My son was 10 when I noticed he had stopped inviting friends over to our house. The peace and quiet was nice, but I finally had to ask: What's up? Without a PlayStation 2, it seems, he felt we had little to offer. "Other kids kind of expect it," he said.

The mothers of a few of his friends agreed. Kids, even kids who like to play outside and read books, sometimes just wanna play games.

So now we have a PS2, which allows users to pop in a disc and play a video game on a television screen. The bigger change has been the complicated financial calculus that allows a child with a $5 allowance to have a $200 game system and a handful of $40 games.

It will only get harder. Sony plans to launch its PlayStation 3 this fall, with fancy graphics and a reported $500 price tag ($600 for the enhanced version). Nintendo has a new system coming out, as well, and Microsoft is still surfing the success of last season's hit, the Xbox 360.

"Kids don't care," said Chad Magee, manager of a Game Stop in southwest Houston, which sells new and used games, DVDs and accessories. "They'll do anything to get that next game. Parents, they're the ones complaining."

Complaints or not, gaming is a part of life for an increasing number of families, a junior version of their parents' digital entertainment lifestyle, which ranges from their BlackBerrys to that giant plasma TV in the den.

"People are better off, so you spend money on discretionary things," said Daniel S. Hamermesh, an economics professor at the University of Texas at Austin. "You've gotten the necessities already."

Hamermesh isn't one to fret over the high cost of all this technology.

"There's always a fad," he said, whether it's the Davy Crockett hat he begged for as a child or today's Madden NFL 07 video game."I'm not sure this is different than anything else."

He worries about the consumption of time, rather than the consumption of money. "I'm bothered that one of my grandsons is addicted to his Game Boy."

Time and money

But Harper sees the monetary cost as a problem, too, even if it's just another variation on the desire for brand-name clothes and $200 sneakers.

Not everyone can afford to indulge their children, he said. Other parents can afford it but don't approve. Or they can afford it and don't necessarily disapprove but still, the money adds up.

Regardless, Harper said, "it's an opportunity to teach money management and economic realities."

Not every tween and teen plays video games, and some may not even want to. But the consumer electronic revolution is real.

A study released last spring by the NPD Group found that kids ages 4 to 14 were starting to use consumer electronic devices — portable video game systems, cell phones and the like — six months earlier than they had just a year earlier.

The average child starts using a desktop computer before turning 5, according to NPD analyst Anita Frazier, while video games are the "pastime of choice" for most boys after age 8.

"In fact, we call them 'digi-natives' because they begin using technology at a very early age, and the use is instinctive to them, much as it is for kids that learn to speak a second language in the home early on," Frazier said in an e-mail.

What can you do?

"I don't just shell out," said Jean Harris, the mother of two daughters. "I make it hurt a little."

So 11-year-old Lauren Harris, a sixth-grader, generally saves up for at least part of the cost of a new game. Lauren, who trades in old games, too, claims she doesn't mind waiting because something even better might be out by the time she's saved the money.

Some families rent games, providing a week of play for a fraction of the cost of a new game. Kids can pool their money and share games, and some stores buy used games, helping defray the cost of a new one.

A study by Robert Crandall of the Brookings Institution and J. Gregory Sidak of the Georgetown University Law Center found that the entertainment software business pumped more than $18 billion into the nation's economy in 2004 — $2.7 billion for video game hardware alone.

Clearly, Hamermesh said, kids aren't paying for all this out of their allowances. But so what? he asked.

For one thing, he noted, families are smaller than in the past. With fewer children, "we want to treat them better."

Delayed gratification

"Some families may feel that being involved in video games before a certain age is something they're not interested in for their family," he said. "If they announce that ahead of time, that can be helpful."

If you take the plunge, he suggests using the opportunity to teach money-management skills.

"Maybe the child has to save the entire cost, or a portion of the cost, so the child learns about savings," said Harper, who also is an associate professor at the UT medical school at Houston.

That teaches delayed gratification, which isn't at the top of most adolescents' wish list.

But Josh Entsminger agrees that he's learned something from juggling desire with available cash.

"You learn about conserving and saving up so you can get something you want," said Josh, 14, a freshman at St. Thomas High School.

Flush with gift cards from a recent birthday, Josh plunked down $5 in mid-August to reserve his copy of Final Fantasy XII, due out Oct. 31.

Another $54, and it'll be his.

His mother, Leslie Entsminger, barely blinked.

Josh is, after all, the youngest of four children and the owner of a personal computer, a PlayStation and an Xbox.

Josh's older brothers pioneered the parental training ground. "I was so mean to them," Entsminger said.

One summer, she posted a big chart, allowing them to earn points for chores. At summer's end, they had enough for a Sega game system.

"And then school started."

She has mellowed, but Josh still has to cover most of his video game habit with his allowance and gift cards from birthdays and holidays.

Gift cards are the currency of choice for adolescents, and video game economics is one reason.

"It's the unusual parent that will still go out and buy a present," Entsminger said. "A 12-year-old girl doesn't want a Barbie. They want to download music for their iPod."

Harper said gift cards can be a compromise between giving kids the high-priced items they want and cheaper alternatives they don't want.

"To get that $50 game, they'll collect gift cards," he said. "They'll ask Grandma for a $15 gift card from Best Buy."

Some purists still resist.

Rob Bennett, for one, suggests that kids should "get a $15 doodad and learn how to find the joy in it, as opposed to converting it into (a gift card) and buying a video game."

(Bennett's kids are 4 and 6.)

Bennett, a lawyer and tax specialist who blogs on financial affairs at PassionSaving.com, says he can't think of any spending category with as many bad traits as video games.

They're fun, he admits, but they're also addictive. And he considers the games even worse than the gaming systems, because they're a continuing expense.

Really, it's not the money, it's the habit, says Bennett, author of Passion Saving: The Path to Plentiful Free Time and Soul-Satisfying Work. "If you give in on this, they are learning the wrong habit."

But his may be a lost cause.

Not just for kids

Wake up, walk the dog and take the Xbox for a spin before work.

Doug Lowenstein, president of the Entertainment Software Association, spelled it out in a speech at the Electronic Entertainment Expo last May. "Video games are the rock 'n' roll music for the digital generation, and Halo and The Sims and Zelda are their Grateful Deads and their Rolling Stones," he told the audience.

Hello, generational change.

Sort of.

In fact, 35 percent of American parents play computer and video games, usually — but not always — with their children, according to Lowenstein's group. Most say they play because it's an opportunity to socialize with their child, as well as a way to monitor game content.

But there are other reasons, too.

Games, in case you hadn't noticed, are fun. And 25 percent of the people who play them are 50 or older.

Dee Stringfellow started playing more than 20 years ago, when her own kids were young.

"I couldn't pass by an arcade," she said. "I'm very competitive."

Now 51 and a manager at The Methodist Hospital, Stringfellow has a PlayStation and an Xbox, and she never walks into Best Buy without checking out the game section.

Her grandson used to live with her, giving her an excuse. He lives with his mother now, and Stringfellow can play in peace.

One thing she doesn't do is agonize over the money she has spent on games.

"No," she shrugged. "It's entertainment for me."

jeannie.kever@chron.com