Gaming as a life-long hobby - Thoughts from the 25+ crowd

[mjmjr25]

^Very nice post and great honesty. I'm not quite there as far as thinking of it in the vein of a secret - but for example, if my mother is over, I have no problem playing a game. If my mother-in-law is over - we read books. It isn't worth the disapproving look or random comment. I'd like to say we should always be comfortable in our own skin - at the same time, if we can avoid the discomfort we know will be coming - I don't that is "not being yourself" so much as it is being pro-active enough to avoid something you know is coming.

[BoringSupreez]

I'm 18, so I get cut a lot more slack than you older people do. I'm "expected" to do this sort of thing. I think when I'm older, I'll still play and collect, but as time goes on my interests have become less narrow. I started collecting DVDs about a year ago, and I've been buying more comic books as well. I like games, but I don't know if I'll still consider them to be my main hobby 20 years from now, even if I will still have them. At some point, I'd like to "get a life" and go out and do things. Games are fun and all, but there's more to life than sitting in front of the TV/PC.

Also, I just realized: someone who is 25 this year was born in 1987. WHERE HAS TIME GONE?

[foxhound1022]

I don't know. That's one thing that I never took into account, due to the fact that I accept that people have vastly differing interests, so my belief is that I can be myself in any circumstance. I guess it was easier for me to do so because I was always deemed as a slight eccentric anyways, so my point of view seems skewed to most people.

Where has the time gone? Indeed.

[c0wb0y]

At some point, I'd like to "get a life" and go out and do things. Games are fun and all, but there's more to life than sitting in front of the TV/PC.

You make a good point. The consoles and boxes and discs are all just stuff. Things. We play them for the experience of a game (story, music, challenge, etc.) We enjoy something specific about the experience.
It is good to remember that we can make your own experiences while away from the warm glow of the TV/PC. And when you're back home, you can still play something to unwind.
I just had surgery in September to fix an injury I got when 18. Now I realize how sedentary I had become as a way to avoid making my injury worse. It probably contributed to my uptick in gaming through my 20's.

Anyway - I like what you said.

[c0wb0y]

^Very nice post and great honesty. I'm not quite there as far as thinking of it in the vein of a secret - but for example, if my mother is over, I have no problem playing a game. If my mother-in-law is over - we read books. It isn't worth the disapproving look or random comment.

This bugs me. Here you are a Mod on the best community forum around for retro-gamers, and you avoid something you obviously feel some real passion for.
Have you shared your news of becoming a Mod with your family? (Sorry if it that is too personal a question.) I'd be pretty happy about it. It's gotta be tough knowing the in-laws wouldn't appreciate it.
Oh, in-laws.... what are we going to do with them? I have some also - though my parents are the difficult ones in our marriage.
Nice candor, mjmjr25.

[Dakinggamer87]

I'm 25 and will be gaming for years to come!!

[ksloth]

I'm 40 and I know I will be gaming forever. I mostly play handhelds these days, as I have a 2 year old and it's easy to just close a lid or suspend a handheld when I need to stop playing or go rescue him from whatever mischief he has gotten into.

I have only 1 thing that brings me shame that is related to gaming, and that is when I impulse buy games that I don't need or never get around to playing. I can be pretty irresponsible with my money when it comes to gaming, but i'm working on it .

My wife is a gamer too, though mostly its Pikmin and Donkey Kong Country on SNES that she is into. Games are a part of our household and our life, and I will pass it on to my son when he is old enough.

I have a PS1 in mint condition along with several other consoles I have cleaned up, that are waiting for him when he gets a little older.

[Key-Glyph]

I'm 26 and have been gaming since I was 4. While I was growing up I never met or knew of any adults who gamed, and neither did my parents. Because of that I definitely thought of video games as something grown-ups didn't get, and my mother assumed they were a thing kids eventually grew out of. We were both wrong! Her assumption came from not having witnessed a generation grow fully from infancy to adulthood with this particular hobby, and mine probably came from the extensive marketing campaigns that were relentlessly carving out a kids' consumer base.

Meanwhile, my husband -- who's 28 -- had a computer engineer for a father, and the video game systems they had in his household were not "the family's," but his dad's. I'd ask my husband something like, "So when did you get your SNES?" and he'd say, "I don't know, it was my Dad's." I think my jaw dropped the first time that happened. What a totally different perspective!

At first I was surprised that so many of you feel you need to hide the hobby, but then I thought about how different it must be for people squarely in their 30s and beyond. I can see the average 30-something as being likely to buy into the stigma, but not the average 20-something. I believe that people my age accept the ubiquity of video games without question, and that we'll carry that attitude into our adulthood and never think to feel embarrassed by it. But for those of you born even just a little bit before my time, it may be more difficult to win over your peer's minds.

Or I could be being totally naive. I'll let you all know how it goes when I'm 50.

And here's a question: is the stigma just changing instead of being eradicated? Because I think the original one of its being a nerdy, childish hobby might be being supplanted by a different one -- an image of aggressive, fraternity dorm-room entertainment. And then there are the collectors too, who are independent from both of those stereotypes but probably feel a different sort of pressure from their peers. I must admit this is getting more complicated than I originally expected!

[dsheinem]

I'm 26 and have been gaming since I was 4. While I was growing up I never met or knew of any adults who gamed, and neither did my parents. Because of that I definitely thought of video games as something grown-ups didn't get, and my mother assumed they were a thing kids eventually grew out of. We were both wrong! Her assumption came from not having witnessed a generation grow fully from infancy to adulthood with this particular hobby, and mine probably came from the extensive marketing campaigns that were relentlessly carving out a kids' consumer base.

Meanwhile, my husband -- who's 28 -- had a computer engineer for a father, and the video game systems they had in his household were not "the family's," but his dad's. I'd ask my husband something like, "So when did you get your SNES?" and he'd say, "I don't know, it was my Dad's." I think my jaw dropped the first time that happened. What a totally different perspective!

At first I was surprised that so many of you feel you need to hide the hobby, but then I thought about how different it must be for people squarely in their 30s and beyond. I can see the average 30-something as being likely to buy into the stigma, but not the average 20-something. I believe that people my age accept the ubiquity of video games without question, and that we'll carry that attitude into our adulthood and never think to feel embarrassed by it. But for those of you born even just a little bit before my time, it may be more difficult to win over your peer's minds.

Or I could be being totally naive. I'll let you all know how it goes when I'm 50.

And here's a question: is the stigma just changing instead of being eradicated? Because I think the original one of its being a nerdy, childish hobby might be being supplanted by a different one -- an image of aggressive, fraternity dorm-room entertainment. And then there are the collectors too, who are independent from both of those stereotypes but probably feel a different sort of pressure from their peers. I must admit this is getting more complicated than I originally expected!

This is a very thoughtful post, especially as it regards the cultural "image" of the gamer as constructed by media and marketing. Anyone with any kind of niche interests will find themselves stereotyped by these forces in particular ways, and I think you are absolutely right about the marketing to kids and/or the marketing to college-age students "defining" the gamer in the minds of many. It will be interesting to see if more game ads feature well-adjusted adults as the target demographic for the latest hardware/software (not like the Kinect/Wii ads which feature adults who discover "OMG GAMEZ CAN BE FUN AND ACCESSIBLE!" or Vita ads which feature college-aged students who "OMG TEH VITA BE STYLIN'!"). The only recent ads that do this that I can think of are some Wal-Mart ads that show guys coming home from work to face off online in Madden and COD. It's a start....

[alienjesus]

I'm 18, so I get cut a lot more slack than you older people do. I'm "expected" to do this sort of thing. I think when I'm older, I'll still play and collect, but as time goes on my interests have become less narrow. I started collecting DVDs about a year ago, and I've been buying more comic books as well. I like games, but I don't know if I'll still consider them to be my main hobby 20 years from now, even if I will still have them. At some point, I'd like to "get a life" and go out and do things. Games are fun and all, but there's more to life than sitting in front of the TV/PC.

Also, I just realized: someone who is 25 this year was born in 1987. WHERE HAS TIME GONE?

Holy crap, I was born in 1988! That's almost me