It’s been passed around a lot already, but I couldn’t pass up the news story reporting that 35% of parents game. Not only can I include myself in that 35% (even though no one asked me), I loved this little tidbit:
Gamer parents are also likely to be voters, according to the study, with 73 percent of those surveyed claiming to visit the polls regularly. Perhaps unsurprisingly, 85 percent think that monitoring the appropriateness of what kids play should be the job of the parents, not the government or game publishers. Similarly, parents believe by a two-to-one margin that it isn’t the government’s job to regulate games at all.
See that? Are all parent gamers conservatives? Nope. We’re just well adjusted and we’re involved. Involved in our kids’ lives, involved in politics (some of us more than others), involved in rational thinking.
It’s something we picked up while we were gaming.
Bobster says
Good article but at the end you say,
“See that? Are all parent gamers conservatives?”
Hmmm…it seems to me that many of the politicians, pundants, and bloggers that are pushing to regulate the video game industry call themselves “conservatives”. (Visit some Republican web sites and search this issue and see.)
Parents who want to run their own families with little government interference are acting liberal. (I mean the traditional liberal of the 60’s. Not the crazy control freak who may call himself a liberal today.)
Josh says
I think his is a bipartisan issue in that any politician is trying to cash in on the “save the children from the vile robots” vote.
However, i agree with the sentiments of others that a) it’s not as palatable as they’d like because parents just don’t care and don’t buy the “games are evil” diatribe and b) some people don’t like being told how to parent. So this issue is an easy one to backfire.