[QUOTE=Marley23]
More broadly - just to tout my own theory - I think adulthood as we used to know it has been abolished, which obviously has positive and negative qualities.
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That’s an interesting statement; I think you should extrapolate. What specific parts of antique adulthood do you think have been abolished? Have they actually been abolished (like, say, smoking in the office) or were they naturally lost? etc. etc.
[QUOTE=OneCentStamp]
I agree with the OP. Maybe what the gaming world needs is a more concerted effort to portray itself as a serious medium for adults. It can start with something as simple as terminology (“Don’t call it a comic book; it’s a graphic novel!”)
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“Graphic Novel” specifically refers to something apart from just “comic book,” and people who call comic books or collections of comic books “graphic novels” are douchebags.
Someone pointed out that comic books are still thought of as being a “kid” thing, even in a post-Maus world.
The problem is, of course, that video games have already given us plenty of Maus-level works that truly elevate the medium to art and maturity, but the media doesn’t really reflect that (they don’t put Ico on the cover of Newsweek).
[QUOTE=An Arky]
However, the real infantilization is occurring in adults; 50 years ago, you wouldn’t have seen a bunch of middle aged moms sitting around the pool reading the latest Nancy Drew or grown men extolling the virtues of some cartoon in the confines of their basement.
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While I agree that this is a legitimate trend, why do you point to video games as an example of “kid stuff?” This sort of auto-classification - “adults playing video games are doing a kid thing” - is the root of the problem, and my OP. What makes you classify video games that way when you don’t consider adults reading books or watching movies to be doing something “kiddie?”
Could somebody tell me what adult-appropriate activities are? What “grown-up” entertainment is? I seem to have missed the memo.
I also would like to do what adults did 50 years ago. What did they do with their free time? What was fun to them? I’m quite serious in my question.
[QUOTE=Mosier]
I think adults are just realizing that kids have more fun. The Sound and the Fury is about two hundred thousand times less fun to read than Harry Potter. If that’s some sort of indication that America’s going to hell in a hand basket and we’re all becoming childish buffoons, I’ll eat my hat.
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Sorry, but hat eating is well known as a childs activity. 
I agree in large part with the OP. (Something is wrong…I’m agreeing with VC03) The trouble is that video games are a relatively new thing and begin their life as being mostly for kids. The adults who play them now are mostly the ones that grew up playing them. (myself included) That newness and early assocation are a lot of what is keeping video games as being thought of as needing to be kid-friendly. This generation wants to use the medium we used as kids to enjoy at a more adult level. I would equate it to liking Bambi as a kid but now wanting to use the movie medium to enjoy Silence of the Lambs.
I agree that a new name is in order as the terms game and play have long been associated with childrens activities. Perhaps video entertainment or interactive video..something along those lines.
[QUOTE=Der Trihs]
And the whole anti-nudity thing is ridiculous on the face of it. Children are not going to be harmed if they see naked people.
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And, to make the whole thing more ridiculous, we’re not even talking about seeing naked people here; we’re talking about seeing an arrangement of pixels that very roughly resemble a naked person.
That said, I wouldn’t want my daughter to play a game featuring either violence or nudity. So the very moment they allow 4-year-olds to get credit cards and driver’s licenses, I’ll worry about the child-friendliness of video games. Until then, I’m pretty sure I can filter what goes on the screen without bowdlerizing games for adult players (myself included!).
[QUOTE=Anaamika]
I also would like to do what adults did 50 years ago. What did they do with their free time? What was fun to them? I’m quite serious in my question.
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Well, take my grandparents. For one, they had less leisure time. Their leisure activities consisted of reading books and the newspaper, listening to the radio (plays/dramas as well as music and variety shows), and once they had a television set, TV. They played cards and board games as well. Most weekends, they would take picnic trips to local or state parks, places like that. They went to see quite a few movies.
[QUOTE=OneCentStamp]
Well, take my grandparents. For one, they had less leisure time. Their leisure activities consisted of reading books and the newspaper, listening to the radio (plays/dramas as well as music and variety shows), and once they had a television set, TV. They played cards and board games as well. Most weekends, they would take picnic trips to local or state parks, places like that. They went to see quite a few movies.
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But I do most of that, too. Video games are not my only outlet. I don’t see how adding in what some people think is a childish activity, but I don’t, makes me childish.
[QUOTE=OneCentStamp]
Well, take my grandparents. For one, they had less leisure time. Their leisure activities consisted of reading books and the newspaper, listening to the radio (plays/dramas as well as music and variety shows), and once they had a television set, TV. They played cards and board games as well. Most weekends, they would take picnic trips to local or state parks, places like that. They went to see quite a few movies.
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And don’t forget booze. People back then drank a lot. That can fill up time.
[QUOTE=Anaamika]
I also would like to do what adults did 50 years ago. What did they do with their free time? What was fun to them? I’m quite serious in my question.
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What would you do if there were no video games? For that matter, what do you do for fun besides playing video games? I’m sure you do some things that don’t require electricty…those things are probably pretty similar to what people did 50 years ago: Read. Talk to each other. Do crafts, such as woodwork or needlework. Play charades or bridge. Go bike riding.
I don’t think playing video games is childish, but to me it falls into the category of something an adult probably wouldn’t make time to do a lot of, and if they do, then that might be a little childish.
[QUOTE=Sarahfeena]
I don’t think playing video games is childish, but to me it falls into the category of something an adult probably wouldn’t make time to do a lot of, and if they do, then that might be a little childish.
[/QUOTE]
Why, please? Why exactly do you characterize it as childish? Why is it so different from reading a book, say?
[QUOTE=Der Trihs]
It seriously irritates me that more and more the whole world is supposed to be childproofed. Video games included. No child is ever likely to even enter my home, much less play my video games. Can’t parents even be troubled to screen what video games they buy or let their kids play now ?
And the whole anti-nudity thing is ridiculous on the face of it. Children are not going to be harmed if they see naked people.
[/QUOTE]
but…but…but
that might teach them that nudity is okay! And that might lead them to SEX. And we all know how evil that can be.
What they really need is more games where they get to kill brown people. That would be just fine.
/sarcasm
[QUOTE=Anaamika]
Why, please? Why exactly do you characterize it as childish? Why is it so different from reading a book, say?
[/QUOTE]
I just said I DON’T think it’s inherently childish. I think that when an adult sets aside a lot of time to pursue a hobby that is strictly for entertainment and doesn’t do much to improve mind or body, then that could be considered a little childish. I don’t think reading falls into that category. Watching a lot of bad TV does, though, I think, and I’m terribly guilty of that, so please don’t think I’m pointing fingers.
[QUOTE=Anaamika]
I’m disgusted in every way when I have to bend to kids. Childproof caps on medicine? But no kids will ever be in my medicine cabinet.
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Gigantic hijack, but for the sake of fighting ignorance:
You can get regular “non-childproof” caps on prescription meds. You just need to ask the pharmacist and they’ll put it in your record. I think I had to sign a release or something the first time, but I definitely get regular caps now. FTR, I use CVS.
As far as over the counter though, you’re right, annoys the crap out of me.
Please continue your regularly scheduled thread, already in progress.
[QUOTE=Sarahfeena]
I just said I DON’T think it’s inherently childish. I think that when an adult sets aside a lot of time to pursue a hobby that is strictly for entertainment and doesn’t do much to improve mind or body, then that could be considered a little childish. I don’t think reading falls into that category. Watching a lot of bad TV does, though, I think, and I’m terribly guilty of that, so please don’t think I’m pointing fingers.
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OK. And I didn’t think you were pointing fingers, I was genuinely curious about WHY video games are deemed childish. I see what you’re saying, though, that almost any activity that is only Input and not Output (for a shorthand way of saying it!) could be deemed childish.
And I don’t buy many scrips at all. I just want my Advil bottle to be easily opened at 3 AM when I have cramps. I don’t want to have to futz around with the bottle, lining up the arrows, without my glasses.
[QUOTE=Anaamika]
OK. And I didn’t think you were pointing fingers, I was genuinely curious about WHY video games are deemed childish. I see what you’re saying, though, that almost any activity that is only Input and not Output (for a shorthand way of saying it!) could be deemed childish.
[/QUOTE]
I sort of think of some things as “time-waster” activities. Fine for a diversion, but not something that’s necessarily good to spend hours a day on.
[QUOTE=Sarahfeena]
I think that when an adult sets aside a lot of time to pursue a hobby that is strictly for entertainment and doesn’t do much to improve mind or body, then that could be considered a little childish. I don’t think reading falls into that category. Watching a lot of bad TV does, though, I think, and I’m terribly guilty of that, so please don’t think I’m pointing fingers.
[/QUOTE]
I don’t understand this menatality. Why would spending a lot of time watching TV or playing video games for entertainment be considered childish while reading would not? What makes reading such a worthwhile pursuit and where did the “the more your read the better” mindset come from?
Would golf or bowling count?
I think there’s a good parallel to animation–most people think cartoons are for kids, period. Over half the people at the showing I attended of The Simpsons Movie–a movie I didn’t think was kid-friendly at all–were under twelve.
I know of several parents who let their kids watch stuff like Family Guy and South Park, because if it’s a cartoon it must be OK. I know of a few more who have actually watched those shows who were outraged that a cartoon could be so crude and inappropriate.
All this is true despite The Simpsons being on TV for damn near twenty years. It might just be something that has to be waited out, as people roughly my age (32) and younger who never stopped watching animated shows as we moved into adulthood become the dominant voices.
Similarly, video games have never been, to me, something that kids do–they’ve always been something that I do, and that my friends do.
[QUOTE=Anaamika]
OK. And I didn’t think you were pointing fingers, I was genuinely curious about WHY video games are deemed childish. I see what you’re saying, though, that almost any activity that is only Input and not Output (for a shorthand way of saying it!) could be deemed childish.
[/QUOTE]
I was in a hurry earlier, but I still have to say I don’t think all video games are one-sided or all are childish. I play a lot of puzzle games. I don’t see how having a character who proceeds to solve some puzzles is intellectually less stimulating than getting paper and pen out and doing it yourself.
[QUOTE=Anaamika]
Why, please? Why exactly do you characterize it as childish? Why is it so different from reading a book, say?
[/QUOTE]
Because we (you, me, **Sarahfeena **and everyone in this thread probably) grew up during a period of time, from the 80’s to the late 90’s, where video games WERE, with a very few exceptions (LLL, already mentioned), for kids. They were marketed to kids and kids asked for them for Christmas and kids picked out the games and spent most of the time playing them. I’m not saying there was never an adult out there who played a round of Donkey Kong. I’m sure there was, but it was not marketed and advertised as an adult activity. No one ever tried to sell my grandmother, or even my mother, a video game system of her very own. They tried to sell my grandmother and my mother a video game system to give as a gift to her grandchild or child - namely, me.
When my husband was a freshman in college (uh, 1988) you weren’t allowed a television set in your dorm room, much less a game system. So video games were something left at home, like your pogo stick and your dogeared copy of Illustrated Junior Library’s Treasure Island. You might play with it when home on Christmas break, but it wasn’t part of your everyday life. By the time you graduated, the system was probably old and crappy and mom had packed it away somewhere, and you were out of the habit of playing everyday, so you just did other things with your time - adult things, things that you didn’t do when you were a kid.
It wasn’t until the mid to late 90’s that it became apparent, to me, anyway, that people didn’t stop playing video games anymore when they went off to college. They brought their systems with them, and continued playing them, and they’ve brought them into adulthood, too.
Please note that I’m not condemning this. This is my favorite xkcd strip ever. I myself dress up in Renaissance clothing and play make-believe with a couple thousand strangers every summer. I read more young adult novels than adult ones. I’m all for enjoying yourself and ignoring marketing demographics. But I think this is where the idea that “video games are for kids” comes from. In 30 more years, it won’t be questioned, anymore than we question today that *Promethea *and *Sandman *are not “comics for kids”.
Right now, the people who think video games are for kids are the ones who don’t play them. In another 50 years, we’ll all be dead and gone and y’all can play “Halo 924” on our graves.