No Country For Old Gamers: Your Grandmother Wants To Join Your Halo Clan. What Do You Do?

re: No Country For Old Gamers: Your Grandmother Wants To Join Your Halo Clan. What Do You Do?

HeartbreakRidge — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 22:14:54 GMT

I find it amusing (being a thirty and something) that many young 'uns will use sites like facebook or myspace to publicly admit to all kinds of adolescent behavior and then complain about their privacy being violated when a knowledgeable adult reads it.

re: No Country For Old Gamers: Your Grandmother Wants To Join Your Halo Clan. What Do You Do?

StolenName — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 06:40:18 GMT

If I liked my boss and thought he could a) sing b) play games c) not be an unfunny git, then sure! Other than that, I'd be more than happy if older friends joined in on Facebook and the like provided they didn't DO anything creepy. Like ask me to their 50th reunion :|

re: No Country For Old Gamers: Your Grandmother Wants To Join Your Halo Clan. What Do You Do?

Dersu — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 09:58:51 GMT

It really depends on the people. Do you see your boss/mother/father/uncle/aunt/whoever as someone you'd like to game with? If so, great. Personally speaking, it theoretically sounds like a great idea to have as many types of people game as possible. It would help break down those barriers and preconceptions some have against the medium. Also, having a broader group of people to cater to, we'd see a more diverse selection of games come forth which would hopefully help video games evolve further as an art form. Of course, like I said before, this is theory. There's probably a downside I'm missing.

re: No Country For Old Gamers: Your Grandmother Wants To Join Your Halo Clan. What Do You Do?

euphoriafish — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 17:45:33 GMT

It works both ways-- the kids can embarrass the adults too.

Some of my teachers are on Facebook now. They aren't that much older than me (in their early to mid 30s, and I'm 24), and in person we have lots of common interests and enjpy talking together and playing games together. But I've definitely seen a generation gap in the way they behave on Facebook. They don't play on it like my peers do. They send occasional messages but joking around isn't welcome. If I leave cartoons I've drawn for them, they don't display them like my friends do, and one teacher seemed a bit embarrassed because his page was being dominated by goofy stuff from students and not messages from *his* peers.

Gen Xers don't use instant messages either. But for my generation less than a decade away from Generation X uses online play as an important part of our social networking. It's easier to get to know people online by drawing them silly pictures or dedicating songs to them than to keep finding questions to ask them in person. Maybe I'm just too open online and too shy in person?

re: No Country For Old Gamers: Your Grandmother Wants To Join Your Halo Clan. What Do You Do?

Ross-A — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 15:10:42 GMT

I see your argument and for the most part, I agree.

Games take a lot of unwarranted heat from the older generations.

Personally, I feel if I could convince a politician to sit down with me and play BioShock, a game whose narrative progressed storytelling in games, and I could demonstrate to them how to appreciate the sophisticated experiences that Rapture has to offer, I could make a case to the so-called "authority figures" that this aforementioned "thing of ours" is genuine art. Having older folks latching onto the gaming scene could help shake the misperceived simplicity of the medium and have them recognize games for their interactive artistic qualities.