During the holidays, we’re running a contest through our “12 Days of the Spiral“. The question is – what has Wizard101 or Pirate101 meant to you and/or your family in the past year? Today we have our third winner! Read about what KingsIsle games have meant to their family.
I started playing Wizard101 nearly six years ago. After playing for about six months, my then six year old autistic son started taking an interest in it. At first I thought he may not be quite old enough for it as at that time he would get scared very easily. He began just watching me play and one day ask if he could make a character. His first character he named “Reid Boom- Wraith”
He chose the Balance School.
At first he needed help with the combat, and sometimes just operating the mouse and the direction keys. Although I most certainly don’t want him to have an over abundance of computer time, I saw that he was able to focus for longer periods of time and not just while playing Wizard101. I feel that just finding an interest for him was key in reaching him. He loves to talk about the game, and WOW – he can recall details like you would never imagine.
When we heard Pirate101 was coming out we were both extremely excited. We have both been playing Pirate101 since the test realm came out. We love the companions, the ships, and all the other little surprises Pirate has to offer.
I was impressed with the detail that my son could recall with Wizard 101 but with Pirate101… Holy Cow! He can act out each and every companion’s moves, dialect, grunts and equipment use to perfection. He loves to quiz me as he acts out their moves.
I have a difficult time keeping them all straight as he has characters belonging to every school. Yikes!
I am so grateful to KingsIsle for creating games that families can play together, but more so due to the tremendous amount of progress my now 9 1/2 year old son has had with his focus and social skills due in part to your wonderful and detailed games. We now can play on separate computers, so we can help each other. My son has made a game out of leveling up before I do.
See, I like to do the side quests to level up and gain more gold and loot… but not my son. He feels that if he just does the main story line quests, the companion training quests and the quests where he acquires further companions he will win the leveling up game. We also have a “Who can gain the most Companions” contest. My son can now play on his own and handle most combat on his own.
Thank you for making such an impact on our family and more importantly on a young autistic boy whom a few years ago, could not carry on a conversation about anything.
Ruthless Olivia Morgan and Fearless Finnigan Cog
Level 56 Swashbuckler and Level 65 Privateer
During the holidays, we’re running a contest through our “12 Days of the Spiral“. The question is – what has Wizard101 or Pirate101 meant to you and/or your family in the past year? Today we have our second winner! Read about how playing Wizard101 helped their family.
My husband and I started playing Wizard101 when we were looking for a MMORPG that was less expensive, less time consuming and more family oriented than other ones we played. We found all that and more in Wizard101. We were so excited that the game was freetoplay, because we were in college and with our daughter just being born our finances did not allow us to spend money on gaming.
Our daughter required a lot of attention in the first years we started playing, but we found that we could play after she went to bed and still be able to make significant progress in the game. When we decided to spend money on the game, we decided that we would purchase the zones with Crowns. It was a perfect way to control how much money we were spending on gaming. We were at a time in our life that our availability to play and financial ability to play was very unpredictable. It was so great to be able to have the option to subscribe or purchase. KingsIsle was also very accommodating when we had to stop playing for quite a long time. After a whirlwind year of moving across the country, starting new jobs, and setting up our new home we were able to turn on the game and everything was just as we left it. It was so comforting to see something so familiar when everything else was so new.
This year our daughter was able to join us in the game, she just turned six but was five years old when she started playing. It is so very rare to find a place so kid friendly yet so extremely entertaining for adults at the same time. Just hearing the excitement in her voice and seeing the joy it brings her to be able to join Mommy and Daddy on quests is great. The parental controls are topnotch. We have absolutely no fear that she will ever be exposed to any unsavory content or people.
Our daughter is learning from the game as well. We have her read the quests save coins for items she wants to buy and make decisions on what spells to use to make the enemies disappear. One of our daughters favorite things to do and Mommy’s too is to garden. She gets so excited every time she has to care for her plants. She knows all the names of the pests and the appropriate spells to use to dispatch them. She loves it when she is able to harvest the plants and will excitedly tell us every item that they have dropped for her. Sharing time with our daughter doing something that is so entertaining and cost effective is great. While it is great to go on outdoor adventures most are very costly and time consuming. We are able to turn on the game go on an exciting adventure and have that quality time whenever we want without leaving the comfort of our home.
Thank you KingsIsle for creating a safe entertaining amazing world where we can spend time as a family!
Leesha LifeGiver
Level 71 Life Wizard
During the holidays, we’re running a contest through our “12 Days of the Spiral“. The question is – what has Wizard101 or Pirate101 meant to you and/or your family in the past year? Today we have our first winner! Read about their growth through playing Wizard101.
Wizard101 has changed my life. I first began at around 2009, which doesn’t even seem that long ago, but the impact it has had on me has been immense. When I was younger I had trouble making friends. I was too shy and I never really talked, so for the first ten years of my life I was practically alone. My parents were always at work and I was often left home alone. I was never really unhappy, but life just felt a little bland. Then, however, when I was in the fifth grade, a few of my classmates started talking about this great new game that they were all getting into. I decided to give it a shot (since I had never really tried online gaming before, and I figured I might be able to make some new friends), so one day I logged on to Wizard101.com and made myself an account.
My family had an Apple computer, however, and Macs didn’t support Wizard101 at this time, so I began looking for every way possible to get onto the game. I would walk over to the library when I was home alone and play for a few hours, I would ask my grandma if I could go over to her house to play sometimes, and I got completely absorbed into this game. I started meeting new people and we went on quests together, and I had never had more fun in my life. Well, I didn’t have a membership at the time, so I was eventually left to fighting Lady Blackhope and the Kraken over and over again, but just the experience of doing it with others who appreciated me was more than enough.
After several months, I finally asked my parents if I could purchase a membership. They said if I could raise enough money for a computer and a membership, I could get one. Since I was really anxious to get a membership to this game, I started to do chores for neighbors as well as my own family. So, Wizard101 kind of indirectly taught me some responsibility and people skills! Several months later, I had a shiny new PC and a twelve-month membership to call my own, and it was completely worth it.
I played for years and the game kept getting better and better, taking me on breathtaking journeys and countless adventures. The game also developed my interest in music and acting, because I always found myself listening to the many music tracks and impersonating all the characters in the game. Currently, I am in high school and I’ve already seen huge improvement in myself. Talking to other wizards online helped me “get out of my shell” a little bit, and I actually made one of my best friends in sixth grade! Today I am in the drama club and the band at school, I have lots of good friends, and my grades are getting better and better. My parents say Wizard101 is a waste of my time, but honestly, I feel like I wouldn’t be where I am today without it. Sure, I may have naturally at some point made a friend here and there, but Wizard101 truly gave me the skills necessary to lead a happy life, and I am eternally grateful for everything Kingsisle has done. I really do hope you realize how much this game can change lives, and also that I’ll be a loyal member of the 101 games until the very end. Thank you KI!
Rogan HawkBreath
The 12 Days of the Spiral have once again come to Wizard101 and Pirate101. As with previous years, this festive event kicks off with our charity mount the Noelephant. While I actually loved the Fa La La Lama from last year, I still vividly remember one of our designers coming up with the idea of the Noelephant. I actually laughed/snorted out loud at the comedic idea of an elephant dressed up in Christmas garb and the wonderful play on words. Something that I really love about our creations at KingsIsle is the humor and the light heartedness of their personalities. But there is a serious side to this event, just as our characters in game take themselves very seriously. At the end of this year’s charity drive you, our players, will have helped raise almost $400,000 for charities targeted at improving the lives of children. Our hats are off to all of you for your generosity in helping improve the lives of so many that these charities touch!
Over the last few years we have been thrilled to work with two great charities here in central Texas. The Children’s Medical Center at Legacy in Plano is an award winning facility that provides excellent care to children in the greater Dallas area. The Austin Children’s Shelter provides critical resources and services to children, youth and families recovering from abuse and neglect. We are thrilled to continue to support these two organizations through your generosity.
This year we expanded the charities in the program to include Make-A-Wish® Central & South Texas. All of us at KingsIsle were extremely touched when Ryan and his family came to visit. We saw firsthand what kind of impact Make-A-Wish has on families and wanted to expand our support beyond visits. As a complete coincidence, we are actually hosting another child and his family today. We received this request less than two weeks ago and it seems fitting that the schedule worked out so that they are here on the kickoff of the Noelephant charity event.
I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday season as we head into 2014. Happy holidays from everyone here at KingsIsle!
Now, back to the fun of showing a very enthusiastic child and his family the inner workings of the Wizard101 world…
Fred Howard
Vice President of Marketing
When we started KingsIsle in 2005, I saw a need for a family friendly game where players of all ages could connect online in a safe and fun environment. After starting with a handful of employees, it’s a little surreal now to walk around the office eight years later and see three hundred people working on KingsIsle Games. What an adventure this has been!
The creative people who work here brainstorming, designing, testing, and supporting our games have put in countless hours to bring you Wizard101, Pirate101, Grub Guardian and more. Even so, they’re not the only reason for KingsIsle’s success. If you were to ask me something that I’m thankful for as we enter this year’s holiday season – I would have to say you. All of you. I’m so thankful for all of you amazing players.
When you walk through the offices of KingsIsle, the love of our fans is apparent everywhere. There is fan art decorating cubicle walls, stacks of fan mail piled up on desks, and even memories of hosting Ryan’s Make-a-Wish day. Everywhere you look, the outpouring of affection from our players is evident.
Ryan’s Make-a-Wish Visit
What I want all you players to know is that we are so thankful for every picture, every letter, and every time you login to play one of our games. We love hearing about how Wizard and Pirate helped you do better in school in math and reading, or how it helped you connect with your family more. Those are the reasons why we make these games, but you are the reason we continue to do so.
So from myself and the rest of the KingsIsle family, thank you players! I can’t wait to see what the next year brings us all.
Elie Akilian
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
KingsIsle Blog 