Are your kids playing too many video games? You may want to sign them up for this



SEATTLE -- Parents, it may be time to change the way you look at the amount of time your kids spend playing video games. Super League Gaming is the world's first recreational game league, and founder Brett Morris tells us it's all about bringing out the social and competitive aspect of gaming.

As president and COO, Morris launched the company just in the last few weeks in 23 markets across the country, including Seattle. The goal? "It's the best thing for the kids, this is a completely new and exciting concept for gamers, where now we are taking the gaming environment, and no longer in the home; but we're bringing them into a movie theater," he told us.

Here's how it works: kids of all ages and experience levels grab their laptops and their friends and show up at a local movie theater to play together. As they play, they can see the typical first-person perspective on their screens just as they might at home; but on the movie screen, the entire group will see a new angle, an overview of the play.

What about the games? Right now the focus is on Minecraft, but the league plans to expand soon to include even more of the popular games kids are playing.

Morris says the idea for launching Super League Gaming came from a shared need of the founders. "We have kids who play sports, but they also are gamers as well... We said 'how can we take that same environment that's, you know, competitive and fun and has a sense of belonging and a social environment, how do we put that to games?' " From there, they realized a movie theater could act as the 'playing field' for gamers, much as a court or field do for basketball and football.  Bonus: just as parents can watch from the sidelines of a soccer match or baseball game, so too can they watch their kids compete in these video game leagues.

Super League Gaming is in Seattle for the remainder of the week, and there are fall leagues forming now! For information on these opportunities and to learn more click HERE to check out their website.

And remember: in many ways, there is increasingly space for professional gamers. Take, for example, The International: an annual event hosted by local company Valve, showcasing professional players of their Dota 2 (computer) game. The players come from all over the world and compete as a team for prizes totaling in the millions; it's one of the first examples of gaming being treated like a competitive, professional sport. The fifth annual event comes to Seattle's KeyArena this August (click HERE for more).