The discussion panel, hosted by the Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association (ELSPA), included Joseph Steinberg, director of fundraising and marketing at Church Mission Society, Martin Houghton-Brown, deputy director for new business at The Children's Society, Mike Royal, national director of The Lighthouse Group, and Andy Payne, chair of ELSPA.
In spite of the often negative association of video gaming with youth violence, panel members were unanimous in their support for video games. They pointed not only to their variety beyond the violence-filled genres, to include educational and social gaming, but also to their potential to build relationships across cultures and generations.
To World of Warcraft aficionado Joseph, online gaming is not an opportunity to take on a different persona, but rather an opportunity to be himself and share his faith in a completely different way.
"You get to know people, you get to build up relationships ... You are able to be a living example of your faith in a place where you might not expect that, amongst people who might not have any other contact with people of faith. So I find it a very real place to be who I am," he said.
The Lighthouse Group is a Christian alternative education provider for excluded young people. With the average gamer being 33-years-old, video gaming is clearly as popular with very young children as it is with fully grown adults, and that's why Mike thinks sitting down for a friendly round on the Nintendo Wii is a great way to break down generational barriers.
"I have walked often into one of our centres and maybe a young person is sitting there inside with their hood up and you wonder how am I going to sit down and engage with this young person? And we have found that the Nintendo Wii - which we have in our classrooms - is a great way to engage with young people and actually break into their world.
"One of the things that concern me is the chasm between the world of younger people and the world of older people, and I think that gaming is a great way to bring the two together."
Mike describes the Lighthouse centres as a cross between a classroom and a youth club, where lessons consist of 45 minutes of teaching punctuated by 15 minutes of social activities like video gaming or playing pool.
Nintendos in the classroom might not be conventional, but the success of this teaching model is undeniable: The Lighthouse Group has a 90 per cent success rate at reintegrating excluded young people back into mainstream education.
