Am I Too Old?

[Celtic Frost]

Have I lost that my interest in playing video games? I use to get so excited since PCs first game out at the prospects of what immersive experiences I would have as time went on with video gaming. There certainly were some landmark games that delivered all that I hoped for, even in the first days of video gaming back in the 80s.

These days the level of technology is so advanced compared to those first days... one would expect my excitement and experiences to correlate. However, I am finding it is not.

I don't know what happened to gaming, or perhaps what happened to me. Maybe its the focus on a graphical dazzlement rather than a story with well developed interface.

Just five minutes ago I felt this urge to start up Fallout 4 again to try a new game with a new story RP incentive and I started going through the artwork... then all of a sudden I just felt loathing to do it again. I thought of all the little details that irked me on the first playthrough. These little details that I forget about but all surface again when I think about actually getting into the game.

And it's not just Fallout 4. It's so many games where I love the story concepts and environment but get deflated by the details that dont fit in my experience. GTA Online too is another game that examplifies this feeling I have.

Maybe I'm just getting old and expect or need something more hardcore and realistic in my gaming experience. Anyone else get this feeling who is 30+ years of age?

[White Knight]

Escrito originalmente por kaffekoppen:

I can't concentrate on gaming binges like I could when I was younger. Part of that is perhaps growing older, but it's also a matter of having more responsibilities.

Divorce, retirement, sending the kids off to college...before long, chances are pretty good that you'll have nothing but time on your hands. Consider all those old folks who barely sleep a few hours each night - these are the gamers of the future.

Unfortunately, video games are generally marketed to young kids. That kind of game is "fast and easy" to produce, which is appealing to the corporate mindset. As gamers age, so do developers - it's only a matter of time before someone starts to make deeper and more engaging games for the golden years crowd.

Older folks not only have loads of spare time but they also tend to have accumulated more resources. All that time and money adds up to a growing customer base that will remain loyal for decades.

Board games used to be primarily for children too. As soon as someone clever came along and started making board games for nerds, empires arose to claim the profits. Video games will do the same thing, for the same reasons.

I imagine more complicated relationships with npcs, more engaging plotlines, more choices and consequences, lots to read and learn, with action to keep it engaging but not so much that it just becomes tedious. In other words, basically the opposite of what corporations currently offer.

That's why I like conversations like this one - there are older gamers out there and we want something to play that wasn't designed to appeal to a teenager.

[Langkard]

Escrito originalmente por White Knight:

Escrito originalmente por kaffekoppen:

I can't concentrate on gaming binges like I could when I was younger. Part of that is perhaps growing older, but it's also a matter of having more responsibilities.

Divorce, retirement, sending the kids off to college...before long, chances are pretty good that you'll have nothing but time on your hands. Consider all those old folks who barely sleep a few hours each night - these are the gamers of the future.

Unfortunately, video games are generally marketed to young kids. That kind of game is "fast and easy" to produce, which is appealing to the corporate mindset. As gamers age, so do developers - it's only a matter of time before someone starts to make deeper and more engaging games for the golden years crowd.

Older folks not only have loads of spare time but they also tend to have accumulated more resources. All that time and money adds up to a growing customer base that will remain loyal for decades.

Board games used to be primarily for children too. As soon as someone clever came along and started making board games for nerds, empires arose to claim the profits. Video games will do the same thing, for the same reasons.

I imagine more complicated relationships with npcs, more engaging plotlines, more choices and consequences, lots to read and learn, with action to keep it engaging but not so much that it just becomes tedious. In other words, basically the opposite of what corporations currently offer.

That's why I like conversations like this one - there are older gamers out there and we want something to play that wasn't designed to appeal to a teenager.

Now this is a refreshing take on it! I like this view, having just turned 59. I hope you are right. I'd like to see more Grand Strategy games and RPGs and 4X and similar. Games with some depth, with attention paid to details other than just eye candy and adrenaline rush.

[raubrey]

Escrito originalmente por Langkard:

Now this is a refreshing take on it! I like this view, having just turned 59. I hope you are right. I'd like to see more Grand Strategy games and RPGs and 4X and similar. Games with some depth, with attention paid to details other than just eye candy and adrenaline rush.

It could be that I stick with the ones I like and don't play them as often any more but there seem to be many offerings, that you shouldn't be without a game.

I don't know which sub-genre you like but both historical and sci-fi seem to have a tremendous amount and there are some in the fantasy genre too, though most of the ones I can recall are older.

If you're stumped for game suggestions you might take a look at some of the groups and curators or just plain lists that are so popular. I know everyone has different tastes but I'm always running out of games in other genres to play and this one I have enough stocked up for my golden years that I have yet to play.

[Moon Rabbit]

Escrito originalmente por Flippy:

Let me explain. Those that complain about Mc Donalds have never nearly starved to death. Those are to picky about their food have never nearly starved to death. I know these things as facts. :)

The ♥♥♥♥ are you talking about? McDonalds isn't the life preserver of the starving. It's a fast food chain. Ultimately it's more expensive to eat McDonalds than to go to supermarket and buy the same amount of food. It's convenient and fast. But not efficient. Poor people who are smart, know how to shop for food. My mother raised two boys on her own, had to work three jobs. We barely got by for a long time. But we did. Because she was smart. And buying fast food every night wasn't part of it.

Your example is ridiculous. A starving person will value ANY food. That doesn't make the food good. Starving people will literally eat each other. Dehydrating people will drink the water out of an elephant's dung.

[Moon Rabbit]

Escrito originalmente por Celtic Frost:

Have I lost that my interest in playing video games? I use to get so excited since PCs first game out at the prospects of what immersive experiences I would have as time went on with video gaming. There certainly were some landmark games that delivered all that I hoped for, even in the first days of video gaming back in the 80s.

These days the level of technology is so advanced compared to those first days... one would expect my excitement and experiences to correlate. However, I am finding it is not.

I don't know what happened to gaming, or perhaps what happened to me. Maybe its the focus on a graphical dazzlement rather than a story with well developed interface.

Just five minutes ago I felt this urge to start up Fallout 4 again to try a new game with a new story RP incentive and I started going through the artwork... then all of a sudden I just felt loathing to do it again. I thought of all the little details that irked me on the first playthrough. These little details that I forget about but all surface again when I think about actually getting into the game.

And it's not just Fallout 4. It's so many games where I love the story concepts and environment but get deflated by the details that dont fit in my experience. GTA Online too is another game that examplifies this feeling I have.

Maybe I'm just getting old and expect or need something more hardcore and realistic in my gaming experience. Anyone else get this feeling who is 30+ years of age?

I don't think you're too old, so much as disappointed in what this game offers you (and you certainly wouldn't be alone in that opinion). Or maybe you want something out of games that developers just aren't doing. Or you could very well be sick of gaming. It's not age though.

[Jurassic Fart 1]

Am I Too Old?[http//Celtic+Frost]
No. I'm 58, and I started gaming on pinball machines, graduating to consoles when Atari released Pong. I switched to the PC platform with the advent of the Tomb Raider franchise in 1996, a little more than a decade after minicomputers became popular—what were later to be called personal computers.

Yes, there have been a lot of changes in gaming, and I'm not a big fan of some of those changes.

I find it rather amusing that the youth of today regard us and our generational compatriots as unwelcome interlopers—intruders into a world that we built. I have friends in their sixties and seventies that are avid gamers.

[peon]

Yeah, I may have been born at the start of the digital age of gaming, 1984, but I still remember playing checkers, chess, risk, and these are all games are they not?

The problem is the games, the coporations who make most of the games are to scared to deviate from what they can make money at, (call of duty infinity). Thats why we seen the explosion in indie games, and then came along steam early access which kind of ruined that to a very slight degree. But ultimately, the games that are made today are made to appeal to a younger, (dumber) crowd, look at the media and the garbage that the youth are subjected to every day, not to mention the chemicals in the air, and the pollutants in the water. You cant blame them for having the attention span of a cockroach.

God i would give a left nut for a game with some depth, character development, major plot twists like final fantasy 7, or xenogears, the games now are just mindless drivel. But hey, they got great graphics, or pretty skins.

[Moon Rabbit]

Escrito originalmente por Why is there plastic everywhere?:

Am I Too Old?[http//Celtic+Frost]
No. I'm 58, and I started gaming on pinball machines, graduating to consoles when Atari released Pong. I switched to the PC platform with the advent of the Tomb Raider franchise in 1996, a little more than a decade after minicomputers became popular—what were later to be called personal computers.

Yes, there have been a lot of changes in gaming, and I'm not a big fan of some of those changes.

I find it rather amusing that the youth of today regard us and our generational compatriots as unwelcome interlopers—intruders into a world that we built. I have friends in their sixties and seventies that are avid gamers.

Yeah it's pretty annoying. I'm 41. I started playing games with Atari 2600. The avergage gamer is now roughly 35 years old. It's pretty much following the Atari/Commodore 64/NES range. I still love the hobby. Kids who think the hobby belongs to them. Kids who don't know that Wolfenstein actually dates back to 1981 and started the stealth genre six years before Metal Gear.

My younger friend's grandmother is a gamer and she has to be in her 60's to 70's.

There have been changes I don't like as well, but I honestly couldn't go back to playing the games I grew up with. I think the majority of changes that gaming has gone through are great.

[Jurassic Fart 1]

Hitman and Tomb Raider are examples of once-iconic games starting to turn to crap. The developers call it evolution. I call BS.

[Jurassic Fart 1]

My favorite gamer song was about a blind boy who became a world-famed player. They even made it into a movie…in the early 1970's.

[Moon Rabbit]

Escrito originalmente por Why is there plastic everywhere?:

My favorite gamer song was about a blind boy who became a world-famed player. They even made it into a movie…in the early 1970's.

The Who's Tommy. Awful, awful movie. lol

Songwise you're probably talking about Pinball Wizard.

[Tin Can]

Go play Frost Punk. Game is so INTENSE, I cryed at the end. Haven't experienced anything like that in gaming in a long time. I am 60 years old.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4d5i2W1wsy0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdvymduAbtc

The city must survive!

[Snowfire]

i'm in the same boat :) , the games that i used to love are not really made these days, and the old ones well...i played them to much i guess and i really like something new.

so a few years back a friend of mine suggested to try a game called 7 days to die and i was hooked, i got over 1200 hours in that game now and anticipating alpha 17 eagerly.
i started looking for likewise games and found more then plenty.

7 days to die
Empyrion galactic survival
No man's sky (with the new Next update)
Ark survival evolved
Conan exiles
Space Engineers
The Forest
Subnautica

One thing though, quite a few of these games are still in early access but i don't mind, everytime a new update comes out it feels like a new game and love the new stuff they add to them.

I guess i found my genre, maybe you have the same thing and need to have a look at a different genre and be pleasantly surprised :)

[TVMAN]

Maybe you're just losing interest in gaming, OP. People losing interest in a hobby isn't exactly unheard of.

Escrito originalmente por Nuka Boy:

The Who's Tommy. Awful, awful movie. lol

Songwise you're probably talking about Pinball Wizard.

Uh excuse me. Did you just call this masterpiece """""awful""""????

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DthtDjhqVOU

You and me. Out front. Now.

[Jurassic Fart 1]

Escrito originalmente por Nuka Boy:

Escrito originalmente por Why is there plastic everywhere?:

My favorite gamer song was about a blind boy who became a world-famed player. They even made it into a movie…in the early 1970's.

The Who's Tommy. Awful, awful movie. lol

Songwise you're probably talking about Pinball Wizard.

You weren't even born when that movie was made. I was fourteen. Of course you think it stinks. It's a baby boomer thing—or anyone's who appreciates music.

You probably think Jesus Christ: Superstar sucked, too.