WASHINGTON - Jesse Lackman says his son spends a dozen hours a week
waging medieval combat across the dreary dreamscapes of computer games.
Just don't expect to find Lackman sitting beside him battling ogres and
dragons.
"It's just such a waste of time," said Lackman, 47, a power plant
operator from Center, N.D. "I tell him, 'Do something that has some
lasting value.'"
Lackman's avoidance of the digital diversions that captivate his
15-year-old son, Tyrus, is shared by many parents. More than four in
10, or 43 percent, of those whose young children play video or computer
games never play along with them, according to an Associated Press-AOL
Games poll released Monday.
While experts debate whether electronic gaming is bad news or a
blessing for children and their families, many parents are voicing
their preference by never — or seldom — joining their kids when it's
time to slay cyber scoundrels.
Besides those who simply don't play the games with their children,
another 30 percent say they spend less than an hour a week doing so.
All told, about three in four parents of young gamers never or hardly
ever touch the stuff.
"I don't think it's good for them, the violence, the obsession,"
said Karen Kimball, 55, of Hale, Minn., another nonplayer who estimates
her 17-year-old son plays 25 hours weekly. "No longer is it, 'Let's go
out and throw a football.'"
Those who game with their children are likelier to be younger,
single and part-time workers than those who don't, the poll showed.
Among them is stay-at-home dad Marvin Paup, 33, of Golden Valley,
Ariz., who says he plays 30 hours a week with his son and dozens more
on his own.
Their current favorite is "Halo 3," a shooter game played online by
thousands of players at a time. His state-of-the-art equipment includes
an Xbox 360 console, surround-sound turned up "really, really loud" and
a 65-inch wide-screen television, he said.
"That game has bonded me with him," he said of his 10-year-old son Allen. "It's like a whole new reality with me and him."
Overall, the survey highlighted how pervasive — yet age-related — interest in electronic gaming is today.
According to the poll, in which only adults were questioned, 81
percent of children age four to 17 play computer or video games at
least occasionally, compared with 38 percent of adults. Typically, both
adult and child gamers play two hours weekly — half play more and half
less — including about three in 10 who play five hours or more each
week.
Reflecting the technology's relatively recent introduction, 59
percent of those age 18 to 29 play at least sometimes, double the rate
for people age 50 to 64. There is little difference among users by race
or region, with middle-income earners likeliest to indulge.
"It's something to take your mind off business and everything else,"
said Todd Williams, 33, a salesman from Lexington, Ky., who estimates
he plays 10 hours weekly, especially interactive adventure games. "I
guess it's the time, which is seldom, that I spend alone."
Sales of games and gaming hardware are rising steadily, said David
Riley, marketing director of the NPD Group, a market research firm. He
estimates that video and computer game sales this year will total $19
billion in the U.S., up from $13.5 billion last year.
Even so — and despite the publicity given to newer game consoles
like the Nintendo Wii, Sony's PlayStation 3 and Microsoft's Xbox 360 —
the proportion of adults saying they play electronic games was
virtually unchanged from April 2006, when an AP-AOL poll asked the same
question.
Casual games like card or board games were the favorite of 31
percent of gamers, about twice the number who like action games, the
next most popular alternative. About half of women cited casual games
as their favorites, triple the number of men who did so, while twice as
many males than females preferred action games.
Adventure, strategy and sports games were also among the most popular.
The poll also found that among gamers:
_44 percent said they play over the Internet;
_26 percent said they spent nothing on the pastime last year, another
46 percent spent up to $200 and 12 percent spent $500 or more, with men
usually the bigger spenders;
_Price is the chief factor for people purchasing a gaming console, followed by the availability of games.
The poll involved telephone interviews with 2,016 adults
conducted Oct. 9-11 and 16-18, and had a margin of sampling error of
plus or minus 2.2 percentage points. Included were 770 people who said
they play computer or video games, for whom the margin of sampling
error was plus or minus 3.5 points.