It’s All About Mom…
Tuesday, March 31st, 2009
By Anita Frazier, Entertainment Industry Analyst Toys & Video Games
When I least expected it, BAM! Something hit me over the head like the proverbial ton of bricks. I was sitting at a conference in January listening to a panel discussion on kids and their use of the Internet. As usual, Internet safety concerns came up time and time again. Amongst the largely PC panelists, one more outspoken gentleman was talking about what kids were really doing on the Internet, and the pains they take to hide these things from their parents, especially their mothers. While moms rule the household and largely set the rules and cultural agendas, dads will tell great stories about the things they got away with when THEY were kids, and most likely rebel against mom’s household rules themselves. And that’s when it hit me - I am totally un-cool.
You see, I have four boys between the ages of six and eleven, and a fifth boy, my husband, whose age will go unstated. I had been living this illusion that because I was kind of hip to the whole video game and toy world, and my job had some really cool side benefits for my kids, that I was actually a pretty cool person. So I’m sitting at this conference having this major life-changing personal image transformation when something occurred to me that was pretty comforting - I may not be cool, but I am large, and in-charge. Like the millions of other moms out there, I do rule the household. I control most of the household spending, I decide what we’re eating for dinner, and otherwise make most of the decisions.
The moms of the world are vitally important to the video games industry because not only are more of them becoming gamers themselves, but we control a lot of the money that is spent on hardware and games. I think that moms have been at the heart of one of the biggest shifts the games industry has experienced with this latest generation, and that shift has been part of the reason the industry is now in its fifth year of experiencing sales growth.
Moms are now a lot more in-tune with the industry and it has helped foster in a more mainstream acceptance of gaming as a form of entertainment. With moms more aware of the industry and more involved themselves, it has paved the way for more households’ cultural agendas to include video gaming as a regular form of entertainment.
Us moms may not be cool, but everyone knows who runs the show.
Tags: Video Games
Video Games | Anita Frazier, Entertainment Industry Analyst Toys & Video Games | 
March 31, 2009 9:10 am
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