GuardianGamer has a solution for worried parents who want to support their kids’ social gaming activity while ensuring safety in digital playgrounds like Minecraft and Roblox.
GuardianGamer ought to pique the interest of a lot of parents, considering that Minecraft is having a moment. A Minecraft Movie, based on the popular sandbox Microsoft game, has generated $570 million at the box office in two weeks while Roblox has 380 million monthly active users. Back in December, Microsoft said Minecraft had 204.33 million monthly active, with 20.6% under 15 years old (approximately 42 million young players worldwide).
The Los Gatos, California-based gaming startup, founded by parents with four kids, offers a cloud gaming solution that allows kids to play games while being monitored by GuardianGamer, which records videos of gameplay sessions, uses AI to pick out the highlights and sends them to parents. That AI part has gotten a lot better in recent months as generative AI has made it so much easier to search through videos. GuardianGamer can filter experiences, automatically set up social gaming groups and enforce robust usage limits set by parents. I’ve met with the founders a few times during their journey.
By watching the easy-to-understand highlights, those parents can see what their kids have done in the online worlds and then engage with them in conversations while the parents can reassure themselves that the children are safe. Parents can finally be present for their children’s digital milestones, just as they are for physical ones, creating a future where gaming brings families closer instead of driving them apart.
After a multi-year effort of thinking about the problem and engineering a solution, GuardianGamer pounced on emerging AI technology and formally got underway in 2024. They’re targeting the parents of 160 million kids under the age of 13 who are playing games.
Origins
Heidi Vogel Brockmann, Ronald …