Video Games Solving the World's Problems?

In class we watched a TED Talk given by a woman named Jane McGonigal. She is a video game designer, and in the talk she says that if there were a major increase in the amount of hours played on video games that the world's major problems could be solved. The crowd laughs and she proceeds to say that she is serious, then continues her talk and explains why she believes that and how she believes it can be done.

I do not want to make a judgement in relation to all of mankind, or even all of the U.S. However, I do highly disagree with what McGonigal says. If you consider what the real major problems in the world are, playing more video games would not solve any of them. Issues such as human trafficking, poverty, pollution, sickness and disease, and much more. I do not see how playing video games would help those issues, let alone any other issue. Most video games tend to make people lazy and unmotivated, and, depending on the game, also do not help people learn any sort of life skills.

For example, playing Mario Kart would not teach someone how to drive, and playing Halo or Call of Duty would not teach someone how to fight or how to defend oneself. Another example would be that of playing Sims 2 Pets where you can teach your animals tricks and normal things that people teach their pets. However, Sims 2 Pets does not teach you how to train your pets in real life, and it does not teach you the reality of the patience it takes to train a pet.

I do not believe something like video games, at this point, could bring change in the world, but depending on the type of game and considering that major changes are constantly being made within technology, there very well could be a way to bring major change in the world concerning problems we face.