You think a stigma is a more plausible explanation of why they don’t talk about video games than either
- They don’t play video games, or
- They play them, but they don’t find them all that interesting to talk about?
I would bet that as the generations who played video games as kids reach retirement age, spending a significant amount of time in one’s retirement playing video games will become a normal, mainstream thing to do.
Here is an article about “Gamer Grandpas:”
That seems a bit different. Those are considered ‘safe’ topics with people you generally don’t know or don’t know all that well.
When I started my current job, the list of topics I’d talk about with my co-workers was limited to the weather, the local sports teams, the latest Netflix/Hulu/whatever TV series (and only the major ones - no arthouse stuff), maybe politics but nothing too controversial, and local restaurants.
As I got to know them, did video games gradually enter topics of discussion? Sure. But so have the weird eastern European movie I saw, discussions on cannibalism, and unintended consequences of a truly free market.
Some topics are ‘safe’ because everybody can be assumed to be able to take part. It’s a weird thing, but we like talking about the weather in the US. That is a topic I can bring up with a stranger at the airport, and it would be ‘normal’. That wouldn’t be the case in other countries, and it would be considered outright strange in some. Other topics, especially hobbies that not everybody may enjoy, won’t be part of casual conversation unless the audience is already familiar or known.
I’m 44, and I’ve never noticed such a stigma. I’m not really a “serious” gamer though – I mean, I have a Steam account and a couple of times a year I may summon the energy to play through a couple, but I’m more a retro gamer (working through Zelda: Wind Waker right now.) I can’t think of any men my age who don’t occasionally play a video game, if not regularly. I guess we don’t talk about it a lot, but it’s not because we’re ashamed or anything, it’s just not much to talk about for us. My brother plays video games constantly, but I also don’t hear him talking about it much except if I ask him what he’s currently working on.
I’m 46 and don’t know any men my age “in real life” who play video games unless they’re part of my D&D groups. Granted, they could be keeping it all top secret but I’ve been to their houses and no one has a gaming rig (unless a c.2007 Dell counts as a gaming rig) or console outside of their kid’s room. Guess it depends on who you hang out with.
Now, I won’t discount the potential that they have some game on their phone or have played their kid’s Xbox once or twice but I’m confident that any of them would react to "How about that new Outer Worlds game, huh? as though I just asked them what they thought of Jell-O xylophone polish. That said, I don’t think they’d throw beer bottles at me and call me a dork either, but we wouldn’t be finding any common ground.
I’d call that something of a stigma, if people are reticent to discuss a topic until they know the people better and feel like they can trust them.
It may not mark you as a total dork, but IMO, it’s still regarded on the same plane as say… model trains or other stuff generally regarded as kid stuff, but that some adults are into anyway.
Supposedly the median age of your average gamer is something like 31, which means that half of all gamers are older than 31. I’m not sure what the distribution is like, but I’d wager it’s NOT a normal distribution- all the high school and college kids playing would tend to skew it younger. Which also implies that the older half is probably fairly evenly distributed up to a certain age (my guess would be early 50s), giving us a lot of thirty and forty-something gamers. But it’s just not discussed, even if half of all gamers are above 31. That makes me think that there’s still something of a social distaste/unacceptability surrounding it.
I guess so. None of my friends were into D&D or hard-core gaming, but they all seem to enjoy playing video games from time to time. My brother’s friends (he’s 38), it’s even much more so. I think all his friends have XBoxOnes and Switches and that sort of stuff, and they’re not the stereotypical “nerdy” gamers. From my perspective, playing video games is absolutely mainstream and one of many typical ways to unwind after a long day of work.
Your social group is different from mine. I guess I mostly hang out with people who are either older or younger than I am, so maybe I don’t hang with the “plays clandestinely” crowd. But my younger friends all talk about gaming, casually, like talking about popular TV shows. And my older friends mostly don’t play video games.
The younger ones do- I’m not disputing that. It’s the ones roughly my age (mid-40s) who I don’t doubt play video games to some degree, but who don’t talk about it, who I’m talking about.
My guess is that we run in different crowds. I really can’t imagine one of my friends being shy about that. And i have at least one friend who is about fifty who often talks about his gaming when other gamers are around.
I think what also contributes to the smaller amount of people discussing games during small talk is even the most popular games don’t tend to have as much of a centralized role in the zeitgeist as the most popular films, TV shows, and sports teams.
There is a low fiscal entry point for games (many games are available for only a couple bucks, most movies are going to run you $4 to rent, over $12 to see in a theater, or you can save money through streaming services, but then you’re limited to what they are offering). And with the shear number of games out there, there are a lot of games that only one or two people in a given social group would have played.
Sure, you could say the same for movies and TV, but they get more press, I’ve never seen Breaking Bad or Orange is the New Black, but I can certainly contribute in some way to a conversation about them, even if not by much. I can’t say the same for Minecraft, which I’ve never played, and that is one of the largest played games out there.
Also, gaming has not entered mainstream celebrity culture to the level of other media. There are plenty of A-listers involved in the gaming industry, e.g. Kristen Bell. But when most people think of Kristen Bell, I don’t think Assassin’s Creed is their first thought.
So I’d say it’s not so much stigma, but the fact that gaming as part of the zeitgeist is a relatively recent thing when compared to other forms of media.
Maybe it’s just an age thing; it could be that even though the median age of a male gamer is something like 32, it still is centered roughly around there, and the tail up around 45 and above is relatively thin compared to the under-35 crowd.
Thinking about it, video games weren’t quite as much of a thing for my age group in college as they were for my brother’s (he’s 40, I’m 47), as when I was in school, there was NO online gaming- it was in-person or singleplayer. So it wasn’t a social activity like it is nowadays for a lot of people. I mean, back then you pretty much played by yourself, or you played with multiple controllers on a Genesis/Super Nintendo. You had to be more dedicated I suppose.
So maybe it’s just that in the 45-50 crowd, there just aren’t that many gamers?
Games usually incorporate a tutorial on how to use the controller into the game itself. By the time you get to the more complicated stuff, you’re well practiced. I assure you that you don’t need special skills to play games these days.
And, I’ll concur with the sentiment that these are a new art form. Games these days are like interactive movies. In fact, not only are they fun to play, they are fun to watch somebody play.
I’m 41, by the way, and I’d consider it typical for a person my age to have a video game system.
Fortnite is pretty simple as shooters go and has a ‘playground mode’ where you can run around, shoot, build, etc. without enemies (and with friends, if you want).
To start playing with some of those skills, You can try out some older but awesome releases. For example, Iwould suggest Borderlands 2. It’s in a genre it invented called a looter shooter. But it is one of my favorite games all time, and uses all the conventions of modern shooters, but filters them through arcady action and forgives a lot of missteps to let you keep running and gunning, and that makes it a lot of fun. The enemies are great and one of the most hate-able bosses to keep you driving to take his miserable ass down.
It is build for totally solo if you feel like it, or you can group with friends, but no required masses of internet jackasses to make you hate the world. And is very cheap these days. 5 bucks for the basic game on Steam now, so not too much invested if you hate it.
Let’s be honest, though. At some point in your life, you start losing a bit of the coordination, time and patience necessary to complete Dark Souls or Cuphead.
i consider those games a special case … I mean sure cupheads supposed ot be a nes type of shooter …but they left out everything that a nes/bullet-hell shooter would have like in level power ups and such … same thing for the run & gun lvls …
If we’re being really honest, many of us never had that level of coordination and patience in the first place.
I’m 46, and in my experience I seem to be right on the dividing line where gaming is acceptable. I don’t think anyone I know that is older than me is a gamer, but most of my friends and coworkers my age and younger are, or at least don’t think you’re weird for being a gamer. Although I’m specifically excluding casual mobile games, which seem to “not count”. Even my parents play Candy Crush.
If you’re interested in story-driven games, maybe RPGs would be your thing? They are also usually very good at easing new players into the game because you typically start out with only a very small subset of features, abilities, and areas available, which are gradually unlocked as you level up your character and advance through the story.
If you’re new to the genre, I can recommend Final Fantasy XIV in particular. The player community is pretty friendly and accommodating to new players, with many who are eager to help. The combat system does not require fast-twitch reflexes because each ability has a short cooldown (2.5 seconds for most common attacks), so fights have a sort of rhythm or flow to them, rather than a bunch of wild button-mashing. The big enemy attacks also usually have a long wind-up that telegraphs itself with an area drawn on the ground for a good few seconds, giving you time to prepare. FFXIV is also a very story-driven game, and IMHO the story is better than most.
If you want to try out a shooter, then Fortnite is a good place to start. As mentioned upthread it’s a fairly simple game, but more importantly it’s also free to play, so you can try it out without any risk.
Thanks! I enjoy table-top RPG, so that’s probably a good fit. I will look into FFXIV.