your parents surprising reactions to videogames

[shootthebandit]

Im 20 years old and live about 250 miles from my parents. I was visiting one week so i decided to take my PS3. My mum said "im going to read a book put what you want on TV so i decided to play hitman absolution. She was watching me and she started to get really into it. I explained to her all about agent 47 and how you play the game. She liked the idea that you are rewarded for only killing the target and penalised for killing innocent people.

She started to get really into it and started giving me advice and it was actually quite good how someone who doesnt really understand gaming actuallybgot quite interested after having it explained to them. She assumed that a game called "hitman" was going to be incredible violent but she was surprised when the basis is about killing drug dealers and arms dealers and avoiding innocent people

 

[Jharry5]

I was surprised by how into the original Sonic the Hedgehog my dad got back in the day. I'd use to play it, and he'd be there trying to give me advice. Of course, being about 6 years old at the time, I didn't listen...
Turns out I should have. I found out recently that, once I was in bed, he'd fire up the old Megadrive and have marathon sessions until 2 in the morning trying to complete it. He ended up knowing that game better than I did!

 

[IndomitableSam]

... My mother almost plays more than me. She definitley used to play more. She's 59, so when she bought a Nintendo for my cousins to play while they were living with us... well... they never got to play it, and my mom's addiction began about 25 years ago. My dad has never liked games, and often been upset with games being part of all of our lives. He got over it a long time ago, and now that my parents are retired and have moved to a vibrant community my mom will probably play less and they'll spend more time together.

So... not really surprising, as it's been the dynamic in my family since the 80's. Although... I'm 30 and still haven't told my parents I'm going to start playing another MMO soon. MMOs can really hurt families. >.>

 

[Tuesday Night Fever]

When I was little my mom played the Donkey Kong Country games on the SNES with my sister and I. My dad never really showed any interest in gaming until I got Goldeneye for the N64, since he'd been a huge fan of James Bond ever since he was a kid. That interest quickly faded though, because the graphics made him feel sick.

The weird thing is that I found out a few years later while cleaning the basement and finding an old Atari console that apparently before I was born my dad was hugely into video games. Like he'd pull all-nighters every weekend playing Space Invaders. That was more than a little surprising.

I suppose I can also say that, overall, my parents' lack of hostility toward gaming is itself kind of surprising. Most of my fairly huge extended family (my dad is one of 15 kids from the same parents) is like hyper religious gives-right-wing-zealots-a-bad-reputation "VIDEO GAMES ARE TURNING CHILDREN INTO PSYCHOPATHIC MURDER MACHINES!!!!" types. I have one aunt in particular who is clearly nervous whenever I'm around because she knows I play video games, and another aunt that constantly debates me on the "evils" of video games - despite myself being an example of a "hardcore" gamer that loves violent media and has never been in a fight, had good grades in school, earned a degree, and hasn't so much as been pulled over for speeding or anything yet.

 

[CrimsonBlaze]

In terms of my mother, the only game that she enjoys and is actually good at is Pac-Man. So when I rented the Sega Genesis version of Pac-Man with 2 player co-op, you can imagine that it was a great time to play games with one of your parents.

My father has never said two words about video games; not sure if he likes them or not, or if he even knows they exist.

 

[Wickatricka]

Nope lol my parents don't pay enough attention or even care but its alright I don't care/pay attention to whatever the fuck they do.

 

[Thebazilly]

My entire family doesn't usually like it when I play video games, but they all loved watching me play Red Dead Redemption, especially my dad. Usually this was accompanied by nonsensical advice from people who didn't understand how video games work.

Also, my mom got way into Guitar Hero when that was a thing. She kicked my ass at it and bought a bunch of the games for the PS2.

 

[Not Lord Atkin]

Both my parents absolutely hate videogames. My mom sometimes compliments a game on looking good and is willing to look at it for a few minutes (in cases of games like Crash Bandicoot and Super Mario Galaxy) but as a general rule of thumb, she hates them with a passion.

To me, the most surprising (although at this point I really shouldn't be surprised anymore) was her reaction to Journey. She did find it interesting, almost to the point when I could say she kind of liked it. Except the first thing that got her attention was that the sand looked realistic. That's the entire message she took from Journey. Pretty sand.

 

[TehCookie]

My dad programmed simple games on his teachers computer back in the 70's. He had a Sega Genesis but other than that he was mostly a PC gamer. My mom always enjoyed them as a family game night, and would play things like Haunting or Altered Beast with us as kids and Rock Band as we got older. Now she loves puzzle games on her DS.

I have the best parents ever, my dad even had a Duke Nukem, Lara Croft and Max Payne figures in his office.

 

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

My sister is the only one in my family who really likes gaming. My mother recently just admitted that I'm an adult (21) and that she can't stop me from taking my gaming rig to university. It was with reluctance she admitted that I could use it as a way of saving my money. The games I want to play are already in my library and it will keep me in the house instead of out and about on the town.

This is a big improvement for a woman who used to say games are worse than drugs for addictiveness...

 

[Voulan]

My mum isn't interested in them at all, but my dad will occasionally be excited by my games, particularly ones involving war. I'll be happily playing away when he'll come in random and ask if he could have a go. He gets terrible motion sickness and can't handle the analog sticks like many new gamers though, but while it doesn't last long it's still some nice father-daughter bonding time.

 

[puff ball]

my parents had a ten year long tradition of playing a competitive game of doctor Mario every weekend loser would usually have to make breakfast. my dad gamed a lot before the switch to 3D graphics he loved some of the early Zelda's and has a high score of 300,000 on donkey Kong (yes no world record but still pretty good). i actually kinda feel bad i think me being so much better/dedicated to games might have ruined it for him. for instance when he bought LoZ OoT for us for Christmas he got to Dorongos cavern before me and my sister had even started to play but once we did by the next time he came home from work we were farther along then him and we continuously told him what to do. just one of several incidents that might have put him off gaming.

 

[mrhateful]

I wanted to show my mom the amazing graphical opening of prey, but she completely freaked out from the scene where you had to beat up two guys in a bar with a wrench, so she never got to see it. She said that was just wrong(and my mom normally doesn't react this strong to anything) needless to say I was quite surprised because I never thought of it then other than some objective the game had me perform.

 

[Catfood220]

My dad used to play Duck Hunt on the NES and when I got a Wii he said he'd want a go on it but never did. My mum never used to be that into games until my brothers introduced her to Pop Cap games as well as Angry Birds.

Also, my mum probably would have laughed at Dead Space 2.

 

[IkariGS]

My Dad was the one who bought me my Mega Drive II, and we spent that Christmas holiday scribbling passwords and trying to best each other at Super Hang On, which is a really fond memory of mine. He also somehow knew the level select cheat for Sonic The Hedgehog before I understood what cheating was, and wouldn't let me use it until I beat the game myself (which led to many nights where no homework was done).

My only memories of him getting involved in my games beyond that are when he tried Resident Evil 2 on my PS1, and died on the first screen because he couldn't figure out what I meant by "HOLD down R1 and press Square to shoot". The best rage-quit ever followed. Oh, and the time he wondered why in the world I would spend time playing an "old" game like Final Fantasy IV when I had all these "better" ones on the PS2 he'd bought me (he was talking purely about graphics).

 

[Jack Joe Tip Toe]

I played Madden with my dad once. He kicked my ass 48-17.

I also played Resident Evil 4 in front of my grandma. She didn't like it to say the least.

 

[Roofstone]

My mother plays left 4 dead on expert...

She is better at it than me too, way better, like, soloing tanks better...

She doesn't play anything else really, just L4D. Oo

 

[Chaosian]

Though supportive of my wish to be a game developer, my dad pretty much just hangs back and handles the college stuff. I get the feeling he doesn't really respect games in any capacity. So much so that when he saw me play Spec Ops: The Line earlier today, and I told him it was one of the only games I knew to handle PTSD, he simply said: "Handle, or cause?" and walked out.
As for my mom, before she moved to Australia for work, my Mom and I would semi-regularly get together so that she could actually watch me play a game. We played Metro 2033, Half Life 2, Lone Survivor, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, a little Mass Effect, and I even let her take over the wheel for the first portal (the sequel of which, we also played) - and she even managed to beat it! If she hadn't had to go we probably would have gone for Metro Last Light, To the Moon, Dark Souls, or maybe even Amnesia or Cry of Fear. She's also pretty avid at House of the Dead II.

 

[Jinxzy]

My father was the one that got me into video games, we played together as a team until he stopped playing around xbox/ps2. We would still play games but I would beat him and he would get mad saying I was cheating. So I introduced him to blizzard game and he fell in love with them for a while before he didn't have the time to keep up with it anymore. Now when my parents visit and see us playing video games he just smiles and tells me to kick my boyfriends butt or in shooter type games to shoot him. It seems like he's not interested in the games anymore because they grew more complicated since our fist system was NES. Even thought I'm slowly getting him into Steam and introduced him to Sid Meier.

My mother on the other hand could never get into it. She was awful and couldn't even understand how to play CTR. But she fell in love with rampage and would beat my father and even my scores. Now she doesn't even play anything, she wouldn't even try to play candy crush.

 

[Extra-Ordinary]

My dad got me into games and know I spend my time trying to get him back into it.
To give myself some credit, I got them both into The Last Of Us. Their learning curves are a little steep but tehy're sticking to it, at least my mom is.
My dad wonders what happened to the simpler time of games, so I should him Bit.Trip Runner and he thinks it's stupid. It's pretty funny.