The age effect

[teddymeow]

I'm 34. Gaming sucks.

[Arashikage]

I'm 38 and my interest in games has dwindled over the years. Once upon a time I used to make an annual trip to Japan and come back with hoards of loot. Then I had an epiphany and sold most of it off. My collection spanned JPN MD, SFC, PCE, Saturn, Cave PCBs...I had all the gems but after selling them all I realised I don't actually miss them. If anything it's proved a release rather than a regret.

Nowadays I still have a few consoles but most of my time is taken up playing MK8 online and the odd SNES game. Games can take over your life if you let them, it's better to just enjoy a few and have room for other things too.

[JU!]

I'm 32 and although loved my time with my ZX Spectrum and C64 plus older consoles like the MD still enjoy my gaming got a bit overloaded since November 2014 with stuff (which barely ever happens) but managed to finish some recently of that lot recently. Usually I just stick to one or two PS4 games then dabble in some older PS2 or PS3, GC stuff occasionally. I think as I get older get less time to play so have to focus more when I do. Really love the social aspect of the new consoles though and what that can bring too.

[teddymeow]

"Dwindled" is a great word to describe how I game now.

It's rare for a game to grab me to the extent where it's all I think about and play it to completion. The Last Of Us was the last game to do that.

It's not that I have other stuff to do. More the fact I can't be bothered to game.

[Team Andromeda]

Starting gaming since the Spectrum and my 1st ever console was the Mattel Intellivision and I just don't get the moaning or what people expect with gaming these days , in many ways its never been better and in some other ways its been rubbish granted .

I'm really happy with modern gaming , systems like the XBox One and PS4 and even games like COD , AC and so on . The only bad parts to modern gaming is now with getting older I simply don't have the time or the attention span like I used (not just for games but films and watching TV and so on) , the way Japanese gaming is destying its self and the death of Arcades in the west and some of my fav genre's like Traditional shooters.

[Junko]

44 , too much style over substance and very few risks or gameplay innovation this past few years .... There you go , mumble grumble

[Anpanman]

44 , too much style over substance and very few risks or gameplay innovation this past few years .... There you go , mumble grumble

That just about sums it up for me too.

For me this gen has been the worst and I can't see it improving either.

Although I've been gaming since the dawn (I'm 50), there are plenty of consoles I haven't owned so I'll probably go backwards when I get completely cheesed off with modern gaming which will probably be next gen - PS5 etc.

[Colin]

I'm just stuck in a mindset of wanting to play run'n'guns, traditional (NOT bullet hell) shooters, scrolling beat 'em ups and all that other classic arcadey stuff that I grew up on. I just downloaded and played Gradius V for an hour, I'd rather that than piss about levelling up and grinding games. I sometimes pop in to first play threads for things like Destiny and Bloodborne and it makes my teeth grate, it's like a foreign language.

['Press Start']

I am 34 and my life is busier then ever what with work, projects, keep fit and of course friends and family.

Personal gaming a real luxury now and that luxury time has to be rewarded with exceptional games, hence this gen meant nothing to me up until recently.

However, a newer form of gaming has come into my life, family gaming is amazing fun and despite it being a flop this is where the Wii U comes into it's own. Mario Kart 8, Super Mario 3D land and Wii U party have provided many happy gaming memories which have justified the Wii U 100 times over.

->Open Spoiler<-

Although I cannot wait to get stuck into an epic, story driven adventure after everyone has gone to bed. Just me vs the world.....like the good old days!

[Neon Ignition]

After a couple of gaming lulls in my twenties, my view has come around to seeing the current gaming landscape in much the same way as the movie one.

Compared to a couple of decades ago when the industry was still in its relative infancy and developers were still working out the full range of possibilities the medium was capable of producing, we're now at a point where most things that are possible to be done in gaming (genre, controls, play types etc) have been done and the bulk of good to bad ideas have been filtered. Much like how movies constantly get berated for a lack of ideas and mindless big budget approach, games get berated for their iterative nature.

Broadly though I've come to take the view that like with movies, the quality of gaming has (across the board) never been stronger. Gamers can whine and moan about a lack of originality (as though original concepts have a correlation with quality) or annualised series (of which annualised franchises must account of 5% or less of the games that come out in a year) but there has never been the breadth of titles released and the general bar of quality that exists now.

The problem? A mixture of youth (where most things appear new regardless of whether the concept is) and nostalgia. That 8bit/16bit/32bit golden age of classics in the 90's? Your memory is lying to you. In reality, it was the switch to 3D that made the impression and even then 99% of the games coming out at the time were atrocious. I find that returning to half the games I played in the PS2/PS3/XB/360/GC era long after pre-release expectations are out of the equation paints them in better and more accurate lights.

The problem is gamers letting themselves become jaded rather than an issue with the hobby itself. As soon as you let the myth of a golden era existing go it's much easier to come to terms with the reality of gaming today. Sure it isn't perfect; patching is too common place, DLC could be handled better, and admittedly devs have been slow to get software to market so far this gen etc but gaming is still here, it isn't going anywhere and that next big revolution you expect in gaming such as streaming, VR, hololens, a single format, a handheld/console hybrid, smartphones, motion controls etc etc isn't going to even dent the sides just like the last few decades of false hopes pinned up by gamers (at times myself included) looking to capture a little bit of the wide eyed wonder they experienced in their younger years didn't.

Simply pick up something you'll like, dim the lights, set aside a drink and, if you must, kick off your pants and rediscover something most gamers seem to not fully consider compared to their younger self when dissecting the visuals, controls, framerates, memory bandwidths, dlc structures and implementations etc...

Fun.

[charlesr]

Yeah, fantastic post dude. Until the pants bit.

['Press Start']

The problem? A mixture of youth (where most things appear new regardless of whether the concept is) and nostalgia. That 8bit/16bit/32bit golden age of classics in the 90's? Your memory is lying to you. In reality, it was the switch to 3D that made the impression

Are you telling people what they remember?

Good luck!

[Colin]

The problem? A mixture of youth (where most things appear new regardless of whether the concept is) and nostalgia. That 8bit/16bit/32bit golden age of classics in the 90's? Your memory is lying to you. In reality, it was the switch to 3D that made the impression and even then 99% of the games coming out at the time were atrocious.

To dismiss three entire generations of gaming is ridiculous, take your head out of your arse.

[ETC]

"Dwindled" is a great word to describe how I game now.

It's rare for a game to grab me to the extent where it's all I think about and play it to completion. The Last Of Us was the last game to do that.

It's not that I have other stuff to do. More the fact I can't be bothered to game.

Im 35, ted described it better than me. Modern gaming is ****e, I have no motivation or inclination to play at the minute. I prefer my other hobbies like cooking, boozing and the gym will probably stay that way till uncharted 4, last game for me was GTA V which finally clicked on my third try, great game but has left me not arsed
about playing anything else

[Neon Ignition]

To dismiss three entire generations of gaming is ridiculous, take your head out of your arse.

I'm not dismissing those three generations, just putting across that the image that gamers often put out that it was a time of wonder with a conveyor belt of originality and stone cold classics isn't what was actually the case at the time. There was just as much drivel released, with just as many (if not more) lazy licensed software and iteration in titles but it's easy to remember the gold and forget the guff that gamers had to wade through at the time.