I have played video games since I was a young child, when the Nintendo Entertainment System was brought to the United States.  My interests in them have grown and diversified as I've grown older, leading to my eventual choice to pursue a bachelor's degree in video game design, with a focus on writing.

To me, video games are the ultimate entertainment - they combine the interactivity of, say, a board game, with the entertainment value of television.  In the best cases, they also bring to the table good stories and strong characters.  At their best, video games provide not only entertainment, but building of various individual or group skills, as well as challenges to the player to think in a new way.  At their worst, video games are entertainment alone - no better or worse than television or a video.

As a writer, my goal is to bring thoughtful, realistic emotion and ideas to my writing for the video game industry.  As a member of one of the first "generations" coming out of school programs with a video game specific curriculum, I see and hear the same from my colleagues, the driving desire to see games become even more interactive and exciting.

I cannot, in any way, see this as a bad thing - nor, by connection, do I see this as a situation needing government intervention.  Parents have been, and must continue to be, the arbiters of what their children are playing.  To restrict the video game industry while leaving other entertainment industries with as much or more violent content free to self-regulate is at best bizarre, at worst a gross misuse of congressional power.

Video games have the capability to be the newest innovation in learning and teaching, and to force limits on them at the most important surge in their growth since the serious start of console and computer gaming in the United States would be nothing short of crippling the next generation of learning tools.