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[Phase]

It's the fast-foodization of gaming, just like every other aspect of younger lives today. Instant gratification, no depth, no real connection to the triumph of a challenge earned through sweat.

Also, he's a casual like most.

 

[CrustyBritches]

In Spider-Man you can’t even play with your friends.

Frankly, it’s boring compared to Fortnite.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

It's the fast-foodization of gaming, just like every other aspect of younger lives today. Instant gratification, no depth, no real connection to the triumph of a challenge earned through sweat.

To say this as competitive multiplayer continues to rise and every AAA SP game has easy mode...

 

[nial]

Old, grumpy GAF thread.
Also, if you worry for SP games completely dying in the future because of these kids being full-on with Fortnite and shit, well, just look at the sales for Nintendo first-party games; I mean, I don't think it's all women and manchildren buying them.

 

[Red Crayon Aristocrat]

Some better, some worse. I can't get in to minecraft but my kids loved it and it is an amazing game. It also had a great side effect of making a generation of kids not graphic whores. I have played a bit of the Fortnite Lego game with my kids, because I can't handle Minecraft of Roblox because of the shit tastic graphics.

The graphics are what initially kept me away, but it also doesn't have a sufficient context or answer to the question of "why am I doing this?"

In Mario it's "save princess Peach"

With Minecraft you're a little guy (Steve?) running around and building stuff to protect himself from green monsters, ok, who is he? Why is he doing this? I know they later added story modes but too little, too late.

Lego Fortnite is a little more interesting to me because the context of Legos makes it make more sense and is simply more interesting, but I got better things to do than get on this endless hamster wheel games, I like games where there's a specific end goal.

I want fornite to die a quick death too. But this generation is fucked in terms of what they expect of a game going forward. The amount of social engineering that has taken place is unreal.
Sometimes it feels just as bad as Big Tabacco. It's extremely difficult for parents to control due to social groups and peer pressures. Gaming companies keep pushing the boundries with little legislation, except if it's a casino or loot box. Anything to turn a quick buck for the share holder.

That's one thing I hate about it is a big reason kids are probably playing is peer pressure, minecraft is what all the other kids are playing, so they feel pressured into playing it too, even if there's other games out there'd probably like more.

Right now I'm playing through Super Castlevania 4 again and the SNES was absolute peak, kids today truly don't know what they're missing.

 

[rofif]

A "video game" to a kid is these days is nothing more than virtual legos, it sure isn't a storytelling medium.

It worries me, my cousin bought his son a Nintendo Switch, is he playing Mario Wonder like his old man played Mario? Hell no, Minecraft, Minecraft and more Minecraft.

I kind of fucking despise Minecraft and games like that, it's Fisher Price bullshit for babies, I want a more crafted experience if I can't get told a good story, I don't want to do everything myself.

My nephew is not only playing Minecraft but most of his Lego are Minecraft lol.
Tbh Minecraft was awesome when I played it a bit 10 years ago. Rain, night, water dripping from ceiling of my mountain carved home. It’s a vibe.
But they play it for other reasons. Not immersion and atmosphere

 

[rofif]

This type of behavior was partially responsible for a huge rift in my marriage and eventual divorce. Me making the decision to disconnect from social media entirely was a massive no-no for her and I wanted to bodyslam her every time she ruined another moment with "staging" it for her Instagram. She started fucking asking waiters to pose with food when we went to a restaurant and asinine stuff like that. I felt like I was living a shitty low-rent reality TV show that felt about as fake as that. Any sort of attempt to talk to her about this was met with her saying I'm trying to control her.

At this point this shit has become acceptable social behavior and it absolutely disgusts me. Narcissism, arrogance and self-indulgence used to be negative things.

PS: I've known junkies and alcoholics more willing to talk openly about their addictions because we all agree and actually know it's bad. This shit is so dystopian to me.

Christ. She sounds so awful and typical example of social media addiction.
Thank God my wife is normal and boring

 

[rofif]

I have a great job in IT because of gaming. I make more than I ever thought I would because of it. I will say fuck console gaming for kids. PC gaming? Go ahead and do it and help them build it. Also don't make the PC to powerful purposely hold it back. If it wasn't for my dad getting a PC and me playing games on it I would have never known how much I love working in IT.



Yes says it all about those parents. My kids get 30 mins a day during the week and 2 hours on the weekends.


Yep my nephew just told me he bought Skyrim and was loving it. When me and my cousin were younger we played all sorts of SP games but now he wont play anything but MP games. People grow and change. So will there gaming habits.

It’s. It windows 95 or 98 anymore.
You don’t learn anything on pc.
Kids don’t go learning dos commands, manually installing drivers and reinstalling windows 95 with boot diskette. They don’t write code.
And old time piracy really helped to learn tweaks and fixes.

Win11 pcs are just Roblox or Fortnite launchers. And god forbid any of them kids ever ventured into options menu. It’s like another language.
And piracy is almost gone

 

[KXVXII9X]

I stuck my nose up at Fortnite ever since it came out. Watching my daughter play recently and having a go or two myself as well, I have to admit it is fun. I can see the appeal. Also I get slaughtered in COD, Halo, etc however it’s seems relatively easy to get place first in Fortnite. Maybe because I’m playing against toddlers?

I feel like Kramer when playing

I'm not big on multiplayer at all and hate GaaS with a passion but Fortnite is a really well made game despite the reputation it has. And don't let the graphics fool you. It is basically an Epic Games tech demo. It gets all the new features first with UE5. The gameplay is decent and there are various modes for different play styles. I just wish it also could do more to cater to grown ups too but I get that a lot more kids play it.

I think you may be getting into first place (at least for now) is maybe due to playing against A.I. bots.

 

[KXVXII9X]

Singleplayer story focused games going the way of the dodo at this rate - apart from a handful of heavy hitters. The service games have captured the kiddos.

I'm sure some as they get older some will become curious enough to try out the big story games that break into the mainstream, but will there be enough to justify the risk to develop big budget story only games? I'm doubtful.

One of the few things lately that is hard to accept but it is definitely the truth. A lot of my most fond memories are with story heavy games and still love them.

2024 seems to have a lot of story heavy games though thanks to the Japanese. I think I will try to get more into reading and finding more shows as well. I love a good story.

 

[Spokker]

I did something like this once when I was a kid. For my birthday my dad got me Super Battleship for the SNES, which is not something I wanted because it wasn't Mario and it wasn't an RPG. He said okay, and gave it to someone else, leaving me with no game. I cried and begged him to get it back and that I wanted it after all, but he said what's done is done and I didn't get any games for my birthday.

Not to say I was perfect from that point on (nor was he), but I don't recall anything like that ever happening again. At the time I didn't understand he could only get me an older used game, not the brand new $80 Chrono Trigger, which would be over $150 in today's dollars.

Prior to learning about video game magazines and being exposed to pre-release hype, I happily played whatever was put in front of me. Hell, I didn't know until years later that the NES was an 80s console, not a 90s console. My parents only got me an NES because the SNES had come out and retailers cleared out the NES systems. It was not until gaming magazines and FOMO that I would become ungrateful and turn away a game.

Am I an outlier? Did kids suddenly become ungrateful because of Fortnite and other games like it? I doubt it. The only thing that might be different is how parents handle it. I hope the parent in that video took back the PS5 and taught their kid a good, lifelong lesson.

 

[Phase]

To say this as competitive multiplayer continues to rise and every AAA SP game has easy mode...

Yes, pop into free gaas mp and pop out whenever. No need to have money to pay for it, which means it won't be seen with value in the same way a SP game that you had to spend money on would. No investment, no care, no attachment, similar to relationships young people are having today.

These kids don't care how shit the game they play is because there's no investment on their end, and it only bothers me because these kids will be grown one day thinking spending money on imaginary products with no value is the norm. All according to plan though, as their gen will be the ones who own nothing and are "happy."

 

[Agent_Nobody]

I did something like this once when I was a kid. For my birthday my dad got me Super Battleship for the SNES, which is not something I wanted because it wasn't Mario and it wasn't an RPG. He said okay, and gave it to someone else, leaving me with no game. I cried and begged him to get it back and that I wanted it after all, but he said what's done is done and I didn't get any games for my birthday.

Not to say I was perfect from that point on (nor was he), but I don't recall anything like that ever happening again. At the time I didn't understand he could only get me an older used game, not the brand new $80 Chrono Trigger, which would be over $150 in today's dollars.

Prior to learning about video game magazines and being exposed to pre-release hype, I happily played whatever was put in front of me. Hell, I didn't know until years later that the NES was an 80s console, not a 90s console. My parents only got me an NES because the SNES had come out and retailers cleared out the NES systems. It was not until gaming magazines and FOMO that I would become ungrateful and turn away a game.

Am I an outlier? Did kids suddenly become ungrateful because of Fortnite and other games like it? I doubt it. The only thing that might be different is how parents handle it. I hope the parent in that video took back the PS5 and taught their kid a good, lifelong lesson.

There have always been ungrateful kids, but after that video in particular it makes me wonder who the kid’s actually been chatting with; it’s a bloody ’PC master race‘ one-liner.

The little shit wouldn’t be able to start my PC even if I gave him the password.

 

[Mooreberg]

I'm curious on a logistical level - if you are gifting a new system with Diablo IV, which is an 80+ GB download, do you give it to a kid on Xmas Eve? Have everybody wake up earlier to set the system up?

One thing that has definitely changed - the days of hooking a system up and popping a game in to play in a span of ~ 10 minutes are long gone. Can't occupy a kid with hours of NFL and beer while their gift slowly becomes playable.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

Yes, pop into free gaas mp and pop out whenever. No need to have money to pay for it, which means it won't be seen with value in the same way a SP game that you had to spend money on would. No investment, no care, no attachment, similar to relationships young people are having today.

These kids don't care how shit the game they play is because there's no investment on their end, and it only bothers me because these kids will be grown one day thinking spending money on imaginary products with no value is the norm. All according to plan though, as their gen will be the ones who own nothing and are "happy."

That makes 0 sense.

 

[CrustyBritches]

I'm curious on a logistical level - if you are gifting a new system with Diablo IV, which is an 80+ GB download, do you give it to a kid on Xmas Eve? Have everybody wake up earlier to set the system up?

Since my kids have gotten a little older I just give it to them right away after I pick it up. Gives them plenty of time to enjoy it during the various school breaks. I guess I just don’t care about the whole gather ‘round the tree aspect.

 

[Killjoy-NL]

The problem is.....there's only going to be so many good GaaS games for them to play 15 years from now.

Yeah, but that goes for singleplayer games as well.
And you only really need 1 or 2 that fill your needs.

 

[Tal Shiar Agent]

This is why I started my daughter on Nintendo. She is around 7 and had already 100%ed Yoshi's Crafted World, Kirby and the Forgotten Land, Kirby NES, SpongeBob Battle for Bikini Bottom, and is working on Kirby Return to Dreamland which she got for Christmas.

Strict no multiplayer rule in out house for her for now until we can be sure she won't be tempted to buy mtx.

 

[SegaManAU]

Unfortunately, my kids are the same. Started with Nintendo, playing Mario on the Switch. Both of them loved Mario and Sonic. Then eventually got them an Xbox so they could use gamepass and play games. Earlier this year my eldest son started playing Roblox because his mates at school play. Now both my sons (7 & 5) have no interest in Switch or Xbox. Only their ipads and Roblox. Not to mention asking me daily to purchase them Robux. *facepalm*

 

[buenoblue]

Let's not fool ourselves, games were always designed to get you addicted and spend money. It's just that back in the day they did it through arcades and publishers just farmed out game after game instead of seasons and microtransactions.

When I was a kid I spent all my money from birthdays and Christmas on videogames. Many of them were terrible too.

Looking at these kids thinking they are weird but take a second to think, you have spent many many thousands more on videogames than they have .

 

[TerribleAtThisGame]

Christ. She sounds so awful and typical example of social media addiction.
Thank God my wife is normal and boring

That's addiction of any kind for you. She's not a bad nor awful person but that horseshit sure made her act like one. It preys on insecurities and most of us have them somewhere.

 

[Drew1440]

I’m sure this is very opinionated and maybe a little off topic, but I’ll never understand why this new generation of gamers kids and adults only play one or two games for the entire generation. I can understand having your favorite games, but don’t you want to experience new things every once in awhile especially when there are literally thousands of games out there? To me it’s like seeing the same movie or listening to the same song over and over a gun for years.

That's always been the case, plenty of kids I know only played FIFA or GTA, maybe one of the big shooters (Halo or Gears) but that was rare.
Though I knew a few PC players that just played World of Warcraft.

 

[sankt-Antonio]

I raise my kid as a DLC / cosmetic denying absolutist. The resistance has to grow.

 

[WitchHunter]

I know it's a video game but can we talk about this part more? At my aunt's usual Christmas dinner, I had my niece and little cousin take photos of damn near everything to put on Snapchat and Instagram. As we were about to have the family dinner, they even told everyone to wait to snap a picture to put on their social media.

As much as I love them both, I wanted to tell them to fuck off and that this is a private family moment and that I had been starving myself since morning because I was looking forward to eating.

Same shit happens in restaurants where I go out with friends and their spouses/girlfriends, and they pull out a fucking phone to snap pics of the meal and post it on social media. GTFO with this shit.

Always seeking attention and validation from strangers. I don't fucking care about what you're having for lunch.

You are the adult. Reprimand the little mongrels. You or the nonexisting parents have to kick them into the Sun. No phones, no pocket money, go scrub the toilets. If they talk back, delete social media accounts.

 

[pachura]

Kids don’t go learning dos commands, manually installing drivers and reinstalling windows 95 with boot diskette. They don’t write code.
And old time piracy really helped to learn tweaks and fixes.

On the other hand, they know by heart all the console commands in Minecraft, how to write macros and manipulate points in 3D space. They build security mechanisms using Redstone. They are also heavily into modding.

My 13 y.o. is into engineering games as well, such as Scrap Mechanic, Raft and Kerbal Space Program

 

[DenchDeckard]

Yup these kids all watch their favorite fortnite and minecraft streamers playing on PC and that’s what they want. My 10 year old nephew asked my brother for a PC.

This I'd what I've been saying for a while.

When I goto conventions etc, these kids all see their youtubers and streamers playing on PC and that's what they want.

Younger me partly thinks it's cool as fuck ad no one was playing on pc while I was building them....but it's not like they are trying to play day of the tentacle or monkey Island.

They want roblox, cod, fortnite etc....

Ah well.

 

[JimmyRustler]

I raise my kid as a DLC / cosmetic denying absolutist. The resistance has to grow.

Good luck. When 90% of parents don’t care and your kid is exposed to this in school you’re gonna have a though time.

 

[deeptech]

This isn’t a new phenomenon.

The simple fact is your nephew is casual.

There are many who are like this even in my generation.

They’re simply not gamers.

You said something I was afraid to say. I mean, back when most of us here were kids and played games, these types were just not into videogames at all. There was a bunch of them then, a bunch of them now I guess, except that the "non-gamer" types are by default on fortnite, android store trash and so on.

 

[BlackTron]

Old, grumpy GAF thread.
Also, if you worry for SP games completely dying in the future because of these kids being full-on with Fortnite and shit, well, just look at the sales for Nintendo first-party games; I mean, I don't think it's all women and manchildren buying them.

This is true, but why are we leaving out men or teenagers?

 

[Beechos]

My son is one of them just wants currency for the few games he plays roblox, fornite mlb the show.

 

[rofif]

My son is one of them just wants currency for the few games he plays roblox, fornite mlb the show.

It's never too late for condoms

 

[Beechos]

This I'd what I've been saying for a while.

When I goto conventions etc, these kids all see their youtubers and streamers playing on PC and that's what they want.

Younger me partly thinks it's cool as fuck ad no one was playing on pc while I was building them....but it's not like they are trying to play day of the tentacle or monkey Island.

They want roblox, cod, fortnite etc....

Ah well.

Yeah it's def cool seeing how mainstream it's gotten and the same time sad that now it's all about $$$ too. This year was the 1st I stopped taking my son to comic con since he was 5.

 

[Beechos]

It's never too late for condoms

No need for condoms having a kid around is the best form of birth control lol.

 

[Evil Calvin]

Kids are just idiots these days. That's pretty much it. Sorry, but it's true.

 

[Evil Calvin]

Better yet, don't have children in the first place. This rock is over-crowded as it is.

Amen!!

 

[AeonGaidenRaiden]

 

[kether]

My nephew, when asked what he would like for his birthday or Christmas, all he ever wants us V bucks for Fortnite. I did it for him once, but don't think it's something I'd give him again.

 

[rofif]

damn that's true and scary
lol the gain and low pass on this guy's mic. He is not fooling anyone with that voice lol

 

[sn0man]

Act like they have a fucking functional brain?

My son spent $20 on Fortcrap cosmetics 3 years ago, it was hard earned money doing chores. When I got to see what he was spending his money on I told him he could play the game but never buy cosmetics, explained why and that was it. He was MAD at me.

Fast forward, he does still play but never spent a dime on it ever again.

We need updates:
1. Is he still MAD at you?
2. Does he spend his chores money on games at all now?

 

[Wildebeest]

Kids are going right from touch screen to PC gaming when they are old enough. They never hit a stage where they want a console.

 

[Spyxos]

And this is why China, for <18s limit online games to a max of 10 hr a week, 2h/day between I think 6-9pm, then any time at weekend (tho still with the weekly cap). Then they also cap micro transaction spend to I think $50/month. It’s viewed as a public health/addiction matter as devs are literally using gambling mechanics and psychological manipulation to extract maximum cash from vulnerable kids/people.

You also cannot play online at all without linking your gamer id’s to your national ID, and are forced to use your real name (no anonymous trolling). If you are a dick online you can lose access to services, or get bandwidth throttled.

Some of this is a little extreme, but I kinda agree with a lot of it

Much of this will also happen here sooner or later. These games only encourage addiction.

 

[K' Dash]

We need updates:
1. Is he still MAD at you?
2. Does he spend his chores money on games at all now?

1. No, it was at that moment where everyone was buying the same new cosmetics and the lil dude got FOMO, he's over it now.
2. He only plays fortnite and the ocasional game in my library, he has never asked me to buy a specific game, we have GamePass and PS+ Extra, so there are plenty of games for him to play.

 

[AJUMP23]

Service game future is real.

 

[poppabk]

The graphics are what initially kept me away, but it also doesn't have a sufficient context or answer to the question of "why am I doing this?"

In Mario it's "save princess Peach"

With Minecraft you're a little guy (Steve?) running around and building stuff to protect himself from green monsters, ok, who is he? Why is he doing this? I know they later added story modes but too little, too late.

Lego Fortnite is a little more interesting to me because the context of Legos makes it make more sense and is simply more interesting, but I got better things to do than get on this endless hamster wheel games, I like games where there's a specific end goal.

Minecraft is the ultimate sandbox. It's about creativity, it's ironic that Lego went from having a big box of random pieces and using your imagination to branded millennium falcon stuff - while Minecraft is essentially virtual lego in the original style. My kids hadn't played in a long time and then saw one youtube video and were off building a massive rollercoaster together with underwater sections and all kinds of crazy shit. Then my son (12) set-up a minecraft server on his raspberry pi. There is no way I think they would be better off playing some single player sub par story based game.

 

[nial]

This is true, but why are we leaving out men or teenagers?

I was just being cheesy.
I don't think they're that popular with teens, though. Maybe Splatoon, but that one is pretty MP-focused.

 

[ProgenitorCastle]

This reminds me of how one of my younger cousins mainly plays these online multiplayers like Fortnite, New World, etc. it's kinda sad considering he has the brains to help me puzzle solve in survival horror games...but he chose a different path in gaming by going down the multiplayer rabbit hole instead of pursuing the survival horror genre further it is what it is

 

[Techies]

I never give kids anything game related if that’s all they play is Minecraft and Fortnite. They don’t actually care about games.

That's why helped my nephews get an xbox series S, they kept asking if I had minecraft and Fortnite. That's what their friends are playing, that's what they want to play. And fortnite does a great job at being relevant, always releasing new stuff.

They very little care about anything else. Their school days will mostly spread amongst those two games. Xbox game pass for when they feel like playing something new.

 

[Kenpachii]

Kids want to play with friends and there friends play those games so they want to play in those games also.

It's the same shit what happened to you, your parents etc. Nothing weird about it.

My friends played wow, so i eventually played wow also. And before that it was counterstrike and wc3 mods.

 

[KungFucius]

Yup. They're designed to enslave the kids' mind to an unprecedented level now. It's pretty disgusting... What's worse is when parents do nothing to make their children aware of the psychology of it and keep feeding the digi-slop to them.

It is disgusting, but I don't think parents understand. They probably think the games are actual games and not addiction creating, FOMO scams designed solely to manipulate people into spending money on nothing so they can show off to people they probably don't know in real life. Most people don't think game devs, or businesses in general, would be so scummy. It's naive, but it is better than being the type that thinks this is a reasonable way to make money.

 

[lakitu1982]

I thought abvout started my 4 yr old on NES>SNES etc but the games are kinda hard. So I chose Monkey Ball on the GC. One analogue stick to use nothing else. Perfect game to get them started at the youngest possible age. Plus she bloody loves it, thinks it's hilarious.