What gaming has taught me

During class I heard quite a lot of negativity towards gaming. While there were some positives brought up there wasn't enough time for me to talk about my thoughts.

I have been playing video games for the majority of my life. I started out on the Super Nintendo playing Super Mario World, Batman Forever, and Super Street Fighter II. As I grew up I got even more involved in games. I would stay up to date with the newest games and hardware as well as contribute to online communities for video games. Through the years I feel like most of my life skills were gained through video games. I like to believe I had a pretty normal childhood, playing sports and hanging out with friends but I know that I learned a lot more from video games than I did from any sport I played. And I learned a lot more "real life" lessons from gaming than I ever did or will from school. And while its a close second, video gaming almost taught me more than my parents did. Video games have been a big part of my life and I'm not sure if I am the type of person who could have learned these lessons easily without video games. I think that it is hard to understand how much you can learn from video games without having played them and learn from them most of your life. It was very clear in class that most of the people who were opposed to what the readings were saying were not gamers, and while they may have played occasionally, they did not play a prominent role in their lives.