By Jason Kornwitz

Listen, I don’t sit in front of my TV all day. I also don’t stare blankly at my computer screen for hours refreshing the Web site for videogames.com in an attempt to be the first one world over to see the exclusive new screenshots for Final Fantasy XII. But I do enjoy videogames and I do play them regularly.

Videogames are becoming increasingly popular and are viewed as a major form of entertainment by industry experts and aficionados alike.

A sequel to the mega-hit first person shooter for XBOX that sold five million copies worldwide since 2001, Halo 2 released on Nov. 9 and proceeded to sell 2.4 million copies and take in $125 million during the first day alone. These sales eclipsed those of Spiderman, the movie, which took in $114.8 million during its record-setting first weekend.

What’s more is that game magazines like Electronic Gaming Monthly (EGM) have a greater audience than their music and movie counterparts. According to EGM, they have a rate base of 600,000, while the movie mag Premiere claims a base of 500,000. Still, the music magazine, Blender, is currently at 525,000.

John Davison, the editorial director of Ziff-Davis Media Game Group in charge of, among others, EGM, says games are becoming a significant part of pop culture. And this, he says, stems from the way that much of the youth media market, and its attitudes toward entertainment, is changing.

So, for all the videogame skeptics out there and for all the people who say videogames were, are and forever will be a geek’s passion, I ask you this: