Web of Webhead

As referenced on /., gamepolitics.com reports that Attorney Jack Thompson seeks to have Halo 3 declared a public nuisance.

Riggghhht.

This reminds me…at GenCon, we were meeting up with our dinner group at one of the hotel bars, and this guy next to Julie started asking just what was  going on…he was in town dropping his son of at college.  He kept coming back to this point…what do you say to parents whose kids spend too much time playing video games?  (Nevermind me trying to explain to him briefly the difference between table top and video games.)

Since we were ditching out anyway, I never came up with a good answer for him…but I’ve thought about it since.  And really it’s an easy answer.  When I was a kid, I didn’t have any video games.  And you know what?  I still found plenty of things to do to “waste time” and sandbag on homework.  It’s kind of like the phrase “guns don’t kill people, people shooting guns kill people”.   Or in this case, “video games don’t waste time, people playing video games waste time”.

Video games are leisure recreation…and honestly, probably a bit more mentally engaging than say, just watching tv, which, guess what, is probably what kids are doing if they aren’t on the computer/console.

What’s really funny to me….this guy, he had never considered that people make a living making games of any kind.  It never occurred to him that a game, a video game, rpg, etc., it needs a writer, artists, editors, designers, etc.  Apparently in his world they just grew like magic mushrooms in the video stores. 

So, is Halo 3 a nuisance?  Of course not…it’s more akin to the next big media event of the year…I’m curious to see how this and Harry Potter stack up to the big movies of the year… – B