Video game history took place on Feb. 18. “Dear Friends: Music from Final Fantasy,” an orchestral concert, was performed at the Rosemont Theatre by the Chicagoland Pops Orchestra.

The orchestra played music by Nobuo Uematsu, whose work has appeared in the successful Final Fantasy video game series. This concert will mark the ascendancy of video games from shadowed cultural phenomenon to high key cultural institution.

Most of the 4,500 attendees were relatively young. Shaggy-haired youngsters were accompanied by parents sporting ill-fitted suit coats and oversized dress slacks. Some attendees even “cosplayed” for the event. Cosplaying is where fans dress up as their favorite video game characters. A member in the audience was dressed as Sephiroth, the villain in the game Final Fantasy 7.

The cosplay world is a highly competitive community of pageantry that is inspired by Japanese animation as well as video games. The older crowd at the concert came to see Arnie Roth conduct the Chicagoland Pops Orchestra. The accompanying footage from the video game series may have come as strange to this older demographic. Pops Orchestra devotees may have been bewildered by the strange sartorial behaviors of their younger peers, but they should have left the theater with a greater understanding of youth and video games.

Parents also came with children, providing a context for parents to bond with children on a cultural level they may have never experienced before. Uematsu’s ageless music facilitates the shared appreciation of music, even across disparate cultural divides.

Staunch video game critics may think twice about videogames after the success of this pan-generational concert.

If parents were to participate in their children’s interests, like they did at the Pops concert, a better understanding of video games and youth would be achieved.

In a Chicago Sun-Times article on Dec. 26, 2004, Gov. Rod Blagojevich proposed a ban for the sale of video games to minors. I agree some games shouldn’t be in the hands of children, but not all games are wicked. He chose to focus negatively on video games and failed to give weight to the positive aspects of video games.

“Making a living, running a household, and doing all of the hard work it takes to raise a family is exhausting enough. Being expected to know the content of each and every video game is too much to ask,” Blagojevich said.

Taking an interest in the hobbies of your children is not too much to ask. Being allowed to propose a bill that effectively eliminates a parent’s responsibilities is too much to ask. Parents shouldn’t let others decide what’s best for their children. Great culture like the music found in Final Fantasy may slip by unnoticed because of the negative stigma created by anti-video game laws. The “Dear Friends” concert conveyed the simplicity and beauty of the video game industry’s finest example of a video game. If the concert is any indication, this is the beginning for a greater acceptance of video games.

Columns reflect the opinion of the author and not necessarily that of the Northern Star staff.