Most probably, video games will again be numerous under our Christmas trees this year as this period represents over 60% of the purchases of consoles and games. A recent study from the Ministry of Family (IPSOS, Nov 2009) indeed confirms the importance of video gaming in France, with 99% of the 12-17 years old actually playing, 42% of those on a daily basis.

So, what kind of game will parents buy for Christmas? Most often, what their children asked for.
That would not be a problem if kids really knew what is best for them. But this obviously is not the case since, according to their own declaration, 68% of the 12-17 have been shocked by the violence or vulgarity they met in the games they decided to play.

So? Christmas is certainly a good period for awareness centers to repeat that the choice of electronic games, like any other is also a matter of parenting.

The “funny” thing about this is that parents, who massively offer their children video games at Christmas to please them prepare themselves for hard days : the above mentioned study clearly shows that video games is THE object of most disputes at home for over one third of the teenagers.  Merrry Christmas but a tense new year in perspective…
 
In France, Pedagojeux’(www.pedagojeux.fr)   an informative website on video games for parents, created by a consortium gathering main institutions, associations and industrials  (including Internet Sans Crainte), is thus running  a banner and press campaign inviting parents to think twice before buying any kind of video games. At the same time, the Pedagojeux website publishes a set of new articles intended to concretely help parents to make enlightened choices according to the age and personality of their children, as well as analyses of the most debated games such as Wow, Dofus or GTA pointing to the main issues related to those games.