30 year old gamers feeling disenfranchised? Pages 1 2 3 4 NEXT | |
I'm not sure with disenfranchised but there is absolutely no attention to me, current games I find really pathetic making really obvious mistakes and I really wish there was more shoot 'em ups cause I can hardly find any. Something like this - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Der3M9Y3EEc&feature=results_main&playnext=1&list=PLD1BFF23A4FFEA9EC I just find them easy to get into. | |
Well I'm 33 and I'm having fun with Skyrim, Minecraft, Orcs Must Die, Portal 2 etc. I can't think of anything age-specific that developers should be doing for us but aren't. Maybe you're just getting tired of games. Most people go through that in their 30s. Childrens' brains are wired for play, 30 year old brains aren't. If you can't think of any specific reasons why they are failing you, but you're just going 'meh' a lot, it's probably that. | |
36, still having a lot of fun gaming. There's even a big resurgence of TBS games, so I can't even complain about that.
I don't know about THAT. Most people I know my age (or older) are quite enthusiastic about play. They just don't really have the kind of time for it that they used to, most particularly when they have kids. If anything, it just makes them crave the little bit of time they DO get for it more. | |
31 and still love all kinds of video games. I started with an intellivision back in the day and of course nintendo when it came out. Then on to Megadrive, SNES, Genesis, The Jaguar, Ps1, Ps2, Saturn, Dreamcast, and a slew of others. I then stopped gaming on consoles and went PC for several years. I never even played the original Xbox. Now I mainly play on the 360 these days. There are certainly a lot of shitty games these days but some of the greats make it worthwhile. :D | |
Well it's not that I don't play any more, it's just that they don't seem to make any that I wanna play. So I end playing the same game over and over for months until something new comes along that seems worth it. My biggest gripe is this: In the 90's innovation wasn't a buzz word. Every bit of tech, every game engine, was being rebuilt from scratch every year or two. For me, that was the best thing about gaming, imagination combined with the power of technology. When Xbox360 came out, and stayed out going on 7 years now- all of that felt scuttled with games being made for hardware that is the equivalent of a dinosaur. When the xbox did first come out, the PC gaming community still felt a bit insulated from the effects of consoles. What are the effects of consoles? They started being cool again. Nintendo stopped being cool in jr high. If you still played nintendo you were probably not very popular, etc. Gamers were a tiny market for a long time. The new consoles changed all that and started outselling other types of entertainment media, which was largely unheard of up til recently. Why? Did you ever wonder where all those people came from? Maybe the face of the gamer has changed, but gaming has gone mass market. Gaming has gone McGaming, for McMoney. That's how I feel about it these days. Every new game is just a bland calculation to sell copies. There are a few gems, and while minecraft isn't my bag because it reminds of playing with legos which i stopped doing a long time ago, it is definitely a gem. However, almost all games for PC in late 90's early 00's used to be like minecraft. You could pick up any number of titles that had something special or unique about them, some new technological feature that you had to see to believe. etc. Now a days it's just re-release CoD/BF/GoW every year or two because that's what McGaming is now. Stick to what you know. Stick to the formulas. Well those games are all garbage anyhow, they took the most important thing out of an FPS game, moving. You have to crouch, go prone, to manage an artificial accuracy modifier... it's like some parent acting as ref while a match is going on shouting "No running, kids!" Forget about dodging bullets, which used to be just as important as shooting them- and made the game fun in the first place. They want everyone to sit and take potshots at each other so there is no "skill" in those games any more. They want everyone to get kills, everyone to have fun, and to be able to do so while having a hand free to eat/drink because we know xbox players love the couch. They make it so anyone can play and thats what made FPS gaming a house hold item. Dumbing gaming down made it sell more. Don't know how else to put it. Well guess what, I remember what they were like and today's versions are complete jokes, empty shell comes to mind. Should give you an idea where I'm coming from now. | |
Play is everything to everybody. It's fine to be all adult and serious, but we tend to be at our most productive, paradoxically, when we're enjoying ourselves, no matter what we're doing. Everybody's brain is wired for play, at every age. Most advancements in consumer technology essentially lead to toys for adults. Smartphones and tablets are ostensibly useful, and we're all excessively self-congratulatory about those sorts of things, as though they represented real progress, but really, they're little more than fun gadgets. But as "they" say: do what you enjoy, and you'll never work a day in your life. 38 here, and I've been disenfranchised on and off since the beginning. I basically started with Atari 2600 and Vic 20, and followed all of gaming's evolution ever since, with frequent periods of complete disinterest and pessimism, punctuated by shorter but far more memorable periods of enjoyable immersion. I basically passed over consoles altogether between the Intellivision and the PS2, playing only the very occasional PC game during that time, and maybe a console game or two for short periods if my friends had them. Most games during that period simply did nothing for me, and I was basically waiting for things to (inevitably) become more interesting. That said, the most disappointing period so far in gaming's history has been the 360/PS3/Wii era, which we're currently still in. Disappointing for much the same reasons that most other popular culture and contemporary media has been disappointing to me lately. Which is to say that interest is not so much a function of age, but of outlook. Most of my friends are fine with the current state of gaming, but most games (and movies, and TV shows) these days just don't appeal to me, personally - too violent, too shallow, too similar, too much shameless corporate product. But of course, things always change, the pendulum always swings back. There have been very interesting developments lately, and I'm looking forward to seeing where it's all headed. | |
37 here, started with Intellivision in 1981. Not interested in 90 something % of mainstream/AAA games. But this kickstarter movement has really given me some optimism though. | |
I'm not 30, yet, but I sometimes feel like it because I started on hand-me-downs. From Atari/NES when my peers were playing the SNES/SEGA. | |
32 and started with Atari 2600 in the summer of 69 .. er .. I meant 84. There are about 3 maybe 4 games come out a year I have any interest in. Nothing to do with wanting things "as they were" though it's purely because I like big open sandbox games like the Fallouts and Elder Scrolls and I like modding. The Indie scene isn't my thing at all. I played games that looked like most of them years ago and if I wanted to relive my youth i'd grow my hair and get a mullet, it's cheaper. | |
for me the situation is bad when i have to go to kickstarter and fund the games i want. when entire game genres virtually disappeared because an executive thought its no longer worth making or that gamers are stupid and cant handle anything remotely complicated | |
Born in 1979. Gaming has never been better for me. -'Tell how much attention is being paid to you and what you want? How happy are you with the current crop of games? What do you miss? etc. I know there's a handful of you who post regularly.'- How much attention is being paid to me? None I imagine. Unless you count the devs around my age, which are rather plentiful from what I've heard... There are plenty of different types of games being made that I pay attention to. What do I miss? Not having to work all the time, maybe then I could dedicate tens of hours a week to gaming again. | |
I'm 31. I started gaming with the ZX Spectrum in the mid-80's, and I've had every major console since the NES and the Master System. I'm having more fun as a gamer (mostly PS3) right now than I ever did since I lost my old Mega Drive. This is a golden age of gaming, and I'm old enough to fully enjoy it and support it. The one and ONLY thing where I feel letdown is by Nintendo's abandonment of our generation, and that's pretty much it. And I abandoned PC gaming completely over problems with Steam, but that's another story. I am happy. I get to relive the old classics easily, and I get to play the awesome new games of today. All is well. Edit: oh, and my girlfriend is also a gamer, and we're expecting a baby girl this July. We fully intend her to follow on our footsteps. | |
I'm not 30, I`m 26. So I'm not like you in many aspects, though I still have an opinion about the current gaming. ;) I think this is one of the best moments for gaming EVER for many reasons: The graphics (IE: the death of the polygon count). The Indie. I'm pretty sure I have more reasons, most being arround how games are now more aprochable, more about playing instead of sucking quaters (or time) like the NES or genesis games.(I guess MMO still do that) I run out of reasons forn now :P (Its 10:00PM here and I get back to study) So yeah thats my opinion, I don't know if anyone will read it all. So hear it goes: | |
30, grew up on the consoles (NES,SNES,PS1,PS2 mainly) donno if I'm 'disenfranchised' or not, but i am eagerly awaiting a return to that LONG stretch of time when there where awesome games, every where where, of ALL generas, IN the mainstream. you know :( like the good ole days *hobbles off on a walker* | |
31 in a couple of weeks here. Started out with an Atari ST of all things, back in '86 probably (?). As for am I being catered for? Dunno. Seems to me you cannot afford to cater to one person or even one demographic these days. And even then, each and every single one of us is different. Saying that there's plenty of games I've enjoyed recently and am looking forward too. Witcher 2 was a recent fave, and I've played a decent amount of Tribes over the last few weeks. There's a few things on the horizon I'm looking at too. Diablo 3 sooooo soon, Assassins Creed 3 in a few months, new Starcraft xpac, and I'm getting quite interested in Borderlands 2. Some of the kickstarter stuff is really lighting my fuse too. Looking forward to Wasteland 2 immensely, and if they get the Carmageddon reboot right, well, I'll be a happy gamer for a long time methinks :) | |
girl gamers are more disenfranchised hahah KIDDING kidding..... you cant define somones tastes as "30 years old...plays games" what if they really like current games? | |
scp: containment breach has renewed my faith in gaming. how can an indie game have that much variety and chance? even in alpha!! | |
Hell, I only recently turned 20 and I've been feeling disenfranchised recently. It could be that acually studying games design has made me notice every little flaw in a game, or that now I have money I don't have to force myself to love every game I buy/recieve. Then again, back to the studying games design, it could be that right now having to do assignments and coursework about them is just killing any interest I have for games at the moment. There really aren't any games this year that, off the top of my head, I actually want. Could be that all the interesting titles are being held off until the next cycle, or that most of them were released last year. I'm just hoping its not a sign of, with so many games being painfully derivative of each other, that there is no longer any room for originality in the AAA industry. I started gaming when I was 2. Could barely get past the first zones of the Mega Drive Sonic games, but since then I've always had some form of system or PC. During the mid 90's that was what we had, only got a ps1 once the ps2 was already out. I have fond memories of the original C&C, Sonic R, Sims, the PC ports of early Tomb Raider, and a plethora of other titles. Back then there was no DLC, no half finished "we'll patch it later" releases. Damn it, now I feel old... | |
Ahh... no, it's just you ( http://arxiv.org/abs/1203.2268 ), we older gamers usually roflpwn kids, at least my friends and I do. OT: Near 30 now, and have never been happier with videogames, right now i just don't have enough time to play/finish all the games i want to, just to list a few that i play or wish i had more hours in the days to play: - Frozen Synapse And that's not counting the ones with grinds like Guild Wars 2 or Diablo III... damn, days are soo short. TBH i think the glory days of the PC are right now, especially with the indie scene working sooo damn hard and the PvP finally starting to popularize.
If you like Shooters PvP, then why the heck you are not playing also BF 3 or Tribes? Or Monday Night Combat? If you like PvP in general, then Bloodline champions, DotA 2, SC II, Frozen Synapse, Street Figher just to mention the ones i do like... the fuck man, you have a lot of choices. | |
The glory days of the 90s. Okay I'm not thirty yet, but sheesh, quit sounding like there won't ever be anything as good. Hell, my formative gaming years were in the 90s (I started young) and I don't even think they're that good, and in theory I should be the most nostalgic for them. | |
31 year old console gamer here. Started out on the SNES in the early 90s. I'm mostly happy with current games - and when I'm not, I'll replay some classics. I'm currently replaying Saints Row 2 and Final Fantasy IX, and am very much looking forward to Dishonored! I wish there were more cartoony platformers, though. Modern games emulate the real world so well these days, they all just end up looking the same. I want a change of scenery sometimes. Hope Sly 4 comes out soon. | |
Confucius said that. Not "they". We know where that quote came from. | |
33 years old. Never made the switch to PC gaming. We've had a pc in the house since the early 80s, but I've always used it as a tool for printshop and wordprocessing. Never for gaming. Remember when PC Elite used to mean something? I do. The PC gamers acted above the console gamers because they were above the console scrubs. They did not beg for games to be on their platforms. They did not preach the values of PC gaming every chance they get. They did not wear their elitism as a badge of honor. Well, I can't take PC gamers of seriously because they made the concept into something of a joke. To a lot of them, being about to use the "console" to cheat makes PC gaming better. To a lot of them, because you can use a controller for certain games means there there is no excuses. When called out on their BS, modern PC gamers would resort to juvenile sarcasm to prove their points. Now, they beg for games to be on PC. PC gamers back in the day pretended the consoles did not exist. Also get off my lawn! | |
19, but going to post anyway, damnit! As someone who never played games that much as a kid, and only really got into gaming about 6-7 years ago, I like to think I have an interesting perspective on this, especially since I have not been playing games nearly as long as youse guize. Anyway, I still like modern games. There is a lot of good stuff getting released, and there is a lot of interesting stuff to come. So, I am excited about the future. But the really interesting question in my mind, is would I think the same if I was your age? Because, I honestly do not know. Nostalgia can be a powerful thing, and while I think that many people seriously misrepresent the old days as "innovative" (how many bloody mascot platformers, fighters, point and click adventures, and beat-em-ups were there? a zillion?), I do not know if I would feel the same at that age. I can see, however, that if the games I played and loved were not getting made (or not getting made in the quantities they once were), I would feel pretty disappointing and alienated from gaming. Which is what I think many of those who do claim modern gaming is in the crapper is coming from. I know I would feel annoyed and disenfranchised with modern gaming if it was all racing games and bejeweled-style puzzlers, even if every game was the best damn example of the genre. So, I guess what I am saying after this long and winding rant is... I understand, but I do not agree. | |
You sound very cynical, but offer no reasons as to why. Maybe if you offered what is wrong with mainstream gaming we could have an actual discussion about it. What games do you like? What was great about gaming growing up that now doesn't exist? I have many games that I have accumulated over the years. I don't play all of them now, but I have never suffered from a lack of something I enjoyed playing. I am not a fan of the first person shooter, but there are other genres I enjoy and still play. So, do you know like one genre that isn't up to snuff right now? Your comment is so confusing to me. One thing that exists now that didn't in the 80's/90's is variety. There are so many different games, and so many good games to choose from. Which is also why I don't understand why so many people scramble to get a game on release. They drop in price a few months after the fact. THat is what I usually do, and I never lack for something to play. Sorry I haven't read all the posts on this yet, so if you have answered my questions I guess I will see them soon, otherwise you need to define what you are asking. Edit *** Forgot to add my age.I am 36. | |
Hmmmm. Game companies what to make money, and for everyone to have fun so they buy their games.... So your complaints are more that developers are less adverse to taking risks (something I dislike too, but that is hardly new), and that games don't trend toward the hard core gamer who plays 60+ hours a week on a game so that they are amazing at it. Rather now they trend toward making a game more accesable to everyone. I am not trying to be disrespectful to you, but that is how you are coming across in this post. Maybe you can clarify. I will be honest that I am not much of a FPS player. I liked counterstrike back in the day, which wasn't about cover based shooting (maybe that's why I like it more than preset day games). So if it is the lack of innovation in FPS's then you have an argument, but the answer is that companies want to make money. I might suggest you try to branch out and give other genres a go. I would recommend Arkham Asylum if you haven't tried it (then Arkham City). I think that is an action game that would harken more back to older game mechanics. | |
32 started on my older brother's atari and nes in the mid 1980's. I think I actually play video games a lot more now than I did in my 20's I was too busy with getting the career going and college. I mean, I still played games but not like now where I play nearly every day for a bit. So most of the stuff from the xbox ps2 era I kind of didn't see. I've never really been big in to first person shooters on PC or console. Except Unreal Tournament I was waaay into those. My biggest irritant is that most console games cost $60 and the price doesn't drop for damn near a year. Maybe it's because I'm old but I really hate digital distribution I've had one too many computers implode/explode over the years. re-downloading all that stuff is a huge pain in the ass. I'll DL a game if it's small, cheap and exclusively a DL'able game. Kind of like the stuff on the playstation store or some of the indie games on steam. That's about it though. Think that's all I have to add. | |
I started with a Commodore 64 hooked up to a black-and-white TV set. I, too, am bothered by all these colourful empty calories of the majority of current-gen games. For the better part of the last decade, I managed to get the whole family to appreciate the entertainment value of old games. Just about any old console works, and for computers we only opted for emulators when we ran out of cables or input devices. I could easily imagine the kids of our kids enjoying, say, Archon or Ghosts'n Goblins or Parodius or Taisen Pazurudama, but I don't think anything much of this latest and supposedly greatest generation of console gaming will survive. Some of the old, if not original spirit seems alive and kicking, but only in those minis or PSN/XBOX LIVE titles. The latest kickstarter rage has given me hope for about a week before I sensed decay and decadence already setting in, and I have yet to see any positive outcome there. But I sure am watching... and hoping. I did enjoy Skyrim for three experimental and entertaining walkthroughs. Will pick it up apgain when the expansion hits. I did enjoy about half of Amalur, the first DLC pissed me off big time, though. The latest title that has given me true old-school chills and minor brain cramps was Dark Souls. King's Field all over again, better in some respects and the very same in others. | |
20 but I don't see the harm in me replying, I won't destroyed the thread. It's clear that you're still into gaming, or else you'd probably be on a different forum discussing a different hobby. Either you're not looking hard enough for the games that would interest you, or what draws you to games isn't being put into games anymore. I rarely buy games either anymore and I'm much younger than you. It's probably just the time, and all the change going on (is there change going on?) I think a lot of people on here have reduced the amount of games they buy, particularly in the last couple of years. I reject the statement that gaming is getting worse or stale, it has better quality and more variety than ever. It's a psychological change in the person thinking it, probably just natural change from growing up. I think what is happening now is more of a 'movement' than any downfall in the industry. When consumers stick together they almost have enough power to shape the industry how we want it, while it's still young (but we better hurry up, because it'll be bigger than the movie industry before we know it.) | |
I've been getting allot of indie games lately and I'm having a blast with them, I just beat vessel and shank 2. | |
Don't lump us all into the same category, man! I still pretend consoles don't exist ;) | |
The 30 somethings who never crossed over to PC gaming really puzzle me. Early generation consoles were CHILDRENS TOYS. You'd go to toys r' us and there'd be an entire aisle of nothing but glass display cases filled with flashy packaging. Parents would take you. Consequently, as kids began to hit puberty, they started handing down their nintendos and what have you- discarding much of the things from their childhood to prove to themselves they were growing up. Plenty of kids growing up did that. Some moved on to PC gaming to play more "grown up" games. You might point out that sega CD had some titles geared at older audiences, but that was slim pickings. Point is, consoles still carried the children's toys connotation and PCs were for big kids. If you were going to be a nerd and keep playing the vidya games, at least you'd be a mature nerd. :D I know it's different now and consoles are grown up, marketed to all ages. But it didn't use to be that way. I'd say not until PS2 did that really begin to change. | |
By interesting developments are you referring to kickstarter? Because I do see some hope there. Please share. | |
I'm 24, but I do have a long history of gaming on just about everything you can imagine. I still have my original copy of Duke Nukem episodes on 4.5 inch floppy for DOS from '91. (Yes, I knew how to operate DOS at a very young age...) What bothers me about the current gen is the small portion I did quote. I feel that this generation is far too focused on "keeping the forumla". Not necessarily because it works, but because it sells. They're far too focused on making it sell than taking risks, so we end up getting games that are essentially the same, but different settings/names etc. Now I believe that this is the fault of the current gen consoles in the sense that they've raised the costs of development to the point where they have to sell the most copies possible in order to recoup their losses and make what profit they can. They make back this money by making the game itself more appealing to a larger audience and as such we get the "familiar" and "formulaic" games that we're seeing now, because it's easy to market something to people that they recognize. People in general are simply afraid of change. I frequently go back to some of my older games simply because I have more fun with them, not because I yearn for a better time when games were better because, let's face it, there were a lot of shit games back then too. Games like Max Payne 1 and 2 where the first was simply amazing in gameplay, action and story telling. Then Max Payne 2 came along, took all that and improved on it, it was simply an amazing game. I just don't feel that really happens as often as it should with the current gen. I don't believe that I'm susceptible to nostalgia as I'm generally objective about everything and will usually judge something on it's own merits first (In cases like with the Syndicate reboot, that was just shit and stupid. They made it an FPS because of my reasons above, and apparently the average person is too dumb for a strategy game). My hopes is that with things like Kickstarter, more ambitious and creative games will start being made. If it turns out that the few kickstarter projects I backed, such as Wasteland, end up being huge successes, my hope is that it can change the minds of publishers and devs on what is viable vs what is not. Publishers thought there was no market for a Wasteland game? well if it turns out to be amazing, hopefully it changes their minds and they start taking more risks, or even drop development costs. | |
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I don't know about you, but I am. There's only a few relatively obscure games I'm really looking forward to, PlanetSide 2 being the biggie. Right now, I have been playing nothing but CoD Black Ops - Zombies for 5 months, around the time I just stopped playing SkyRim without even both to finish. No exaggeration. There are a total of 7 games on my steam account.
So here's is who I want to here from. If you're 30, and you started out with the children's toys, the consoles, and as you grew up- you moved onto PC and witnessed the glory days of the mid 90's; I want to hear from you.
If you're 30, and you did nothing but put product in your hair and chase tail from 14-25 and only recently bought an xbox360 because you remembered nintendo being fun as a kid- you're not like me- but i'll hear from you anyway.
Tell how much attention is being paid to you and what you want? How happy are you with the current crop of games? What do you miss? etc. I know there's a handful of you who post regularly.