by Walt Mueller
*This article originally appeared in Living With Teenagers magazine

It all started in 1972 with a groudbreaking game that sent a little white dot careening back and forth across a monochrome television screen. In the thirty years since the advent of Pong, the video-game revolution has swept the world. In the United States alone, annual sales for the total U.S. video game industry exceeded $9.4 billion in 2001, an increase of 20% over the previous year. The video game industry is growing so fast, that Bear Stearns forecasts that "the interactive video game industry (will) grow faster than any other media sector. . . . Growth in the game software market is likely to outpace that of the Internet (advertising), television, radio, motion pictures, music, and newspapers."

Perhaps the most frightening aspect of the industry's growth over the past few years is that the number one selling game during 2001 was Grand Theft Auto III. Picked by Rolling Stone as the "Best Console Game of The Year," the magazine described youth culture's favorite video game like this: "You play a criminal, you carjack innocent people, you take on murderous assignments. Hookers provide refreshing interludes, and the language is strictly R-rated." The National Institute on Media and the Family says the game is one to be avoided, because "Due to extreme violence and it's portrayal, the ability to cause fear, illegal/harmful behavior, disrespectful language, sexual content, as well as some nudity, this game is not recommended for children of any age."

Read the rest of this article on the CPYU.org website by clicking here.