on each game to enable further communication.
Parents rely on this app to keep up with what their children are playing and where their interests are these days. This is an immature attempt, but it allows parents to have more in common with their children and even play the same game to mingle.
Nintendo is trying to guide parents to understand their children’s interests and to guide them to discuss and discipline themselves. This is what led to this letter being hidden in the Nintendo console they give to parents, but also to children. Nintendo, who has made so much effort, I think must prefer to see that children read this letter and then turn to discuss it with their parents and that parents, after reading it, would take the time to sit down and talk with their children. Face to face, they sent a letter to each other – to the parents, to the kids, about the game, and much more.