Games convention Leipzig, focus on onlinegames
The Leipzig games convention opened yesterday, Die Welt had quite an expose about the event and gaming in general. Most focus was put on onlinegaming and the amount of time spent playing them.
In my opinion onlinegames or computertime in general is replacing time previously spent watching television and reading newspapers, I guess its also possible social onlinegames are somewhat predating on live social interaction in many cases. Something that could become troublesome later in professional life. That being said I know quite a few organizations who rely more on IM and email than actual conversations even though the collegue are just a few meters away ;).
Die Welt was concerned with time spent playing and the violence in games, as far as I could read (granted in german articles there for sure is a possibility of me missing or misunderstanding things 
).there was not one note of possible positive impact the move from television and newspapers to spending time in front of the computer could have.
In my opinion kids age 12-15 who play games similar to Civilization, Settlers, Sim city, Half life and World of Warcraft are much more intellectually challenged by these games at that age than what is taught in junior highschool (based on my own experiences of course).
Ok there is also the risk of not being able to let go later in life continuing to play games 15 hours or more per week also after you pass 20 ;).