Nowadays many people, mostly parents, are quite concerned about the influence that computer games have over their children. And with the gaming industry growing and growing by 10% each year those concerns are not to be neglected easily. Just to let you know exactly how big the gaming industry really is, in an article from December 2011 of The Economist was stated that the global sales were over $56 billion in 2010. Just for comparison this is more than twice the sales in the music industry. So it's a successful and growing industry that doesn't intend to slow down.
So do parents have the rights to be really concerned about, well it all depends on what games are their kids playing and how involved they appear to be. A special moment when those concerns were raised was during 1999 when on April 20 in Colorado a horrible massacre occurred and the main characters that performed it were two high-school boys who reported that had spent quite a lot of time in playing "Doom" which is a gory game filled with violent scenes and killings. Anyways a great deal of time has passed since then and the games are quite different now, for good or for worse.
To every parent it may seem so wrong that he's child is spending a lot of time in front of the PC or other gaming console isolated from other kids and people in general. Yes this is indeed a problem, but there is light in the end of the tunnel. In recent years more and more games are maid to be played exclusively in multiplayer mode. What this means is that by playing this game each player interacts with another human being and although it's hardly the same thing as chatting at the bar it's a lot better than being just by yourself and challenging computer programmed bots. In recent years there are a lot of cases where people actually meet during game sessions, become good friends, participate in activities that are not game related and some even find their soul mate.
So as with everything else in this world it really depends on what kind of person you are. Of course when it comes to your kids there are some guidelines that you need to advice them to follow. But in general a recent survey about the Americans who play computer games states that the average age of a player is ... 37 years. Yes i know that this is quite a surprise but let's not forget that computers are not present from a year or two and that generation who were kids in the 80's and 90's have also played quite a bit. Another survey shows that almost 42% of the players are girls which is in contrast with the almost entire male involvement in previous years.
In a few words game are developing and there is nothing wrong in playing as long as this doesn't become the meaning of your life. An if you need to free up some time for your beloved game the house chores need to be done by a professional cleaning company. That is not a problem because they will never say no to you and when you are finished with the game the surroundings will be all cleaned up, but either way use your free time to go out more, you will certainly feel better than sitting at home all the time.
