Video games have been a part of our mainstream culture for nearly 30 years now, and for many of us who grew up playing them we’ve heard our fair share on how “video games will rot your brain!” or that “video games make kids violent!” With all of these things being told to us by people for so long we’ve really gotten pretty good at just ignoring these comments.

But that doesn’t make them go away.

The recent Gamergate scandal and the release of the newest (and bloodiest) incarnation of Mortal Kombat has brought the public’s eyes and opinions back onto our favorite hobby again, now with chants of sexism and selling mature content to kids like it’s a plague.

And they may have a point.

Every medium has its flaws, from music to movies and everything in-between and video games are no exception. We should strive to better our medium and to make it accessible and enjoyable to all people.

But so should everyone else.

For all the faults people find with how women are portrayed in video games, people have seem to turn a blind eye to how movies only hire the most unrealistically beautiful people for the newest Transformer sequel (or anything else that comes out). And they forget how the biggest female names in music like Miley Cirus and Areana Grande dress for a concert or in a music video.

Something else that people always seem to just skim over when the hate on video games starts pouring in are the positives that this medium provides to the millions of gamers around the world.

On the first of May Elder High School held its annual “Elderfest” celebration, where students spend their day participating in any of the many sporting events, movie marathons, or card games.  But this year the some of the most popular attractions were video games.

Mario Kart, Halo, Call of Duty, and Counter Strike along with a myriad of sports based video games all had tournaments or open play at this year’s Elderfest but the Super Smash Bros. Brawl and Wii U took the prize. Both games had tournaments consisting of dozens of players duking it out in teams of two to see who was the best of the bunch.

During the Wii U competition Senior Jordan Jacob commented on how video games were a good thing for friends and other people to come together with a common interest and build off of it.

And he has a point, I myself can think of a lot of my friends that I met through video games. American news agency ABC reported that today nearly all kids (people under 18 years of age) play video games and nearly 2/3 of them use video games to socialize face-to-face with friends and family and another quarter interact with friend’s online using services such as Steam, Playstation Plus, and Xbox Gold.

This is obviously a positive effect of video games on a wide audience, and these figures will only grow as games become easier to access on computers and phones and the cost of these games goes down as they become easier to make.

Another major benefits that video games offer are the careers that this exploding field is creating. Not only do people work to create the actual games, but now people are making their livings as writers, reporters, and critics on sites like Gamespot and IGN, but with important careers in marketing and management that the larger companies now focus on.

And of course there is the internet. The internet is perhaps the most interesting positive that video games have on people’s lives. Communities have been built up around people’s love of games, creating new interpretations of the art, new interpretations of existing franchises, and even groups that dedicate themselves to studying games.

To conclude this little rant, I just want to say that video games are not going to go away anytime soon and in fact they will continue to grow and change. People will explore new ideas and execute new themes.  People will continue to love games, be inspired by games, learn from games, and continue to make lifetime friends with the help of video games as they have done since the first arcades opened.