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The games industry is 7 years old and the companies which trade with such games are getting bigger and bigger. The real reason why games are so popular today is that they are good fun, but they can also be very educational. The fact is that, unlike TV, gaming is an active experience for children that requires concentration and mental agility. Games can help players, as a research has shown, learn to think and act quickly and improve the attention span. Today more and more families are turning to \"edutainment\" titles of games. The name edutainment is given to these games, because they combine entertainment and education. One category of such games are games about city planing that are one of the industry\'s most succesful ever games.
Some people think that games could be harmful for children, but this is not true, because a research had never been able to prove such theories. Besides there are less than 1% of games, which are on the market unsuitable for children under 18 years and 75% of games are universally suitable.
Can games cause epilepsy?
That is another myth that is not true. Even in 1992 the National Epilepsy Society carried out a study which proved that the condition can\'t be caused by playing computer or video games. It may be that a small number of people who already have \"photosensitive epilepsy\" can discover their condition for the first time when they are playing computer or video games. But that condition can also be caused by watching TV or by the lights in a disco.
Age suitability ratings for video and computer games
Because of the small amount of \"adult\" games, the European Leisure Software Publishers Association (ELSPA) has introduced a system of age suitability ratings. These age ratings are in the form of labels which mark the packaging of games. Computer and video games are exempt from legal classification and therefore the labels for the game packages are on a voluntary basis. The labels
show the age ranges for whom any particular game is suitable having regard to the content of the game, but not to the difficulty of a game.
There are four age - suitability ranges pointing out a game as suitable for children aged from 3 to 10, children and teenagers from 11 to 14, teenagers aged 15 to 17 and those over the age of 18.
The labels appear on the games as below:
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