Apparently giant robots only belong in cartoons -- that is, if you believe Mobile Suit Gundam createor Toshiyuki Tomino who had a few choice words to say about video games in his keynote speech at Japan's CEDEC developer's conference.
"I think video games are evil...[gaming] is not a type of activity that provides any support to our daily lives, and all these consoles are just consuming electricity. Let's say we have about three billion people on this planet wasting their time, bringing no productivity at all. Add ten billion more people, and what would happen to our planet? Video games are assisting to the death of our planet."
An odd position to take to say the least, considering the source. To be fair though, the point of his speech seemed to be designed to get developers to create games that are somehow important -- though how exactly such a game would manifest itself remains pretty vague.
The obvious question to ask is, what form of leisure would Tomino find acceptable? Web browsing? Watching TV? Going to a movie? One could argue that reading a book is somehow 'important,' though I fail to see how reading the Twilight series is benefiting the planet's ecological issues.
It really sounds like Tomino's problem is not so much with gaming but with that horrible scourge of humanity, inefficiency.
For a good rundown of the what exactly was said, check out Gamasutra's report.
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