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Enriching Lives
Design1Online’s (D1O) mission is to create games for girls that inspire dreams and ambitions, are fun and entertaining, provide a safe social environment, teach essential life skills, and promote member-driven content.The unfortunate truth is that girls and women are the most overlooked niche of electronic consumers, especially video games. Popular game titles exhibit increasingly explicit violence. Female characters and role models are hyper-sexed, wear revealing clothing, and sport over-proportioned anatomies. According to the ESA, in 2007 60% of the best-selling video games by units sold emphasized violence as the game’s predominant objective. D1O breaks the mold of these traditional marketing and game play strategies.
Levels of Complexity
Your child will be introduced to the game at a basic level, learning to navigate and understand core concepts. As they progress exploration and experimentation take over. This is how they realize there is greater depth to their actions. Finally, critical analysis and thinking skills become key. Goals amount to determining why things happen the way they do and how that can be used to your child’s advantage.
Social Community
Historically, females tend to be more socially oriented than males. For this reason D1O relies heavily on social community and member-driven content. All members are encouraged to write stories, make journal entries, post in forums, create personalized account pages, participate in chat rooms, and take polls. When members have free time they can read or write about their favorite topics in the message boards.All of our games feature a member-run newspaper. Once a month, members fill out an application outlining their qualifications and any prior experience. The best applicants are put in charge of a control panel they then use to manage the game newspaper. The manager is left to create their own staff member application, hire their staff, and oversee the staff’s work and contributions. All newspaper articles have their own discussion board where readers can post their opinions and further discuss the article.
Engagement & Entertainment
What’s a game that doesn’t reward your child’s hard work and dedication? Several times a year, D1O offers merchandise (t-shirts, backpacks, buttons, stickers, books, and stuffed animals) with the game’s logo and web address as prizes. Other prizes include free upgrades, toys, video games, and books pertaining to the game’s subject matter.Several times a year the game chat room holds parties where members play mini-games and answer trivia questions for prizes. Additionally, prizes are awarded to top members for outstanding sportsmanship and dedication, game achievements, and accomplishments.
Safety, Privacy & Respect
D1O has a no-nonsense policy when it comes to your child’s safety. All children are expected to be respectful to each other, refrain from cussing, harassing, and verbal abuse. Children found acting inappropriately are removed from the game immediately or blocked from playing certain aspects such as sending messages or visiting the chat room. D1O sets a high standard for providing a safe experience for people of all ages. Parents are strongly encouraged to go over basic online safety information including why you should never give out personal information, addresses, and telephone numbers on the Internet. For more information on how you can talk to your child regarding internet safety please visit this website published by the FBI.
