Killing the gaming hobby for today's kids...

[disorderlyvision]

There are good modern day kids games. Handhelds have a ton of good kids games. Probably half of my GBA games are kid friendly. The psp has quite a few. Even consoles are full of them. I have a gamecube in my kids room and their stack of games is just as big as mine. The Wii has a ton of kid friendly games. Me and my daughter have been putting some time in on the Lego indiana Jones on the PS2, crash bandicoot, spyro the dragon... I can't speak for the ps3 or xbox 360 as i don't own them, but games like little big planet etc I am sure there are plenty of games on those consoles that are kid friendly.

It's mostly genre dependent like other media. You probably won't find a lot of kid friendly music in gangsta rap or death metal. You probably wont find many kid friendly slasher/gore/horror movies and you are probably not going to find many kid friendly FPS or grand theft autos.

And also, you don't have to go retro. They still make Mario, zelda, sonic, metroid etc etc for modern consoles. Kids have updated experiences to live through. kids aren't having the hobby killed for them. they have it 100 times better! when we we're growing up we had like the atari and nes to choose from until new stuff came out well kids today have their current gen but the have a whole history of gaming to fall back on, where all the great games have been established and all the hidden gems discovered. and what's more, half of it they can download on their new consoles at a fraction of the cost.

[CRTGAMER]

Why is it the 80s/90s generation? There are different ages of developers pumping out the games.

The majority of adults today who play games and play games as an hobby are from that generation, I'm not pertaining to the developers but primarily the consumers....and they are the parents of today's kids.

Kids are not influenced by their parents to buy a certain Genre. They know what they want to play.

As for games being less violent then previous generations I don't believe this either. Look at Doom or go further back to all the Dungeons games or even text adventures. Plenty of killing and maiming in any generation of games. Games now are not more violent, just better graphics to visually see the gore.

[AznKhmerBoi]

Kids today just piss me off, personally i think it comes from their peers and ignorance that graphics and guns makes the game.

Even for those few that enjoy quote on quote kiddy games, they are usually bashed by their peers. I could imagine them being bash for liking Mario or Sonic over freshly new COD title by their peers.

I have a younger brother and it annoys me that all they ever put in to play together together is Blackops or some other type of shooter. They would just toss any other games i have on the stack aside like it was trash so they could pop in the latest shooter.

[Zodd]

As for games being less violent then previous generations I don't believe this either. Look at Doom or go further back to all the Dungeons games or even text adventures. Plenty of killing and maiming in any generation of games. Games now are not more violent, just better graphics to visually see the gore.

Violent games were always a part of video games in the past, however, there was never a push for it to reinforce that video games is no longer for kids but for grown adults.

The current culture of gaming is the need to make video games "more than video games"......which indirectly push all kids ,that are growing up in this era, aside and present the games for their age group as "shovelware garbage" or "casual" games, which is frown apart from all gaming circles. Thus, making today's kids and teenagers gravitate more to adult games...and completely making their gaming hobby more of a "what's hot now" rather than actually enjoying it.

Even the retro gaming community (which is made up from the 80s/90s generation) is creating an environment where today's kids are using it to justify that they are "true gamers" by not playing Call of Duty or Madden and are collecting the classics.


Violence in Gaming is not the main topic.........the main topic is whether the old generation is having too much influence on what the next generation should like or dislike.

Even for those few that enjoy quote on quote kiddy games, they are usually bashed by their peers. I could imagine them being bash for liking Mario or Sonic over freshly new COD title by their peers.

I have a younger brother and it annoys me that all they ever put in to play together together is Blackops or some other type of shooter. They would just toss any other games i have on the stack aside like it was trash so they could pop in the latest shooter.

Thanks for the input, AznKhmerBoi.

That is what I'm trying to state.....In the process of trying to mature video games to be recognized as more than video games......its creating a shift where anything BUT mature video games will be looked at as video games and everything else will be categorized as kiddy.

[SpaceBooger]

After reading everything in this thread I come to one one-word conclusion: fun.

People, kids and adults, play games that are fun to them. We play to be entertained. There are markets for all kinds of games and gamers. As someone who is around hundreds of kids a day (during the school year) I talk games with many kids and there are a few that share the same non FPS, violent, mature game preference as I do. This is proof that nothing has really changed with the way individuals interact with games

The difference between today and yesterday is:

1) The internet.
Before when you would talk about games you would talk to people you were already friends with, which meant you probably had similar tastes in entertainment.
Now everyone has a voice and the bullies are always the loudest.

2) Supply and Demand.
Before the video game market was smaller and only a couple "great must play" games were released every year. The number of games to choose from was not as large.
Now the gaming industry is huge and companies are spending more money and pumping out games people want to play on monthly basis.

3) Work Ethic/Instant Gratification
Before people were more competitive and willing to work at one level for weeks to master it and it's boss. At one time we didn't need an ending, we were satisfied having our initials on the high score list.
Now almost every game is beatable by every player giving them the instant gratification of "beating the game". Those who are competitive have to go above and beyond the standard game to get the stats or trophies/achievements.

This is just my take and may not be on par with the discussion currently taking place, but it is my take on the topic none the less.

[Gunstar Green]

Us grumpy, cynical, old, elitist gamers will have our own corner of the Internet where we can mutter to ourselves about kids these days!

Honestly I don't think it's a problem. I run across kids on youtube all the time who are discovering the classics and with stuff like the Virtual Console it's not surprising.

Franchises like Mario and Sonic and Kirby and others are still around and still being enjoyed by kids who get a little older and look into their histories.

Not every kid is like this of course but some are. Maybe the classics will all eventually be forgotten by all but us and those young whipper snappers will never understand how back in the day we beat our games one pixel at a time... but somehow I doubt it.

[Menegrothx]

2) Supply and Demand.
Before the video game market was smaller and only a couple "great must play" games were released every year.

That's just not true. Or I could say that even today only a couple of games worth buying are released every year.

[noiseredux]

I could say that even today only a couple of games worth buying are released every year.

I disagree.

[Erik_Twice]

Wii fit, Wii sports, Skylanders, Angy Birds, etc.....are not tolerated as "gaming" to kids today due to what is being shown to them through websites and magazines.

I have never seen anyone claim that those aren't games. However I have seen many people claim that they are terrible games and thus not specially worthy of artistic attention, which is pretty much true.

Saying Angry Birds or Monopoly are bad games, which they are, is no different than saying Twilight is terrible, which it is. Do you have an issue with poor art being described as such?

That is what I'm trying to state.....In the process of trying to mature video games to be recognized as more than video games......its creating a shift where anything BUT mature video games will be looked at as video games and everything else will be categorized as kiddy.

Almost by definition, inmaturity is kiddy.

That doesn't mean that something suitable for kids is inmature.

[Curlypaul]

I dont think they are bad games, they are just aimed at different kinds of players. All of those games you named do a decent job of what they set out to do, but they might not fit into what you want from a game.

The range of games has diversified, but the media coverage has not. The media and posts made by the public tend to focus on particular aspects of particular games.

Example: not so long ago a bought a Peppa Pig game for my little girl. I found it was really well designed. Next I bought the Roary the Racing car game for her. The game had LOADS of text, the menus were all radio button lists, so you had to click on what you want and then click the button to tell it you had picked something and the whole thing was really frustrating to use. So, I went on a search to see if I could find some reviews of games aimed at preschoolers. Nothing. There was no coverage from the press, so I had nothing to base my purchases on. There are loads of websites that talk at great length about CoD though.