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My arguement was that games can just as easily have a positive effect on people, especially being that gaming is becomming more of social experience (and not just online [see Smashboards.com]). Games also can make people think more logicly and effectivly, since more often one has to figure out the best stratagies in the game.
We couldn't do much of a debate, since it was a call-in show and I couldn't take more then 5-minutes. His arguement was that learning a game's stratagy only increases one's intellegence in that game, nothing else.
Unfortunatly, there is no real proof on who is right, since there hasn't been any research (to my knowledge) on how well games work in that area. As such, it is upto experience, and his isn't any less since he did once play games.
So from here on are points in which I couldn't discuss on air.
First, I don't think videogames are any more adictive then any other activity. I can't really say you can't play too many games, since one can literally have too much water. One can become obsessive about pretty much anything. Moderation is key in any activity, even in sports or work.
Next, there are things that people don't notice out of games but should. As I have pointed out before, games do have an art factor in them that even publishers don't seem to realize much. There are also studies that show that games do improve some aspects of people like hand-eye coordination.
Games are a relativly new format. Motion pictures have been around for nearly a hundred years, paint has been around for many centuries. We have barely scratched the surface of what games will mean to society in the long run. As such, few really know the real value of videogames.
