Today's morning email surely brought a slew of items of interest to me. In case you didn't hear, The Associated Press and AOL Games conducted a poll (in both English and Spanish,) Oct. 9-11 and 16-18 based on telephone interviews with a nationally representative random sample of 2,016 adults from all states except Alaska and Hawaii and included 770 gamers. Only adults were interviewed.

The really interesting part is the part of the poll results that each outlet highlighted over the others. The Associated Press in their article about the poll reported these stats:

• More than four in 10, or 43 percent, of those whose young children play video or computer games never play along with them.
• 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.

Then these were presented towards the end of the article:

• 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.

Matt Peckham blogging on PCWorld picked up the following stats:

• Eight out of ten kids between the ages of 4 and 17 play computer or video games
• 81% of kids play at least occasionally compared with 38% of adults who admit to playing computer or video games in any capacity, and 45% of those adult gamers are female.
• Nearly half of all adult gamers are under 40 years old.
• Only one third of adult gamers are married with children.
• 41% of all games classify themselves as "hardcore" or spend at least 3 hours per week playing video games.
• 58% of hardcore gamers are male, while 42% are female.

I'm not a parent, but I enjoy gaming with my niece and nephew - especially if I'm winning. *grins* Those two are my greatest supporters when I clear a level. Yes, they can be annoying. "You died." "You died again." Yes, yes! I know! I know! But when I'm winning? I'm the greatest heroine on earth! They will run through the house announcing that I killed a particularly tough monster.

So... they are watching rather than gaming. They are 5 and 4 after all. Now, playing WITH them is another thing altogether. "Gimme the At-At!" "I wanna be the At-At." "Nooooo!" *shriek* "You killed me!" "Did not!" "Did too!" "This way!" "Go this way!" "Oh no! Bad men!" "Aunty Carol! We need your help!" "YOU play" accompanied by a controller suddenly shoved into my hands.

Did I ever mention how my niece - she was 4 at the time, saved an entire EQII party in RunnyEye? The party wasn't paying attention when I went AFK to change her brother's diaper. She however, paid excellent attention and had yelled that there were monsters coming.

"Press 5 honey."
"Okay! I pressed it!"
"Did I make magic?"
"Yes, you did!"
"Is his red bar down to half?"
"Not yet."
"When it is, press 1."
"Okay!"

She was the happiest... I mean... happiest little girl when the fight was over and she had saved her tank!