# Video Game Generation Take Over **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 28, 2010, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-game-generation-take-over/544776 "2010-06-28T13:05:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Bosstone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/22d042/32.png) [@Bosstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosstone)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2010, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-game-generation-take-over/544776/41 "2010-06-28T15:02:29Z")
> [@Tom\_Scud](#): > > On the (comparatively) narrow issue of IP, you could be right. But though the internet is a huge change, is it bigger than (say) electrification, or the automobile? You’re significantly underestimating the degree of change anyone alive has seen in their youth. You could be right, I suppose. I’ll happily drop that line of bald assertions. It’s highly tangential to the OP anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Punisher\_11B](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/9de0a6/32.png) [@Punisher\_11B](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Punisher_11B)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2010, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-game-generation-take-over/544776/42 "2010-06-28T15:02:34Z")
> [@Freudian\_Slit](#): > > But anything _can_ be an addiction. Sex, drinking, video games, anything. But they can also be enjoyed responsibly. Why rail against the object when it’s the addictive personality of the user that’s most likely to blame? Ok, I see your point. Do you think we should blame the Hippy generation of parents then? Or blame the family structured generation before that? I think we should blame them for not beating their hippy kids more, so they would push their kids outside and only play video games in moderation. Maybe it’s because Video games are a great baby sitter, and parents don’t have to deal with their kids as much. ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Scud](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f08c70/32.png) [@Tom\_Scud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Scud)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2010, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-game-generation-take-over/544776/43 "2010-06-28T15:04:43Z")
> [@Bosstone](#): > > It’s highly tangential to the OP anyway. Well, this IS the SDMB. ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2010, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-game-generation-take-over/544776/44 "2010-06-28T15:07:44Z")
> [@Punisher\_11B](#): > > Ok, I see your point. Do you think we should blame the Hippy generation of parents then? Or blame the family structured generation before that? I think we should blame them for not beating their hippy kids more, so they would push their kids outside and only play video games in moderation. > > Maybe it’s because Video games are a great baby sitter, and parents don’t have to deal with their kids as much. I don’t know that it’s helpful to blame anyone. I don’t think this is such a huge problem that we really need to, and plus I don’t think there are easy answers. Like, if I asked you, “Who should we blame for sex/porn addiction,” could you answer? There are probably hundreds of factors. ---
**Author:** ![hansel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/6bbea6/32.png) [@hansel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hansel)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2010, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-game-generation-take-over/544776/45 "2010-06-28T15:10:54Z")
I think that a large part of the impact on the video game generation is that they’re going to be much more financially literate, at least with basic budgeting. Almost all video games have some economic component; many very explicitly make it a part of the game. You have Sim City, Civilization, and a large number of Real Time Strategy games where you have to collect resources and turn them into your army. World of Warcraft now explicitly prints stats and formulas describing relative power of weapons and armor, and wikis for MMOs routinely break out the internal math of the game. To a degree, the generation of video game players will be the generation with widespread literacy in business accounting. Spreadsheet fluency today is what reading was a hundred years ago: not strictly necessary, but always a big plus in real life. When I think of this group running things, I’m actually a little hopeful. ---
**Author:** ![Punisher\_11B](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/9de0a6/32.png) [@Punisher\_11B](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Punisher_11B)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2010, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-game-generation-take-over/544776/46 "2010-06-28T15:12:12Z")
> [@Enderw24](#): > > I think this here is the root of the issue. You’re pissed off that you’ve had such a short childhood and you’re pissed off at the kids you know because they’re acting like kids. Why can’t they be as unhappy as you? Why can’t they be made to slaughter their first doe at age 5 with just their bare hands and a rock? It built character for you, right? > > Just let the kids be kids and be happy for them. I am not unhappy by any means. I love my life. And I don’t want you to think that my childhood was hell. I was tough, but not hell. I still got to have fun with my friends and such. But I was taught “self reliance” at an early age and am thankful for it. What does the VGG have to rely on? The internet works, there are pizza rolls in the freezer and all is good. And I like it when kids are kids, I just like to see them outside being kids. I’m sorry for my lack of liberal thinking, but your right, this is the way I was brought up. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2010, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-game-generation-take-over/544776/47 "2010-06-28T15:12:57Z")
> [@Punisher\_11B](#): > > I think we should blame them for not beating their hippy kids more, so they would push their kids outside and only play video games in moderation. Some of them beat their hippy kids plenty. > [@](#): > > Maybe it’s because Video games are a great baby sitter, and parents don’t have to deal with their kids as much. TV can do the same thing, though. ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2010, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-game-generation-take-over/544776/48 "2010-06-28T15:15:20Z")
> [@Punisher\_11B](#): > > And I like it when kids are kids, I just like to see them outside being kids. I’m sorry for my lack of liberal thinking, but your right, this is the way I was brought up. I never got this whole “Kids being kids…OUTSIDE” thing. Why are you more of a kid outside? There are plenty of adults AND kids who just aren’t into the outdoors. Is there meant to be something pure and wholesome about the great outdoors? Because some of just aren’t that into it. ---
**Author:** ![Bosstone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/22d042/32.png) [@Bosstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosstone)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2010, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-game-generation-take-over/544776/49 "2010-06-28T15:16:45Z")
> [@hansel](#): > > When I think of this group running things, I’m actually a little hopeful. This is actually where I think I side with the OP a little. It’s really hard to treat a heavy gun in your hands, shooting at another person, as a video game. But as abstracted as money is getting these days, it’s a lot harder to distinguish a number on your bank’s website from video game money, and games generally don’t bother with mundane things like living expenses. I think people will be much more mathematically literate, but I’m not certain games will be helpful in balancing a checkbook. It could certainly be as you say, and I hope it is. But I think this is a situation that could swing either way. ---
**Author:** ![Punisher\_11B](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/9de0a6/32.png) [@Punisher\_11B](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Punisher_11B)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2010, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-game-generation-take-over/544776/50 "2010-06-28T15:21:39Z")
> [@Freudian\_Slit](#): > > I don’t know that it’s helpful to blame anyone. I don’t think this is such a huge problem that we really need to, and plus I don’t think there are easy answers. > > Like, if I asked you, “Who should we blame for sex/porn addiction,” could you answer? There are probably hundreds of factors. I understand what your saying, I am simply discussing and having a conversation. I thought it would be a good subject. But if I had to answer on the Porn/Sex. I would have to blame it on the Renaissance, though it started out as a good thing, it was IMO the birth of Liberal ways of thinking and then misconstrued into a “it’s popular to be different” mindset. \<— lol wow, thats going to open a can of worms. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2010, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-game-generation-take-over/544776/51 "2010-06-28T15:22:28Z")
Why can’t they be like we were – Perfect in every way?! What’s the matter with kids todaaaay? – _Bye-Bye Birdie_ ---
**Author:** ![Baboonanza](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f475e1/32.png) [@Baboonanza](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baboonanza)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2010, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-game-generation-take-over/544776/52 "2010-06-28T15:25:30Z")
True, video games are almost a symptom rather than the core problem. TV has exactly the same issues but its less contentious because adults today have grown up with it too. Presumably nobody (well almost :)) wants to go back to the days where kids had to work from the age of twelve, but certainly more outside activity and general diversification of interests is good for anybody. But it’s up to parents to encourage this sort of behaviour, and if you want to go after the general state of laissez-fair parenting these days then I’ll be right behind you holding a pitch-fork. Until I have my own kids, then you’ll find me hiding in a cupboard hoping the mob doesn’t find me. ---
**Author:** ![Punisher\_11B](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/9de0a6/32.png) [@Punisher\_11B](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Punisher_11B)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2010, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-game-generation-take-over/544776/53 "2010-06-28T15:27:37Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > Some of them beat their hippy kids plenty. > TV can do the same thing, though. Yes, sadly some parents take discipline too far. And it rips me up thinking of a child being beaten literally. Please note that when I used the word “BEAT” I did not mean it in that sense. I meant it as structured discipline. ---
**Author:** ![JXJohns](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jxjohns/32/469_2.png) [@JXJohns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JXJohns)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2010, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-game-generation-take-over/544776/54 "2010-06-28T15:32:23Z")
> [@Punisher\_11B](#): > > … Which I think is crap, because next they will be coming after my job as “Boots on the ground”. As the father of two young boys, I cannot think of anything better than there to be a limited shelf life on “boots on the ground” sort of jobs. That being said, I think you are kidding yourself if you really believe what you posed is even remotely accurate. ---
**Author:** ![hansel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/6bbea6/32.png) [@hansel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hansel)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2010, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-game-generation-take-over/544776/55 "2010-06-28T15:34:05Z")
> [@Bosstone](#): > > I think people will be much more mathematically literate, but I’m not certain games will be helpful in balancing a checkbook. The thing I notice is the frequency with which you need to buy things. At a very basic level, most video games of any depth (and even a lot of Flash games) have some mechanism where you accumulate money, coins, whatever, and then spend it on gear, upgrades, powerups, or building a new barracks. Without getting preachy about it, the most basic life-skills lesson continually driven home is that you can’t have what you can’t pay for. There’s no credit cards or advances–if you want it, you need to get the money for it by working (playing the game). And because they’re video games, you repeat those lessons over and over and over. Money, in whatever form it takes, is recognized as such and treated accordingly. I’m a pretty fiscally conservative guy now in my personal finances, and I credit all the video games that I’ve played with that. I lean towards the games that have more developed economic aspects–Sim City, Civ, Total War–where you need to develop a healthy economy (i.e., more money in than out) to win, and where you can lose for economic reasons, meaning that you just can’t afford to keep fighting. It’s not the specific lessons of the game that stay, so much as the basics of managing money and a lot of (virtual) experience doing so that inculcates good habits that fairly obviously carry over into real life. To sharpen my point up a bit, I’d say the virtue of the video game generation will be a much deeper and gut-level understanding of _money in the abstract_. ---
**Author:** ![Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e36b37/32.png) [@Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airman_Doors_USAF)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2010, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-game-generation-take-over/544776/56 "2010-06-28T15:36:10Z")
Your worst nightmare, dude: [FPS Doug](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsQFYceNZS8), the ultimate manifestation of that which you abhor. And the reason it’s funny is because we all know guys like this. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2010, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-game-generation-take-over/544776/57 "2010-06-28T15:36:40Z")
> [@Punisher\_11B](#): > > When I was a kid, I fell out of a tree when I was climbing. I limped home crying, my mom looked me over made sure nothing was seriously wrong then she told me to “quit crying because crying doesn’t help you climb a tree the right way, now go back and climb up to the top”. And I did. and I have a bunch of stories like that, and my niece and nephew will only ever have stores like, “when I was a kid I beat the new mario in 3 hours and 7 minutes”. > > This worries me. I think you’ll find the practical problems of daily life in the 21st Century have more in common with beating the new Mario than with climbing trees. That’s just how it is. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2010, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-game-generation-take-over/544776/58 "2010-06-28T15:39:09Z")
> [@Punisher\_11B](#): > > I agree with your point, and I am sure it will happen in every generation from now until kingdom come. But as I stated earlier, I don’t like change very much. Which is why I live in the woods. In your Unabomber-style shack? ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2010, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-game-generation-take-over/544776/59 "2010-06-28T15:53:03Z")
Dude, kids were put to work when they could handle a shovel back in the great depression. But then along came the 50s and suddenly for the first time in history we had a generation of kids who were expected to go to school full time instead of work. And these kids had spending money from the unprecedented prosperity of the 50s, now that the depression and WWII were over, and their parents who grew up in the 30s and 40s embraced it whole hog, they had seen real suffering and the conformity and superficiality of the 50s seemed like paradise to them. Your rant is about 50 years out of date, with your talk about how in your day kids went outside and hunted deer and put food on the table and called adults “sir” and climbed trees, while nowadays they sit inside playing videogames and listening to rock music. It’s like a parody. Because, dude, I was born in 1966 (remember Generation X?) and was a teenager in the 80s, and your rant reminds me of something I’d hear from someone born in 1932. Typical kids haven’t grown up the way you describe since the 60s. You might have, but it wasn’t like everything changed 10 years ago. It changed a couple of generations before you were even born, even my parents didn’t grow up that way. Our country is no longer rural, and hasn’t been for generations. Now, I’m not knocking rural life, and if you’ve discovered that’s the life for you, I’m envious that you’ve figured out what you want from life at your age. But ranting about kids and videogames–from someone who’s **28**? Seriously? ---
**Author:** ![Bosstone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/22d042/32.png) [@Bosstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosstone)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2010, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-game-generation-take-over/544776/60 "2010-06-28T15:53:45Z")
> [@hansel](#): > > The thing I notice is the frequency with which you need to buy things. At a very basic level, most video games of any depth (and even a lot of Flash games) have some mechanism where you accumulate money, coins, whatever, and then spend it on gear, upgrades, powerups, or building a new barracks. Without getting preachy about it, the most basic life-skills lesson continually driven home is that you can’t have what you can’t pay for. There’s no credit cards or advances–if you want it, you need to get the money for it by working (playing the game). And because they’re video games, you repeat those lessons over and over and over. Money, in whatever form it takes, is recognized as such and treated accordingly. All true enough, I suppose. It is still imperative that people make the link between money and being able to live and survive, not just buy cool stuff, but then, that’s not something games need to teach. You can’t learn how to have a successful life from video games any more than you can from TV, but they don’t hurt. (Not meant as any kind of refutation of your point, I’m just rambling now.) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-game-generation-take-over/544776.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-game-generation-take-over/544776.md?page=4)