It seemed to me from our class discussion that there is a lot of anti-video game sentiment in our class. I think there are a few reasons for it. For one thing, violence in video games or video game addiction is a popular bandwagon topic for politicians. It's an uncontroversial issue they can rally around and gain the support of parents and adult voters who don't really understand games. As a result, they've pumped a lot of rhetoric into the media and popular culture stigmatizing them as having a negative impact on society. I also think that it is common for a relatively new medium (video games have been around since the late '70s - compare that to films which we've had for over a century or fictional literature which we've had for nearly a millenium) to be misunderstood and have growing pains when being accepted in the culture. In the first few decades we had films, they were considered unsophisticated and a distraction for the lower classes. Now they are accepted as works of artistic value.
Here's a link to a video discussing how just one interaction in one game can have the same impact and make us ask the same questions as revered works of art:
http://www.penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/enriching-lives
I would recommend that series to anyone who's interested in video games as a medium and the impact they can have.
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