It's 10 o'clock on a Saturday morning. David Picone, 10, and brother Ricky, 11, are soaked with sweat. There are only two seconds left in the game, and David's up by 1 point. Ricky inbounds the ball. A no-look pass, and a slamming two-handed dunk wins the game! "He shoots; he scores!" screams Ricky. "Game over. You lose!" Ricky runs around with his hands up in the air. David wipes the sweat from his eyes and punches his brother in the arm.
An intense morning basketball game? Sort of. Except Ricky and David are in their basement and still in pajamas. They are playing March Madness '98 on their Sony PlayStation. Their parents have been calling them to come upstairs for breakfast for 25 minutes. Mom and Dad are not too happy.
Video-Game Invasion
Does this scene sound familiar? No wonder. Video games have invaded the lives of American kids, and in some cases they've taken over!
More than 181 million video and computer games were sold in the U.S. last year. That's almost two games for every household! Americans spent $5.5 billion on video and computer games in 1998--25% more than in 1997. Of course, not every kid has a game system or a PC joystick, but it's getting awfully close. A national survey of 500 parents found that 9 out of 10 said their kids owned or rented games in 1998.
All those new games are just irresistible to the kids who hold the controllers. "It's the first thing Ricky and David do when they get home on Friday or wake up on the weekends," says Mom, Mindy Picone. The Picones limit game time to weekends, but many kids don't have to play by such rules. In fact, 1 out of 7 kids who play video and computer games plays at least an hour and half a day, according to psychologist David Walsh of the National Institute on Media and the Family. Then there's the hard core 7% who play three or more hours a day!
Are Kids Addicted?
You know the kids. The ones who spend more time playing Zelda or Pokémon than eating or sleeping. They prefer video-game playing to any other activity. They get angry when they can't play.
"There's this one kid," says John Szendiuch, 12, of Pelham, New York, "it's his whole life. He walks around the lunchroom with his Game Boy saying, 'Wanna battle? Wanna trade?' I think he's definitely addicted."
When kids become obsessed, parents get upset. Ron Hughes, 38, of Bridgeton, Missouri, found that he couldn't even talk to his son Russell, 9, because the boy was so absorbed in Pokémon. "The phone would ring," says Hughes, "and Russell wouldn't hear it."
Parents are also worried about the violence. The blood and gore gushing from games like Duke Nukem: Time to Kill and Resident Evil are enough to make some parents ban all video games from their home.
What's Good About Games?
Surprisingly, experts who study kids and video games say the games are not all bad as long as kids don't go overboard. Patricia M. Greenfield, a California psychology professor, believes that games are one reason for the increase in intelligence-test scores since the 1970s. "They raise nonverbal thinking skills and visual intelligence," she says.
David Walsh agrees. He says games, such as Tetris and the Carmen Sandiego series, "engage and entertain the mind while introducing puzzle-solving skills."
Some kids are convinced that controlling a joystick and firing video weapons help improve their hand-eye coordination. Nice try, but research does not back this up. Hitting a button on your controller, says Walsh, will help you get better at just that skill: hitting a button on your controller.
Are games addictive? Only in the sense that "all fun is addictive," says child psychologist Robert Butterworth of Los Angeles. Still, there's no denying that when you've been playing Zelda for an hour and you've finally found your way out of the Spirit Temple, or you're playing Pokemon and you're about to capture Charmander, it's just about impossible to quit--even though dinner's on the table.
Time's Up
How do you avoid battles over video games? "It's important for parents to take an interest in what kids are playing," says Walsh. Then they can make reasonable rules and maybe even understand what kids love about the games.
Butterworth says he plays Nintendo 64 with his son Anton, 13. "He whups me. He just blows me away!" Still, both Butterworth and Walsh believe parents must limit kids' playing time. Walsh recommends no more than 90 minutes a day.
But watch out. Such limits are about to become harder to enforce. This spring Sega will unveil Sega Dreamcast. It has a 128-bit processor, so it will be twice as sharp and clear as a Nintendo 64. PlayStation's own 128-bit player will be out next year. Everything that makes video games amazing and attractive to kids will be getting bigger, brighter and more irresistible than ever.
Game History Bit By Bit
1999 Sega Dreamcast
Due out this spring, it has a superfast computer chip that takes 3-D games to the next level. Sonic never looked so good.
1996 Nintendo 64
The hot player of the moment, with cutting-edge graphics that put characters like Link, Mario and Yoshi in 3-D worlds.
1995 Sony Playstation
Even better graphics, with games like Crash Bandicoot and Madden NFL on CDs instead of cartridges.
1989 Sega Genesis
With better graphics than the 8-bit players, it made Sonic one hot hedgehog.
1989 Nintendo Game Boy
The handheld player that made popular games like Tetris portable.
1985 Nintendo Entertainment System
It boosted the sagging game industry and made Mario a star.
1977 Atari 2600
First big multigame system. Hits: Donkey Kong, Space Invaders.
1974 Home Pong
The first home video-game system. Black and white. Just one game.