The next generation, and how videogames will fail

[Shamgarr]

So, as a part of my mentorship program, I go to the elementary school twice a week and hang out with a boy that's in fifth grade. Me and my "pal" have gotten pretty close over the last few months and he's started opening up to me about his passions and things that he enjoys. One of these things, which I share in common, is videogames. This is where the story goes bad.

One day we were drawing pictures on a sheets of paper and I started drawing iconic videogame characters. I drew Mario, Link, Yoshi, Samus, the works. I then asked him what he thought and he gaze me a puzzled look.

"Who are they?" he asked. I was stunned. I ranted and raved about how these were the greatest videogame characters of all time, and that he must have heard about them. After examining the pictures for a little while longer, his face lit up suddenly and he said, "OH! I've seen them! These are the guys from..." I was so excited he had finally realized- "Super Smash Brothers Brawl!"

NO!

I shook my head in disappointment, cursing the gaming gods for the fall of videogame culture. I then told him to draw his favorite videogame characters and he proceeded to draw things I've never heard of, until he finally drew a little blue, spiky guy and I nearly jumped out of my chair.

"That's Sonic the Hedgehog!" I yelled.

he answered my cry, with cries of his own, "It sure is! I love Sonic!" I was again, overwhelmed that we had finally managed to bridge the generational gap of gaming until he started to elaborate... "I just love how he uses the chaos crystals to transform into Super Sayan Sonic and he beats Dr. Eggman while Shadow uses his rocket boots and shoots his lazer gun! POW! POW! POW!"

WHAT THE FUCK!

So, to make a long story short, what has happened to the younger gaming generation? What has become of the youth, some of which haven't even heard of a Super Nintendo (he hadn't), much less the rich and amazing past of our devine art?

 

[Proteus214]

Welcome to the newest generation of youngsters. Here's your complimentary lawn to yell at them to get off of.

I don't like it as much as the next guy, but it is what it is.

 

[Pandalisk]

The young will love anything, wait till they mature a bit more, they'll come into their own and develop their tastes, still, If a man likes Sonic, he likes Sonic, Who are we to be all high and mighty about it?

Well its like how i like Anime but i only know a few Animes, people list their Iconic Animes and i vaguley remeber seeing their names somewhere but the rest are blanks, they just have to broaden their horizons still, cant expect every gamer to know all the Icons.

I only recently found out what Half-life was, Valve was recently an unknown company to me, i had purchased none of their games before i encountered steam, nothing has happened to the younger gaming generation, they are still growing.

 

[Stevo_s]

Wow well he is in fifth grade.. but even my cousin he is in sixth grade he knows who all those characters are not just because of smash either. Though he has never played legend of zelda but knows what its about and respects it.

But Mario? really? maybe he only plays real real kid games and maybe very few of them.
Well things always change his gaming gods will probably be Kratos and Master Cheif or whatever new games come out to influence them the way our generation was influenced.

 

[grimsprice]

Ha ha.

You are now officially an "old fart" along with the rest of us. Anything over 21 is considered an "old fart" in the gaming industry now.

 

[Davrel]

I'm sure this is meant as a joke - and reading it, imagining those events taking place certainly amused me - but, why would children have heard about or be interested in an 'ancient' console that stopped being produced years before they were born? Its like expecting them to know about Mozart - and no, I am not comparing Mozart to Nintendo.

 

[Abedeus]

Ha ha.

You are now officially an "old fart" along with the rest of us. Anything over 21 is considered an "old fart" in the gaming industry now.

THREE MOAR YEARS NOOOOOOO

Damn, seriously you're right. Considering some of us started playing more than half of our lives' ago... 13 out of 18 years here, for instance.

Great, now I feel old again. You happy?

 

[Good morning blues]

News flash: people who were born ten years after you were exposed to different video games than you were when you were less than ten years old.

 

[Flishiz]

The sooner we forget about these mascots and stop rebuying their rehashed games, the better, not the worse. They're adhesives keeping people buying the same crap over and over again, not US Presidents.

 

[Internet Kraken]

*Gasp* A young child doesn't know about the old Sonic games that he has never heard of or seen before because they were made years ago? Blasphemy! Surely this will be our downfall!

Seriously, I don't see the problem here. Of course he doesn't know about the good Sonic games. He's never heard of them. Really, how often does the golden age of Sonic get mentioned outside of the internet? If he's just a little kid, I don't see how him not knowing about such a thing marks the downfall of all gamers. They are a new generation. It wouldn't make much sense for them to know about the old generation at such a young age.

But why is them not knowing about the old generation even an issue in the first place?

What ISN'T ok however are young "gamers" calling great old classics "shit" because of reason X or reason A. Those kids should be shot.

It's pretty hard to make someone realize why some old game is good when a far superior version now exists. I don't hate gamers who say such things, even when they are at a young age. They shouldn't have to think of old games as good games. Rather they should just understand why it was a good game for the generation it was released in.

 

[Reboare]

You have to remember that he's in 5th grade. You're asking a bit much to be honest considering he's extremely unlikely to be approaching video-gaming as a history lesson.

 

[AbsoluteVirtue18]

Dude, that's because that's what he's grown up with. He didn't live in our era of gaming, and probably doesn't have parents that were into gaming. That's what that is, man. No big deal.

 

[Kiriona]

I guess we're all just a bunch of old farts now...

Whenever I go to Gamestop, I find myself looking at young gamers now, saying to myself, "Don't they know ANYTHING about gaming?! Honestly! Kids these days..."

Scaaaary. o_o

 

[SnootyEnglishman]

He's in fifth grade man..he wasn't alive when they were first around so he doesn't completely understand the stories behind Mario,Sonic and the others. Instead of being all uppity and sticking your nose in the air explain to him the history behind the legend. If you don't then take this cane and breathing apparatus and proceed to start yelling at kids to "Get off your yard"

 

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

The future is bleak.

 

[MelziGurl]

Aand history repeats itself. I'm sure my parents thought the same thing, though I doubt they expected their 10yr old daughter to know about their game icons. What the hell did you expect?

 

[JemJar]

I'm honestly surprised that the OP was at all surprised.

I mean seriously, the kid is all of 11 years old or something and you're expecting him to identify a bundle of characters who haven't really been setting the gaming world alight.

Not to mention, if (like me) you've never owned a Nintendo console they really aren't going to mean very much to you.

I mean seriously, there are kids everywhere who don't realise that Megatron transforms into a gun and that Jazz should kick ass rather than get torn in half and you're worried about some Nintendo sprites-turned-characters?

 

[Kelbear]

Haha, I sympathize OP. I think I'd probably feel pretty old after an encounter like that too.

 

[Danpascooch]

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Stupid shitty games

 

[Snarky Username]

He's 10. You can't expect him to like video games like Half-Life or Fallout and to hate video games like Sonic and just about anything for the Wii.

10 year olds, for the most part, will love just about anything that moves and has explosions.