14 DAY TRIAL // This week, the President of the United States, Barack Obama, mentioned videogaming no less than twice. First, he linked it to the problems of education, saying that one of the reasons for the rise of education quality in countries like China and India is that kids there are playing fewer videogames than those in the United States. Then, while delivering a speech at the American Medical Association, he referred to videogaming as being one of the health hazards affecting the population of America.
To his credit, Barack Obama has managed to keep his remarks related to videogames rather balanced. He did not single them out as being the source of all the evils in health care and in education, making Americans fat while also making them incapable of counting to ten.
In a move that only serves to highlight the growing acceptance of videogaming as a hobby and as an industry in both the health and the education speeches, games were talked about as being an integral part of American life, with overconsumption of them being just as dangerous as watching TV or eating too much.
The danger comes from the revival that videogame hate could get even from this acceptance phase. Suggesting that videogames could generated some problems, especially with younger people and their future, might lead to another effort to push them to the fringe.
Expect someone, maybe Jack Thompson, to make the case for banning videogames because they threaten the future and, therefore, they cannot be tolerated in the present. Expect some state legislators to move to limit the sale of videogames to children, hoping to gain electoral ground by pandering to concerned parents who cannot be bothered to do any actual parenting, pressure groups to release press statements urging less videogames and more homework, and television programs to sensationalize the impact of videogames and propagate the unfortunate stereotype of the young, unfit, uneducated gamer.
The good news is that with the President of the United States talking in measured, non alarmist tones about videogames both gamers and developers alike can look forward to more exposure, some of it positive, and much acceptance.