Video games work best as a lesser of many evils, and come with a few caveats: If you watch a lot of TV, it's hard to argue that video games are a worse use of your time. Video games do have some legitimate benefits, but it's probably hard to say that they are more beneficial than other things you could be doing with your time. (ie, reading difficult literature or articles vs. reading RPG text.)

However, people aren't robots, and can't spend 100% of their time doing things which are strictly beneficial. Sometimes you just have to relax and do what you like. Further, not all worthwhile activities truly benefit you in some measurable way. All those "play Mozart for your child to increase his intelligence" CDs were completely fraudulent. And by extension you could claim that listening to beautiful classical music does not actually really benefit you. But of course beautiful music is one of the best aspects of life. The only difference I would say is that it seems impossible to become addicted to classical music in the same way that someone might become addicted to video games.

In this sense, I agree with the parent that video game addiction is the greatest concern here, and is a direction video games have been moving in for a long time. It's interesting that he mentions very easy gameplay mixed with behavioral feedback loops. I can get QUITE wrapped up in Dark Souls, but I am never just playing it on autopilot. It's too hard, and requires too much of my focus. It's not to say that it's necessarily all that difficult, but I can't just zone out. If my mood is wrong, if I am impatient, if my focus is poor, I will play badly. This is explicitly not the case with addictive gameplay-loop games which approach television-levels of sloth in the sense that you can play them indefinitely with any amount of focus.