The video game industry's trade group, the Entertainment Software Association, recently released the results of a survey
that show the evolving demographics of video game users. The survey
looked at the age and sex of players and also at parents involvement in
the way that their children buy, rent and play games.

Some of the most interesting findings as to age are:

• The average video game player is 35 years old
• 25% of video gamers are over 50 years old
• Women age 18 or over represent 33% of gamers while boys age 17 or younger are only 18%

The
parenting findings show extreme parent involvement in purchase, rental
and play and that 63% of parents believe that video games are a
positive part of their children's lives. In my opinion, the parents
that took this survey told some white lies to make themselves feel
better about their kids playing time. Surveys are never fully reliable
in that they are dependent on the truth of the person answering. If a
parent is asked "Do you monitor the games your kids play?", it isn't
hard to believe that parents are going to yes, even if all they do is
take a quick peek.

The results that people are less apt to lie
about, but are surprising to me, are the age results above. After
watching my teens spend so many hours playing video games, and never
really seeing any adults play that often, I find this interesting.
However as the types of video games start to multiply and more games
like Wii sports and Wii fit and Brain Age are made, anything could
happen. Soon parents and teens will be fighting over the use of the
game players.

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