To be honest i don't think the TS(sorry you're name is to difficult lol) really get's Obama's point either. He really wasn't pointing to just addiction, but to distraction as a whole. And i completely agree with him.

I used to spend an insane amount of time on games in my teens aswell, and i started regretting that when i got older. Nothing wrong with some gaming now and then, but a think the barrier lies with playing a game to enjoy it and playing games just to finish them or get a fictional character stronger(personally i'm also against achievements). Because then you are trying to achieve something in a fictional space witch is just completely uselles in real life.

So Obama isn't pointing at addiction, it's more the fact that the time you spend in a virtual game is lost in real life.

^^ exactly.

I normally play games 1-2 hours a day, with spikes here and there. And I love the distraction. I hope the speech was meant for people who have no life besides gaming.

Just wait till the Matrix arrive. I am so going to grind to level 60 in a week and PK all of you fanboys.

eh, there a far worse things than gaming to bitch about in this country. Hell, there are riots every started by fans year due to sports events....go bother them.

Well video games are his hobby so his hobby should be stopped right? I dont understand why people are sticking up for obama for this comment when it never should of been said. Video games and ipads arent the reason this country is in the situation its in. These are things that are bought with hard working money that YOU earned and have a right to do what you want at any time and NO one should tell you that YOUR hobby is a distraction when its a HOBBY.

I Kinda have to agree, as I was at one point playing an unhealthy amount of time with games.
During the N64 years, all the way to the early Game Cube era, I used to shell out like 5 to 8 hours a day. Thanks to my parents, and with some self control, I cut as much as half of the time playing video games.

Like some people here said, everything is a distraction. Even playing sports can be dictracting from getting good grades. *thinks about the Coach Carter film* I don't know why everything has to be centered down to video games. Parents are the ones that are supposed to have control over their kids but todays parents are a bunch of lazy asses.

The big part of being human is having self control. If you dont have that, your not human.

I agree that Obama's angle om gaming was a bit stupid. What does it matter if gaming is a distraction? It is supposed to be a distraction, just like all forms of entertainment are.

If he felt he really must mention gaming at all he should have specifically addressed gaming addiction. Maybe just give a lil warning to the kids out there, "beware of WoW, u might get stuck". But in general I think it isn't the president job to give speeches about addictions either, because these kinds of problems are already handled by society.

“In the Grinders case I have to wonder if they are addicted to what they do, but they aren't the value they see comes from being selfish. They do things for themselves; the reason why people are selfish is because they feel no one else will do anything for them and so they owe no one. The feeling that one must owe something to do something is the source of the selfish ambition and that causes the selfish reckless action of grinding. But I bash them because they do not seek value in the products they purchase and instead they are retarded consumers who use their own selfish ambitions over the values the products present to determine a purchase.”

In other words your friend’s problem isn’t that he played WoW it’s that he’s incapable of distinguishing values. To him it’s all about him.

Obama is deeply mistaken and so are you. Maybe you don’t realize that Obama isn’t a forum goer or a marketer and he is not your best friend, he is the President of the United States, which means that he can cause a lot of grief for a lot of people in a decision.

In the end this whole thing comes down to taxation, the government needs more tax dollars, they want more from anywhere and they can’t do that unless they can get a public eye turned on to something. They need people to want to pay attention to gaming so they can push that gaming is unhealthy.
They won’t ban gaming but they will push for its heavy taxation. THIS is what the Presidential seat means.
~Be careful what you wish for.

I agree with you in a way.

True that anything in excess is bad for you ... I bet even eating too many apples is bad for you :P ( not shore about this xD)


But its up to the individual and those important to him, so if you really against your friends life style, and you should be, smack some sense into him.

I kind of like this video its quite insightful:
http://www.gametrailers.com/user-movie/my-gaming-resolution/339735

I hope you find my opinion valuable.