White House launches educational video game competition

@meleekill989 LOL

I believe games are educational in a lot of their own ways, I remember playing RPGs and things of that sort when I was younger and it helped in increasing my vocabulary and sentence structure. Games seemed to be deemed "un-educational" and "brain-rotting" helping to create "violent & unstable" individuals but it really helped me expand my horizons and imagination honestly.

behold the dark rise of the accursed "edutainment".

Release a sequel of Typing of the Dead in America. Auto win.

@ Reiken37 Out of curiosity how is it possible for "Obama, go be black somewhere else" to be said in a non-racist way?

This is what happens when politics is discussed on a video game site.

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I think I'd rather see the prize money pay off the national debt.

oh, wow, i can't remember the last time i played something "educational." i remember thinking every time my parents said that word, i coupled it with "no fun at all." hope this changes things.

I wish the media would actually cover some of the stuff he says. The man is a joke.

@ExtremePhobia I agree with you completely. It's not HUGE cash, and it's not like he's just forking it over to the gaming industry. I remember him saying something about "put away the video games" in one of the debates in 2008, so I feel sure that he wouldn't want to be putting cash toward this cause if he didn't think it would help children educationally. It has potential to work. Also, I don't see how Obama has hate already. I personally agree with stuff such as Universal Health Care and the Economic Stimulus, but even if you don't, it's still not like he steered the country nearly as low as Bush has. And it's not like he's nearly as unqualified or dumb as Palin. I personally hoped for Hillary Clinton, but I still can't complain. 4-8 more years of ANOTHER Republican like Bush is not something I could even imagine wanting.

That caption was stupid as hell when I first read it, but it's growing on me :D.

Sounds like a good way for a indie developer to get started. Education games don't need all the fancy graphics leaving more time for good game design and fun gameplay.

Seems like a good way to educate/reach kids and to inspire both kids and adults to get active in the gaming industry in some way.

The winner of this government taxpayer's paid prize will be the one that teaches/indoctrinates children about global warming, greatness of socialism, universal health care, unions, living and breathing Constitution, growing the size of government, appointing government czars, filling Supreme Courts with liberal drones who ignore the Constitution, assisting George Soros the anti-Christ destroy nation'S (emphasis on plural) currencies, and the evils of capitalism.

Quick, someone make a game where you play as Obama, running around making racist remarks and destroying the economy! :P Instead of coins, you collect barrels of oil! :roll:

I hate Obama.

I wish this program all the luck in the world. I work IT for a school district. The software we have for kids is over priced and poorly written. For example, we spent $100k on a program/game called "Reading 180." Our $100k only covers the cost of 60 students. Even though we have the latest version, the software will not run on Vista or Win 7 without compatibility mode. It requires Adobe Flash 9 (it will not work with version 10). This is what $100k of your tax dollars buys. BTW, we used stimulus funds to buy this turd.

i never made it out of the 8th grade. i was 16 in the 8th grade and my classmates used to ask me if i would ride them to school. games and gaming sites have helped me read and spell alot better.

"The Developer Prize is aimed at professional game designers, challenging them to design an original game for children in pre-Kindergarten through grade 4." I hope Activision doesn't come out with MW3 for this. :D

If Obama wants to help the youth, he shouldn't be running deficits three times as large as in any year before he took office. Today's youth are going to be paying that bill, after all.

I really don't see the issue here. He's trying to get kids flexing their mental muscles in a constructive way and trying to get developers helping kids. And for $150,000? If it works, it's a hell of a bargain. We're talking an 1/100000000 (that's 8 zeros) of the national debt on something that could have great results. And you people complain?

With each month kind of getting more irritated at Obama and wishing we had hockey mom as president. Kind of depressing that there is no hope.

Stupid idea. As a teacher, I would much prefer them to use this money on resources for schools, instead of something like this.

Spending tax dollars on educational video games when in a major recession where people are spending less on luxuries such as video games and even if the market wasn?t slumming educational games aren?t really hot sellers historically speaking. FAIL

I guess spending the money on real education would make too much sense.

Yknow instead he could have put the money for this idea towards actual Educational needs.....

Sounds like an interesting proposal in general in that it gives both the youth and young developers something to stride for and hopefully further their carrer in the game industry or even give them a chance to enter it. While at the same time it promotes ideas that could have the potential to help both struggling youth or people with disablitys who may stuggle in certain aspects but understand video games help improve their skill range. Way to go Obama.

i bet they can make game useing kinect. im shocked a elmo or a dora type game wasnt made for it yet.

Hate to say it, but educational mobile phone apps aren't going to help at-risk youth. Sounds like your typical politically-motivated empty gesture to me. If Obama really wants to do something to spur engineering education, in particular, he should go after the Autodesk monopoly--even with educational discounts, that software is still outrageously overpriced (due largely to lack of competition).

"facepalm" doesn't begin to describe my feelings on this.

lets just hope they have people who know about games to judge for the prizes and not just some politician who knows nothing about video games.