Okay, so, I'm not about to avidly defend 15 year old kids playing Grand Theft Auto for 20 hours a day, but this kind of crap really pushes my buttons.

I recently purchased Bioshock (which, I might add, I had to brandish my drivers license to purchase), and, as with any new game, I spent a large chunk of time playing it out of the box. 5 hours, to be precise. One of my non-gamer friends notices this (I post my Xfre profile pretty much everywhere) and proceeds to go on a conservative mother rant about how I am, and I quote: "sitting on my lazy [beep] wasting time, braincells, and energy that could be put to use in any other way. Why you do it is truly beyond me, all you're doing is destroying your vision AND imagination and wasting time that you should be spending living."

My mother, bless her soul, continually repeats the phrase "you're an adult now, don't you think you're a little old for video games?" My recent response to this was "There are more video games for adults than kids." Her response was... well, ignorant.

"Exactly, and that's why there are more failed marriages, because men cannot tear themselves away from video games."

I feel very upset that, at 21, I should have to defend my choice of hobbies to everyone and everything, and that more and more the fault of all the world's problems are being placed on gamers as a whole, and not the decided minority who know no self-restraint. Just because I am a gamer does not mean I am without restraint, awareness, and intelligence.

Anyone else have to endure this kind of prejudice? It sounds ridiculous to say it that way, but that's what it is. People seem to think gaming is a disease, and we are the victims.

Maybe I'm crazy, and I'm alone in being continually attacked for my love of games. I'm curious to see if anyone else feels the same.

My friend who works out alot made the comment that I'm wasting my time and nothing comes of it, to which I responded "Hey, we fat, ugly people have to have some thing to hold on to." To which he responded, "touche".

I mean, I still think they're a waste of time, but nobody accuses books of that

My mother is the exact same way, actually, I think shes worse.

She often says "Its not like you can win money from playing games", I haven't the heart to tell her you can, because she could get on me about that.

Anyhoo, her remarks often like that are really irritating. She also has a tendency to believe that we are "in the old country", and if we were there I would already be married and working instead of gaming.

Often I just want to scream "This is America Damn it!, theres something called free will here!"

...or something of that degree with a humorous Stalin dictatorship joke in there.

My parents are exactly the same. It looks like they all live under a shroud of ignorance.

Last night I was playing Bioshock. My sister likes the game and she watches my play sometimes. My mum comes up to my room and says to my sister "You're sadder than he is!" She also thinks that computer games are responsible for breaking the computers you install them on.

My dad and me nearly had a big argument the other day when I said I was looking at games on Amazon. He responded with "Games are a waste of your life and your brain". I responded with "How the hell would you know, you've never played a game in your life." He responded that he thought they were "awful addictive things" and that having seen me (when I was much younger!) getting incredibly frustrated and shouting at the PC, he didn't want to get involved with something so wasteful.

I had to defend gaming a couple of weeks ago at a barbecue with some family friends. I found it very interesting to observe their very naive comments. I expect it would have sounded like early opponents to cinema, claiming that there was no need for it and it was a waste of time.

Thing is, and this is what really p*sses me off, these people judge gaming as if they've been doing it for years. When they've never picked up a game in their lives. They cite all the basic anti-gaming arguments without thought or reason.

Thankfully my mum has stopped the "it's just a phase, he'll grow out of it" line, and as I have my own gaming PC they can't keep bumbling in and out of the study tutting disapprovingly like they did in my formative gaming years.

There is a bright side though. This past year, I've managed to get two of my mates interested in gaming, both of whom saw me playing and decided they wanted a shot. One of them is now addicted to C+C3, and the other saw me playing FEAR and Rainbow Six Vegas and has got really into those games.

It's just a matter of time I suppose. Gaming as a cultural media merely requires the public acceptance that only time can give it. We'll laugh in 70 years, everyone will be playing the things.

As I've gotten older (almost 25 now, lol) I've noticed my attitudes towards gaming have changed. I'm still highly addicted to it, but not nearly to the extent that I was before.

I find it strange that when my wife and I decide to have 'little Matt's and Erin's) I really don't want them to be as 'addicted' to gaming as I was. I feel I probably missed out on a lot...but oh well.

Also, with gaming, my future line of 'work' has created a serious place of judgment on me. I'm going into the ministry to be an ordained pastor of the Lutheran church. Normally, gaming is seen to be 'below' such a calling. However, I've been able to slowly convince those around me that gaming is not as 'terrible' as it's made out to be by the media and pyschos like Jack Thomspon.

The one thing most of you still living under your parents house can do is have a formal, mature, and adult conversation with your parents about it. Point out areas in their lives where they thought they were being judged wrongly by others because of their hobbies. The one I like to point out that most is that when our parents were kids, or even when our grandparents were kids, rock and roll music was viewed as a terrible medium that caused violence, laziness, and down right stunted your education. Ask them how that felt and how over time, those in 'control at the time' learned that music wasn't that bad at all, and actually quite good. Now it's considered 'classic rock.'

I feel that within the next 15 years gaming will take a turn for the positive and it'll finally be seen in the same light as film, tv, music, and books. But, until then, we definitely have to continue to defend our hobbies.

Though, I'd like to ask y'all...how many hours a day/week do you spend playing games? Is it truly a 'hobby' where you may devote 1-2 hours to it, or something more where all your free time is spent playing games? If all your free time is spent playing games, then even though I'd be a hypocrite by saying this, but I think your parents may be right. Go outside, lol.

Wow, seems I'm not alone.

I have to agree that I think it will settle into normalcy in time, just as other forms of entertainment have. I myself spend anywhere from 10-20 hours a week, depending on my work schedule and what other projects I have going on. I balance playing Kotor II and Bioshock with finishing Neil Gaiman's American Gods, cleaning my old NES case for a new HTPC, working the finer points out of my major case mod, and fixing a bike someone carelessly crashed into my front yard while I take the fall semester off school to recoup my finances. So I, for one, classify it as a hobby or interest, though I will shamefully admit I'm a recovering WoW addict and I did once devote my every waking moment to it, but no longer.

NCXC, I'd love to rep you for that remarkably solid suggestion, but you gotta have it to give it. I agree that I don't want my kids to be as addicted to games as I am, I want them to go out and see what the world has to offer. But it's ultimately their choice, and I wouldn't deny them if that was the choice they made.

No doubt Baka, I hope I didn't imply that I'd turn into a crazy parent and forbid my future kids from playing games .

If thats what they want to do, fine..but at least I'll have a little more first hand knowledge concerning the subject than my parents did