David+P’s+2016+OpEd+Article

= =  **Video Games **

The video game industry as a whole has come so far from its humble beginnings, erupting from its roots to be the multi billion dollar industry that it is today. With major success also came major opposition from many attempting to stop what they deemed a threat to the monotony of their everyday lives even if it didn’t affect them personally, as well as coming with many ignorantly using the industry as a scapegoat. There are also those who refuse to recognize the industry as an art form and to them I say sure you’re entitled to your opinion but don’t be complaining to others that video games shouldn’t be deemed art by the government when movies, music, and books are the fact of the matter is that video games are basically all of those combined. To more directly address those that still insist on ranting that violent video games make their children violent despite all of the evidence stating otherwise, I would hope that your “evidence” that proves otherwise isn’t one that was retracted. Even if violent video games did make kids violent, whose fault would it be that your children played said games? Video games aren’t babysitters and they sure as hell all aren’t meant for little kids, that’s one of the reasons that the ESRB was created to inform the people of the contents of said games, there is no one to blame but yourself if you buy a violent video game for your child. Now onto the more childish section of the people who play video games, more specifically of the people who play multiplayer games. That’s right I’m talking about you toxic players, it’s such a shame that in the sea of people of the gaming community it is much like in any other community the most angry and intolerable people that seem to be the loudest, and in the case of the gaming community the most branding of all of them. I just hope that they mellow out eventually (and not with drugs). In the case of video games there have been numerous studies that have found that they are actually more helpful than harmful (too much of anything is a bad thing), such as helping with developing better hand eye coordination, or problem solving skills. Branching off of the improvement in hand eye coordination, the video game industry also has its own share of competitive games which gave rise to a rising esports (electronic sports) scene. There are those who question if it is a sport and those that profess that it isn’t. To them I say why can’t it be? If chess is considered a sport then why shouldn’t competitive team games be? They are even considered a sport by the government which grants sports visas to the players who participate in tournaments with millions of dollars on the line. These players spend countless hours playing with their team practicing to be the best in the world and these teams also have major sponsors backing them. The League of Legends world championships finals sold out the staple center in under an hour, as well as receiving millions of viewers on websites streaming the whole thing. Esports sometimes are even watched more than some sports, so why shouldn’t they be considered a sport as well?

The video game industry has made leaps and bounds in the past 58 years (if you consider that to be the beginning of the industry), oh and anyone who says otherwise is wrong (bam! extra splash of unnecessary ego).