So, hear me out.
I’m a 47 year old guy and I’m not ashamed to say that I enjoy video games. I always have, from playing Head over Heels on a Speccy +2 to ESO and Valorant on my self built PC.
Due to various life circumstances, I’m also on the dating scene and to most women I meet, around my age, video games are anathema. When I say that I like them it’s usually meet with an “oh dear” or a “my son would probably love to talk to you about them, I find them really boring”
I have two boys, both teenagers, both play all the time and sometimes we all play together (although they are better as they have more time to apply to games). Their friends are amazed that I will talk about games with them, that I know someone about games and that I play games. None of their parents want to talk with them about what is effectively their main hobby that they do all the time (big sad).
So the question, there must be some sort of cut off age at which video games are no longer an acceptable pastime. Is it absolute age based (nothing after 35) or is it something to do with the progression of games into popular culture and people born after, say, 1986 will not see it as unacceptable?
I don’t have an answer, I just think it’s an interesting question. Thanks for reading, let me know what you think!
Edit to add: I’m not planning on stopping through peer pressure, just wondering about the phenomenon!
While I do think there’s probably more younger people across the spectrum playing games than older folk, I still think you can find the person you’re looking for. It’s definitely become more socially acceptable I think for younger generations it’s just become a more normal thing integrated into social life. Oh we can’t go out? I’m down for some Minecraft or Animal Crossing, etc. I’ve known lots of women over the years that were “cool” and “attractive” but were heavy into video games. Older folk in general skew towards thinking they are damaging or juvenile. We had recently pitched a club at my library district, but once it reached the older board people, they didn’t understand why one would even pose the idea in such an “institution,” totally missing why gaming can be an incredibly nourishing hobby for everyone in some form. But yeah, even at my job I tend to find most older women roll their eyes at the thought of video games (I work with mostly middle aged women 40-60 with a few younger aged folk sprinkled in there). Games as a hobby has become more progressive aiming for all sorts of people, Fortnite, Roblox, Minecraft, etc. have all broken down a lot of walls for younger generations. Obviously misogyny is gonna still exist thanks to how early gaming marketing skewed perspective of video games as well as shooters and their tone being heavily ostracizing to women. Games like Fortnite let you gun down Goku as Ariana Grande, and shit like that does go a long ways to reaching different people.
Also things like the Last of Us have done lots to away perception away from games being overtly masculine and edgy, to telling serious stories with mature/complex themes. The fact that show got a HBO series that reached many “non gamers” is huge. Whether or not you think it’s good for the overall health of what games are is a different topic, but I think there is such massive spectrum now from mobile, to indie, to AAA, to community run live service games, etc. that nowadays there’s an ocean of people who don’t have a weird perception of gaming like the 90’s and early 2000s and that will continue to change and get better as generations progress.-