May 2
Obama talks Grand Theft Auto, and gaming and entertainment’s impact on education
Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama talked about gaming, television, and entertainment’s effect on education and how the importance of school has to be emphasized at a recent stop in Indianapolis. He specifically made reference to Grand Theft Auto IV (you may have heard of it), although he talked about games in general as well:
“I was just catching the news this morning about Grand Theft Auto, alright, this video game, which is gonna break all records, and make goo-gobs of money for whoever designed it. Now, this isn’t intended for kids, I understand, although I promise you there will be kids who are playing it. But, those video games are raising our kids.
“It just reminded me, video culture, TV culture - across the board - middle class, upper class, working class kids, they’re spending a huge amount of time, not on their studies, but on entertainment.
“And so part of our job is gonna have to be to inspire the entire country to say how are we giving our kids a thirst for knowledge, and turning off the TV set, and getting them to be engaged and interested and really feel… that their future really does matter on how well they do in school.”
It’s true that a lot of parents try and let games and entertainment raise their kids instead of doing it themselves, and I don’t think it’s an attack on video games as much as Obama saying games shouldn’t detract from things like education. Michelle Obama, his wife, also clarified that this applied to “not just one specific game.”
However, it seems a lot of gamers like to take things personally, and I’m worried this might be taken out of context like the last time. For example, GamePolitics.com, where many people will read this news, excluded “video culture, TV culture,” from their transcript, which makes the focus on games seem much more prominent (not to mention the original title being “Barack Obama Calls Out GTA IV”).
Notice how Obama says “turning off the TV set,” not the console, so it’s really a reflection on entertainment in general and video games are just included. At least no one is going to disagree with the statement that GTA is going to make “goo-gobs” of money for the designers and break plenty of records. Or that kids will be playing it.
On a related note, to read more of my opinions on parents’ roles in respect to violent and “inappropriate” material in games, check out my editorial on “The Most Effective ‘Rating’ There Is” (hint: it’s parents).
[Via A Tree Falling in the Forest]
Categories: Gaming Industry, OMG1!!1!, Politics, T.V.7 Comments so far
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I at least respect him for not trying to blame it all on video games I think the point he was making was that gaming makes a lot of money and that kids eat it up and it stops them from doing their studies he threw Grand Theft Auto out there because lets face it this game made a hell of a lot of money.
Yeah, but I bet the Internet is again blowing this out of proportion saying that Obama hates video gamers.
Anything that is remotely controversial and uttered by Obama will be blown out of proportion, whether it be by neo-cons or Clinton supporters. I honestly agree with Obama 100% with what he said.
He’s simply stating that video games have been taking a greater emphasis over education, and although I love video games and always have, I consider that a bad thing, personally.