December 11, 2009 (11:28 AM) by Nick Kinports
Last Friday, we examined video games and how they’re becoming more and more integrated into our daily lives—a future trend discussed by Mike Maddock at Future Trends 2009. We also touched on the insight that consumers are becoming less and less passive in their consumption of information and entertainment services.
But what about those who aren’t consumers yet? According to a new “Kids and Gaming 2009” report from the NPD Group, among all children in the United States aged 2-17, 82 percent or 55.7 million, are currently gamers.
 And, to take it further, of these gamers, 9.7 million are aged 2-5, representing the smallest segment, while 12.4 million are aged 9-11, making up the largest segment. Kids today aren’t becoming less and less passive—they demand interactivity with little or no wait time. They have grown up experiencing interactive media instead of gradually acclimating to it. And to leverage that fundamental truth, game developers, scientists, teachers and even NASA engineers are coming together to innovate one of the most important subjects of our future: education. Of course, in the past, video gaming has been parlayed into various attempts to sneak educational material into the minds of kids—but it didn’t work, at least not on a large-scale. But now, with game developers like ARA/Virtual Heroes collaborating with NASA astrounauts to create games like “MoonBase Alpha” to better convey science, technology, engineering and math ideas to students across America, it seems that the video gaming trend is being recognized for the first time as a relevant solution for a very serious unmet need. And the great thing about this innovation? It’s working. As more industries realize the potential of gaming and the relevance of this future trend, adults may find themselves playing a lot more—or at least more regularly—to stimulate new ideas and observations about the world around them.
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