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Game Crazy Helps Parents Pick the Perfect Video Games for Kids

Parents will be tested this year in their pursuit of the perfect video game-related gifts. According to the 2008 Game Crazy Holiday Gift Tracker, a nationwide survey of kids and parents, a whopping 96 percent of kids have a gaming system, and 90 percent of kids are planning to ask for at least one game this year, up from 80 percent in 2007. With video games topping kids’ wish lists, Game Crazy wants to help parents save time and money, pick the perfect gift and facilitate family fun.

“We went straight to the source for the second year in a row to find out what video games kids want and what they think their parents will actually buy them this holiday season,” said Wes Sand, senior vice president at Game Crazy. “The difference this year is that we also polled parents to determine their thoughts regarding video game gifting. The results show that video games are hotter than ever, and Game Crazy is here to be the resource for gift-givers and to help them avoid disappointment when the presents are opened.”

Giving Parents the Gift of Time and Money This Holiday Season

With 91 percent of parents planning to give their kids a video game this holiday season, it’s important to remember that purchasing the wrong video game - or the right game for the wrong system - can be disappointing. More than one-third of kids who have received the wrong game in the past say they just kept it, while another one-third asked their parents to go back and return the game - wasting time and money. In a time when wallets are already being squeezed, it benefits parents to get the right game, for the right system, from the beginning.

“More than half of kids told us they get bored of their games in less than 5 months, but still keep them around collecting dust,” explained Sand. “We encourage parents to bring used games into Game Crazy where they can trade them in for another game.”

Parents can also save by purchasing a used game at Game Crazy for a discounted price. When buying a used game, parents have the option to ‘try before they buy’ so they can be confident the game is right for their child and in good condition.

Using Gaming as a Family Activity

Video games can make for great bonding time, bringing families together for some good, old-fashioned fun. In fact, 54 percent of parents polled said they plan to play video games with their kids over board games, card games and other activities.

Giving the perfect game can go a long way, as kids will go to great lengths to get a game they want. Forty-five percent of kids said they would either do household chores for two months or teach siblings to play a game in return for their video game of choice.

Helping Parents Pick the Perfect Game

Game Crazy went straight to the source and uncovered what games and systems kids want most this holiday season:

• Some of the most popular games for holiday 2008 are in the Action, Music and Racing genres.

• Guitar Hero World Tour, Rock Band II, Mario Kart and Dance Dance Revolution Hottest Party II are expected to be among this year’s hottest-selling titles.

• Kids even know what they want to get Santa this year. More than one-third of kids say they would give Santa and Mrs. Claus a Wii Fit - probably to work off the extra holiday cookies!

Additional Buying Tips

To help parents this holiday season, the video game experts at Game Crazy offer these tips for choosing great video game gifts.

• Parents should consider gaming accessories as gifts too. A rechargeable battery pack is the most vital accessory according to tweens and teens, followed closely by a guitar and racing wheel.

• Always ask kids for a wish list. Eighty-four percent of parents polled said they plan to ask their kids for a wish list to ensure they purchase the proper game. Game Crazy also created a video game wish list that will be available at www.gamecrazy.com. Kids can complete it online and email it to a parent or they can print it and fill it out by hand.

• Look for Game Crazy’s free “Parent’s Guide to Game Buying” brochure, which contains helpful tips for purchasing video game titles and systems. The brochure will be available at all Game Crazy retail locations or can be downloaded at www.gamecrazy.com.

SURVEY METHODOLOGY

The Game Crazy survey was conducted online August 17-31, 2008, by Weekly Reader Research. One thousand U.S. male and female participants, ages 8-17, were recruited from Weekly Reader Research’s INSIDERS survey research community. Random sampling procedures were employed to ensure the respondents accurately reflect the nation’s 42.7 million 8-17 year olds in terms of age, race/ethnicity, gender and census region. The margin of error is +/- 3.1 percent at the 95 percent confidence interval.

Game Crazy

Game Crazy(R) (www.gamecrazy.com) is the nation’s second largest specialty game retailer with more than 560 locations across the country. Hollywood Entertainment of Wilsonville, Oregon, was acquired in 2005 by Movie Gallery, Inc. and operates Game Crazy. Movie Gallery, Inc. is the second largest North American home entertainment specialty retailer with more than 3,300 stores located in all 50 U.S. states and Canada.

Filed under : Advice, Chat, Family & Home, Money, Shopping

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Moms with older kids plan to spend less than those with little ones

American mothers have confirmed in a recent study what retailers are fearing: they plan to spend less money on holiday presents this year.

In the new report from the Marketing to Moms Coalition, a not-for-profit industry association that studies the habits and purchasing patterns of mothers, women with children plan to spend $50 less than last year, for a total of $660 in predicted holiday spending for 2008. Interestingly, the cuts are biggest for moms with teens and kids aged 7-12. Mothers with the youngest children, those aged six and under, have equal spending expectations as last year.

“Older kids tend to want expensive presents like cell phones, video games, trendy clothes and computer equipment,” says Maria Bailey, a founder of the Marketing to Moms Coalition, and author of the book, Mom 3.0, Marketing with Today’s Mother by Leveraging New Media and Technology. “Moms are telling their older kids that this year, they’re just going to have to wait.”

Offline spending (at traditional retailers) is predicted to take the biggest hit, averaging 8% less than last year’s survey numbers. Online holiday spending is predicted to remain flat at 2% less than 2007 survey levels. The big winners, if there are any, will be mass merchandisers and supercenters like Wal-Mart and Target. The majority of moms (87%) plan to shop at these types of stores for their holiday shopping, with department stores taking second place at 37%, and shoe stores and specialty clothing stores tying for third place at 35%.

Moms plan to buy different holiday gifts for children depending on the age of the child. The top gifts for children 6 and under are baby/toddler toys, educational toys and items for pretend play. Board games, arts & crafts and books are the top items for children 7-12 years old. For teens, the top items Moms plan to buy are clothing, computer equipment and/or games and cell phones.

About the Survey

The survey was comprised of a nationally representative sample of American Moms contacted between June and July 2008, via an online invitation. The sample was balanced on region, household size, population density, income and ethnicity. An ending sample of 1,033 Moms with children under 18 living at home completed the online questionnaire. The research firm Insight to Action analyzed results.

Source: Marketing to Moms Coalition

Filed under : Chat, Family & Home, Money, Shopping

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From Handling Holiday Stress to How to Dress the Table, Life123.com Can Help

Thanksgiving celebrations are as typically American as Apple/Cherry/Pumpkin pie and as individual as the reasons people have to be thankful. Still, hosting or attending a Thanksgiving dinner is often not an easy, stress-free experience.

For starters, Thanksgiving requires lots of advance planning and prepping, made more challenging because it always falls during the workweek. And, for those mini-Marthas that need to create spectacular centerpieces and positively perfect place-settings right down to the autumnally festooned napkin rings, the house can be abuzz with arts and crafts before Election Day ends.

Even guests, though spared the cares of the pre-company house cleaning; home-cooking, and the annual defrosting of behemoth-sized birds in the bathtub, often endure arduous hours of travel or worse, hours of mind-numbing waiting to travel.

Thanksgiving is also frequently fraught with the pressures of maintaining family traditions from replicating Mom’s recipes to whose Mom’s recipes to use; who carves the beast, and whether it is necessary to have the relish style fresh cranberry sauce and the jelled variety with its elegantly shimmering can lines.

Far more than a cranberry sauce resource or a time/ temperature guide to roasting turkey, Life123(TM) tackles the thorny questions that make many other sites head for the sidelines.

Indeed, www.Life123.com visitors need only type “Thanksgiving” into its search box to pull up tips on everything from hosting a first Thanksgiving and creating crafty table settings and cornucopia to safe food handling and recipes for savory cornbread, varieties of fresh Cranberry relish, and that sweet seasonal staple, pumpkin pie. For those imbued with a love of historic Thanksgiving traditions, there’s even a section of Native American and Colonial recipes. (For a related topic, type “football” into the site’s search box).

Like life, Life123.com is not comprised solely of heaping helpings followed by days of leftovers (though there are five recipes for turkey casserole on the site). There’s also a wealth of money-saving tips; ways to cope with holiday stress (like those intrusive questions from well-meaning relatives) and even pointers on how to not completely decimate one’s diet.

And lest we forget … According to Life123.com’s feature Hold Your First Thanksgiving Dinner Without Going Crazy, “a turkey needs approximately 20 minutes per pound to cook (based on a 325-degree oven).”

Source: Life123.com

Filed under : Advice, Chat, Family & Home, Food

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