The Gamer Parent

With E3 in full flight, I dropped into the ESA website just to see what there was and found this interesting story. According to the finding of a study done by Peter D. Hart Research Associates, 35% of parents play games. it also found Parent gamers most often play card games (34%), followed by puzzle, board and “game show” games (26%), sports games (25%) action games (20%), strategy games (20%) and downloadable games (18%) While some people may be looking at the result as a good thing... as I just saw Macworld open with a comment that most of the time parents are present when games are rented or bought, indicating that there is some control over access to violent games, I'm not so sure. To the access point, have these people ever gone to WalMart or any other "new age department store"? Kids ask for games while parents are pushing the cart - the parents seem to be nothing more than walking wallets. I know because I had a younger relative try to pull one over on me once, claiming that it was "ok with Mom!" (yeah right). To the point of what games these parents are playing, it doesn't seem to match off against what the kids are likely playing. I can't find the entire report online yet (though I'm sure it's out there somewhere. Technorati Tags: Gaming