Thanks to my older brother, I grew up playing video games. I started playing video games on consoles such as the PlayStation 2, Nintendo 64, and the Sega handheld. I honestly didn't consider how this would affect my future interest in games, but at the time it was just a fun hobby.
Fast forward to 5th grade and I was discovering the world of MMORPGs or "Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games." Over the course of several years, I devoted countless hours to the very first game that got me hooked, Fiesta Online. I would sit at my computer for 9-12 hours straight on weekends and I would just play my heart out.
MMORPGs require fast communication during combat and the four hour long experience grinding one would do to level up. As a result, I learned how to type incredibly fast and I believe my motor skills increased as well.
At school, while the other kids had to stare down at their keyboards to type up papers and do work, I would breeze through them. I already had everything memorized thanks to playing online games so frequently.
Many people think that video games, on consoles and PC, are a waste of time. I do not agree. I think some of my best years were spent on my computer. I was never really one for socializing unnecessarily growing up and video games gave me a reason to block out everything happening in my life in order to focus on in-game goals.
For a lot of kids and adults, games help us to cope. Games help us to connect to others in a way that we sometimes feel we're unable to do in person. You can choose to be whoever you want online, granted you do not reveal any of your personal information on a whim. It opens up endless possibilities to socialize with the people sitting behind their computers that you normally might not talk to.
I don't think it's fair to tell kids that video games are a waste of time. That's their hobby - you wouldn't go up to someone whose hobby was playing an instrument and tell them that it was a waste of time, right?
It's the same thing when applied to gaming. You have to learn to respect something even though it may not be what you're interested in. I understand that some people may not be into video games, but at least have the decency to recognize it as an actual hobby rather than a mind-numbing activity that some people believe provides little to no gratification.
In fact, there's such a thing as e-sports, which people do for a living... and their earnings are nothing to laugh at. The highest earning e-sports player is currently Saahil Arora, who plays Defense of the Ancients 2 (Dota 2). His overall earnings is listed as $2,635,045.24 - I'd say that's not too shabby for someone who's supposedly "wasting their time."
The bottom line is: don't tell people that something they enjoy is not good enough... because they could end up making well over $2 million dollars.
