So, hear me out.
I’m a 47 year old guy and I’m not ashamed to say that I enjoy video games. I always have, from playing Head over Heels on a Speccy +2 to ESO and Valorant on my self built PC.
Due to various life circumstances, I’m also on the dating scene and to most women I meet, around my age, video games are anathema. When I say that I like them it’s usually meet with an “oh dear” or a “my son would probably love to talk to you about them, I find them really boring”
I have two boys, both teenagers, both play all the time and sometimes we all play together (although they are better as they have more time to apply to games). Their friends are amazed that I will talk about games with them, that I know someone about games and that I play games. None of their parents want to talk with them about what is effectively their main hobby that they do all the time (big sad).
So the question, there must be some sort of cut off age at which video games are no longer an acceptable pastime. Is it absolute age based (nothing after 35) or is it something to do with the progression of games into popular culture and people born after, say, 1986 will not see it as unacceptable?
I don’t have an answer, I just think it’s an interesting question. Thanks for reading, let me know what you think!
Edit to add: I’m not planning on stopping through peer pressure, just wondering about the phenomenon!
I’m getting up to your age, but over the last few years I’ve been spending less time (nearly no time) playing video games, and I grew up with them! The only exception is if my son and I are playing together, then I don’t mind sinking a few hours into it.
Gaming is an investment of time.
Not that I find it unacceptable, especially if that’s a pastime or hobby, but the older I get, the more I realize that I don’t **want ** to spend any more time than I need to in front of a screen.
My priorities and commitments have also changed over the years, so any “free time” I get is usually spent maintaining the house, fixing something, running errands, being outdoors, or preparing meals for my family.
As a side note, I think some of my feelings have also been caused by the direction the gaming industry has gone.
I simply don’t have the patience to be bothered with today’s video game business model to really care at all about investing time into it. Microtransactions, “seasons”, Gold/Platinum/GOTY/<insert another edition here> versions, unnecessary grinds to get non-important stuff, ads in the console dashboard and in games, etc.
I’m more likely to play a retro game off an emulator than I am playing one on my Xbox Series X on a 120Hz, 4K, OLED TV.
I’m of a similar age, and I’m at the point where all my kids are in their 20s and playing video games together is something we do. It’s just bonding time. Whether Halo or NMS, we’re playing together.
I can relate to this as I’ve also cut down on gaming quite a bit after frustration with shit like COD season passes and having to rank up in the season to unlock loot but not having the time or desire to grind through them. I’ve pretty much quit playing FPS all together even though that was my main jam 10 years ago. Now I focus on single player stuff like Horizon and Elden Ring so I can play at my own pace rather than investing so much time worrying about missing out on useless digital skins and weapons. I’ll also play Minecraft and Lego games with my daughter and have a ton of fun with those too.
The industry has definitely changed overall but with the number of games coming out, you’re not locked in to falling into their trap of grind fests and can pick other titles.
This is the same for me. I am busy, and I have responsibilities. I used to play games, but like you, things change. We change, and that’s okay. Being a judgemental ass is not okay.